My Fastest Lake Wa Loop To Date

Yesterday I set out to do a classic route for Seattle roadies - the 80k/50mi Lake Washington Loop. This was the first "big" route I started doing years ago, and once you start doing it enough you (at least I) begin to record just how fast or slow you did it, of course!

When I set out, I wanted to see just how high I could keep my average speed, which usually when doing the "hilly" version of the route (skipping the BG trail in favor of the climb through Lake Forest Park) is in the 22-25 km/h range (13.6mph -15.5mph).

Starting on Capitol Hill, I took off up the hill towards 15th Ave, climbing at 20-25 km/h, pushing it from the get-go. By the time I got to Renton (16km/10mi away) my average was 30.5 km/h. And this was with a 7-10 mph headwind out of the south! I was pretty happy with this, although a 32 km/h (20 mph) avg would've been extra-nice.

The rolling hills through Newcastle, Bellevue, and Kirkland didn't really affect the average (even the Market Street climb) as I kept up the pace on hills to at least 20 km/h (12.4 mph), if not more.

Then there was Juanita Road, with its associated two-mile climb! A light drizzle was already falling, and towards the top it turned into light snow/hail! I got over the hump with a ride-low average of 29.0 km/h, so it was still pretty decent considering the climbing.

Once on the Burke-Gilman Trail, I kept up a pace of 32-36 km/h, passing up even a few racer-types. The rain was coming down hard at this point, and without fenders on my bike (I'm an optimist) my ass was getting soaked. This was all the more motivation to get home quick! After a few miles on the Burke-Gilman Trail, I turned off towards Sand Point Way & The NOAA complex.

Then I rode through some nasty traffic in the U-Village area, past Husky Stadium, and back up Capitol Hill via 23rd Ave & Crescent Way. Starting the climb my average was at 29.3 km/h, but when I got to the top (300 feet higher) it was down to 28.2 km/h.

Start Time: 11:05 A.M.

End Time: 2:05 P.M.

Total Distance: 81 km (50 mi)

Rolling Time: 2 hours 50 minutes

Average Speed: 28.2 km/h (17.5 mph)

Bicycle: Ciocc

March 2008 Critical Mass - Might Makes Right For A Night

I went to Mass tonight, something I haven't done in way too long. Turnout was less than I was expecting, but was still 60+ people, not bad for friggin' cold outside!

It's been a while since I've ridden slowly though the city with a few hundred other cyclists.. and I figured why not go down and take some pictures and enjoy some good old American civil disobedience?!

Here was the scene in Westlake Center - sorry this is so short, but you get the idea:



The riders getting read to terrorize unsuspecting drivers! Look out Seattle, here we come... and yes that's a tricycle there on the right!

Rolling up Pine Street towards the Sound at a nice 10 km/h - sorry for the shaking, it's a bumpy road!



Rolling up the hill on 4th Ave (I think) - check out that stylin' motorcycle helmet! Guess he's ready for an aggressive driver:

The peloton going up 12th Ave E. towards Capitol Hill: When we turned off of 12th Ave onto Pine Street (in front of the Seattle PD's East Precinct no less), we were doing the usual corking & blowing a red light, and two cruisers were waiting to turn. One turned, but the other lit up his lights and gave us a good "whoop whoop," with his siren and then split up the pack. And as soon as he started this display of lights & sounds, he stopped it and continued down 12th! Guess he decided it wasn't worth the trouble; chances are there's a real crime happening within a mile anyway!

Soon after this a rider said "that guy just spit on me!" - referring to a grizzly dude sitting in a big white van sitting in traffic. She said that it wasn't a good job of spitting luckily. What's weird is that I don't think we were even blocking him, so he must've been jealous we were having so much fun. Screw you, guy in the van.

On Broadway turning left onto Denny - I broke off from the pack and went home here:
I met Dave who does the 327 words blog, I recognized him from the wool helmet cover. He invited me to his Taco Truck Time Trial tomorrow, seems like it could be cool, although it is supposed to be raining tomorrow. And if I do ride, I'd rather do distance over short-but-intense rides.. But I've been meaning to check out some Taco Trucks around here, and what better way than to race to a few and wolf down a few burritos?!

Interestingly this "Time Trial" is similar to a brevet in that you get a little card stamped/signed at checkpoints. And it's not a mass-start race, which I like for some reason. Actually it's kind of ironic since our 300k brevet tomorrow got cancelled due to snow/ice!

My commute/brevet/critical mass machine:

Total Distance: 12km

Total Time: 1 hour

Fun had: lots!

