Monday, May 11, 2009

Pre-Pre-Ride & A Training Century, Mixed Together

On Saturday Robert, Chris, and I set off to do scout out our preliminary route for the June 100k Populaire we're putting on. Robert has done a great job of organizing this, under the experienced wing (fin?) of Dr. Codfish.

The route goes roughly from South Park through West Seattle, then snakes along the west edge of Seattle along the sound, offering amazing views only for the small price of a few steep inclines. In Dash Point we visit familiar roads & inclines, then go back north via some backroads.

A few photos from the ride

Leaving downtown, heading to South Park via 4th Ave:

Climbing up one of the pitches along the way:
A little dog we met in Dash Point:
After finishing the route in roughly 6 hours, I had 120 km under my belt for the day. Since I'm doing a 400km brevet next weekend, I wanted to squeeze in some extra miles for training. I rarely do an actual "century" these days; most of my rides are either less than 80 miles, or more than 125...

But adding 40km to this wouldn't be hard, and it was only about 2 PM so I had time. I decided to try out a new road and cut across Graham St. to hit Lake Wa Blvd. Ended up taking on the extra 40km by doing the south end of the Lake Wa Loop.

Below is a raccoon(!) I spotted during a climb on Graham St in Seattle. Usually don't see these critters just sitting around in broad daylight.. maybe it had rabies? Well, I didn't stick around to find out. And hopefully the kid on a PowerWheel a few driveways down didn't find out either.
On Graham St, facing east. That's Lake Wa back there. Some good climbs on that road.

Full photo set (100+ pics) on flickr.

All told I did 165 km, or 102.5 miles. It was a great day for it! Thanks to Robert & Chris for riding with me, always fun riding with them.

On Sunday I did a "recovery" ride, 25 miles around Mercer Island with a friend new to cycling. Luckily our pace was slow enough (11 mph avg) that it was an actual recovery ride, not one where I go out looking for recovery but end up chasing a rabit.

I'm feeling good for the 400k coming up, and from Geoff's pre-ride report it sounds like a wonderful route. Can't wait.

5 comments:

Robert H said...

That picture of the dog is hypnotic. Thanks for spending part of a Saturday with us.

Jansen said...

How do you guys manage to ride these so quickly and get all the good photos? =)

Robert H said...

EPO and photography classes.

Mars Girl said...

The dog looked like it might have rabies... was frothing at the mouth... ;)

Joe P said...

Chris got a new bike!

Wait, Matt was running late? No way. Good to see the race reports.

See you guys on the weekend. I'll bring the EPO and a SLR.