If you ride a bicycle, I highly suggest going to Critical Mass some time to see what it's like. Some say that it's "not helping anyone" or "breaks laws," but you've got to at least try it before you dis it! You'll see that it's both a parade and a protest, and that the response from onlookers is mostly positive!

A Few More Pics From Saturday's Ride

At the end of the 85-miler we did on Saturday, I decided to go up Aloha Ave instead of Madison to get back to 12th Ave. Madison has some pretty steep sections, but nothing compared to Aloha!

This shot is looking down the two-block section of Aloha that starts on 26th Ave or so (on the East side of Capitol Hill). It's got to be at least 18%, if not more! I definitely have to stand the whole way for this section.


You might've noticed some cobbles at the bottom of the previous picture; yes, the crazy climb ends on cobblestones! Pretty bumpy ones at that. Really bumpy ones:

Aloha continues up to 23rd Ave, in cobbled fashion. It's a bumpy ride, definitely a different feeling than climbing on smooth (or even smoothish) asphalt.

Saturday Toodle To The Kitty Mountains

Yesterday Dennis & I set out to do a big century that goes something like this: [map]

The elevation profile tells the story of the ups n' downs you'd encounter on this route (Cougar Mountain is the largest peak on the graph):

We met up at Lake Wa Blvd & Madison St in Seattle and headed south towards Renton via Lake Wa Blvd. As Steve Pool & other forecasters were predicting, Saturday was a great Spring day by all accounts! Even though it started out at about 34 degrees, it warmed up to 52 or so by 1 P.M. Oh, and it was completely dry!

On the right you can see what it looked like from my front door as I left - clear & crisp!



Finally, the day I've been dreaming of since about last August: rolling out with just a short-sleeved jersey, vest, arm-warmers, and my knicker-style lycra shorts. So the first 20 feet of the ride are a little chilly, but as soon as I start climbing Thomas St. up to 15th Ave I start to warm up. And by the time (only four blocks away) I'm up on 15th Ave, ~75 feet above where I started I'm all warm and toasty!

We met up at 8 A.M. at Madison & Lake Wa Blvd, then headed south towards Renton, passing Seward Park. Some other cyclists out, but not a whole lot. This early in the day I only see teams of serioius-looking people wearing dark sunglasses & team kits.

Here I am in Leschi, with Bellevue & the Cascade Mountains in the background:

At Renton we went went up the hill, taking Highway 900/Sunset Drive up through the string-mall hell towards the boondocks. There's no such thing as a bike lane out here in these parts, but drivers didn't seem to mind us in their lane, even on some of the slow uphills.

This climb up Highway 900 isn't all that steep, but there's tons of shit on the shoulder to dodge: (and once you get to the top of the hill, the shoulder is gone and you're swimming in suburban traffic) After riding through strip-mall hell, we made it to the country-side, replete with farm animals and the humans that tend to them.

Then we took a right on May Valley Road, taking us through even more picturesque scenes of Northwest farms.

Farmland out on Issaquah-Hobar Rd. heading north:

When May Valley Road ends, you're on Issaquah-Hobart road and we took a right towards our first big climb of the day, Tiger Mountain. At only 700-something feet of maximum elevation, this one is about half as hard as Cougar Mtn. But it's still enough to get you sweating, but as soon as you get in a climbing groove it's time to descend! Of course your 10 minute climb turns into a two-minute descent, but the road isn't too winding so you can open up and put your high gear (53x11 on the Ciocc) to the test! Only hit about 65 km/h (~39 mph) going down it, but I love getting the speed up there.

Then we went back up north towards Issaquah, and followed Newport Way over to Cougar Mountain. Now this is the big climb of our ride, reaching a high-point of about 1,400 feet.

At the false-peak of Cougar on 60th St:

To your left is the "bonus" climb for another 300 feet or so:

And your prize for getting this high? A beatiful view of Lake Sammmish & the Cascades of course:

A little further up the road is a hiking trail, we walked our bikes into the woods and took a little break:

If you look closely the sign says "Nike Missile Site 0.9 M" - surely it's not what it sounds like, but we didn't walk out there to find out. Wtf is this "missile" site?
The synthetics of my bicycle meet the natural world, a mossy shrub:

After Cougar, we got all adventurous and decided to descend down it a new way (following 60th St west basically). There was a great downhill, but at the bottom we were forced to go either left (downhill) or right (uphill), so we went down. This was not the right choice (to get us back on to Newport Way), but we ended up taking a really scenic route to Renton again.

At one point in Newcastle, we were approaching a four-way stop when a small golden cocker-spaniel came running towards us making its best "here I come to kill you" face. But topping out at 18" those things really don't post a threat, I just laughed at it, although a tangle in the wheels would've been really bad. But what was funny was two seconds later a second, identical, dog comes running out! So we're taking a right and they're still hunting us down, although their small legs make it tough to keep up. And then a third one shows up! I guess they own the block or something.

Who knows where these beasts are coming from, but somebody needs to round those things up! They were running in front of a bunch of cars, oblivious to all the things out here that could kill or injure them - guess they just had their eye on the prize!

I was laughing too hard to pull out the camera, so you'll just have to take my word on this one..

We eventually found Lake Wa Blvd in North Renton again and followed it back up north to I-90 to go back to Seattle. At Mercer Island, we took a left and did the ~10-mile loop. At this point, it seemed that everyone in the greater Seattle area that owns a bicycle was out! Some probably for the first time since last summer, but good for them! Always great to see more bikes out on the roads.

Start Time: 8 A.M.

End Time: 3:50 P.M.

Total Distance: 136 km (85 miles)

The Bicycle Quarterly & Other Visual Goods

Yesterday I received my first copy of The Bicycle Quarterly in the mail! I've just recently stumbled across this publication and it seems geared towards where I'm heading: the randonneurring world.

Local rando legends like Jan Heine write about bicycles they've tested out, with tons of techincal data as well. For instance an article with nice graphs & bar charts of a survey of PBP riders: DNF rates for those that had fenders vs. those that didn't (guess who DNF'd more?), what people would change about their bikes (mostly bag/rack related), reasons for DNFing. Very good reading!

One of my favorite parts of the current issue was Jan's review of the Pereira Randonneuse - a newly made rando bike, and the coolest part about it is the front derailer: a simple wire cage! (picture on the right) It apparently weighs somewhat less than a Shimano Ultegra front derailleur, and apparently works silky-smooth. I want one!

To the untrained eye, you might take one glance at the bikes in the Quarterly and think, "but these are all super-slow touring bikes!" Don't be confused by the look of some of these bicycles; they are built for serious cycling, including fast-paced rides. Sure, you might not see them at your local crit, but most certainly on local brevets or ultra races. (I've yet to move into the "boutique bike" world and am happy with my 1980's Miyata for now, but one day in the future I plan on straddling a custom rando bike of my own!)

I also purchased a copy of "The Golden Age of Handbuilt Bicycles," which arrived along with my Quarterly issue:


It has lots of pictures of older (and some not so old) Rene Herse bikes, Alex Singer, all of those bike brand-names you start hearing about when you enter the rando world. The bikes of old had such beautiful detail! Brazed-on rear light fixtures, spoke holders, custom racks, etc. Sure, you can find some of that today, but it's too bad that cycling has moved away from "utility" towards "speed & lightness." Most road bikes people buy today can't fit decent fenders on, much less carry any real weight.

Anyway, if you're looking for some good reading in between Brevets, check out both of these publications!

SiR 200k Brevet (Sorted) Results

I know, I know, randonneurring is not a competitive sport! So take this time-sorted list of brevet finishers with a grain of salt. =] (official alphabetical list here)

Stats:

Fastest Time: 7 hours 27 minutes (wow!)
Slowest Time: 13 hours 29 minutes (they made it by one minute. nice!)
Average Time: 10 hours 28 minutes

Koenig, Urs	7:27
Luttrell, Ian	7:27
Ragsdale, Chris	7:27
Ohlemeier, Brian	8:04
Hamilton, Ryan	8:10
Hennings, Tim	8:12
Kantner, Kole	8:12
Vande Kamp, Mark	8:12
Martin, Thomas	8:28
Morris, John	8:39
Carter, Ken	9:01
Methner, Wayne	9:01
Newlin, Matthew	9:01
Roberts, David	9:01
Kato, Ken	9:11
Ryan, Jim	9:11
Swarts, Geoff	9:11
Black, Todd	9:15
Pieper, Robin J.	9:15
Andersen, Erik	9:17
Beebe, Ward	9:21
Nguyen, Thai	9:23
Muoneke, Vincent	9:27
Thompson, Corey	9:27
Harper, David	9:28
Jensen, Daniel	9:28
Johnson, David	9:29
Kramer, John	9:29
Lagasca, Robert	9:29
White, Charles	9:29
Boxer, Daniel	9:31
Smith, Donald	9:31
Read, Dave	9:34
Huber, Michael	9:36
Brace, Jack	9:41
Brudvik, Bob	9:44
Cox, Greg	9:44
Dussler, William	9:44
Haight, Rick	9:44
McKay, Peter	9:44
Nussbaum, Carol	9:44
Nussbaum, Ralph	9:44
Thomas, Mark	9:44
Pasciuti, David	9:55
Roberts, Mark	9:55
Morse, Josh	9:58
Rowe, David	10:00
Blacker, Rick	10:01
Stanley, Eamon	10:05
LePage, Bob	10:15
Ringkvist, Victor	10:15
Arscott, Dierdre	10:19
Himschoot, Ron	10:19
Chow, Galvin	10:21
Knowles, Martin	10:21
Perera, Shan	10:21
Beeson, Peter	10:25
Blachon, Domenique	10:25
Burke, Jamie	10:25
Holmstrom, Cindi	10:25
McHale, Mike	10:25
Tilden, Brad	10:25
Ortega, Salvador	10:28
Howes, Noel	10:30
Krishnamoorthy, Narayan	10:30
Sprague, James	10:35
Azzam, Saliha	10:40
Heilinger, Joanne	10:40
Humphreys, Kevin	10:40
Maurice, John Henry	10:40
Gunderson, Adria	10:43
Platzner, Joe	10:46
Leahy, Pat	10:49
Halstead, Tim	10:50
Dalton, Matthew	10:59
Groth, Rick	11:03
Scherlie, Paul	11:04
Teeter, Dan	11:06
Vincent, John	11:15
Garl, Theresa	11:18
Isreal, Tom	11:18
Loomis, Jeff	11:18
Miller, Tom	11:18
Whitney, Paul	11:18
Winczewski, Peg	11:18
Dorr, Joby	11:24
Gay, Christopher	11:24
Higdon, Robert	11:24
Davis, Steve	11:38
Smith, Gene	11:38
Berna, Brian	11:51
Vigoren, Eric	11:51
Williams, Maggie	11:51
Reniche-Smith, Cecil	11:59
Fitzsimmon, Lynne	12:02
Hoffman, Charles	12:18
Beagley, Nat	12:42
Kindred, Dennis	12:45Hors Delai
Mikul, Matt	12:45Hors Delai
Alsup, Bill	12:58
Chang, Jennifer	13:23
Reed, Leslie	13:29
Wright, Duane	13:29
Carson, Jim	DNF
Graham, Doug	DNF
Jameson, Don	DNF
Jensen, James	DNF
McElhiney, Scott	DNF
Rankin, Peter	DNF
Turner, Daniel	DNF

SiR 200k Brevet: Success & Failure Combined

Executive Summary: I finished my first brevet! (Although it may not count officially since we missed one of the control's time-cutoff by 30 minutes or so.) We weren't the last to finish, but pretty damn close! I think about two more riders came in after Dennis & I - but hey, at least now we can (almost) call ourselves randonneurs and buy those stylin' Seattle Rando wool jerseys.

Congrats to all that finished! And even those who didn't finish, at least you tried.

My First Brevet - Seattle International Randonneur's 200k

This morning was the Seattle Intl Randonneur's first brevet of the season, a 200km ride in which you get 13 hours and 30 minutes to finish. This is plenty of time to finish such a ride (assuming you start on time & you don't get too lost, tired, or broken) for most long-distance riders, but the ride was surprisingly tough. Not so much the rolling hills or climbing, navigation is the hardest part of a brevet for me. (But Robert would be happy to know that I actually had my own cue this time around!)

The weather was also tough for the most part: 45-50F degrees with steady rain (not a misty/light rain that's nice to ride in), with lows at least 32F. When we were about 1,700 feet in the air in Greenwater, there was a lot of snow on the side of the road!

The ride to the ride was adventure in itself. I pedaled down to the starting point, which meant covering the 24 miles (in the rain) to get from Capitol Hill to the start of the ride in Kent. I didn't get out the door until about 5:30, so I knew time was gonna be tight!

When I finally got to Kent (via Rainier Ave & E. Valley Hwy) and took a left onto James St to get to the start of the brevet, I was met with a giant wall of concrete! A relatively gigantic hill awaited. At that point it was about 6:55, only 5 minutes until the start! On the Google Map this 1.5 mile stretch of road looked like no problem, but the 2D representation on Google Maps can only tell you so much.

As I was chugging up the hill I saw the peloton of 100+ riders enjoying the descent down the hill, parts of which were apparently 15% in grade! I figured I could catch up to at least some of them, and wondered if anyone I knew was in the pack or not.

When I got up to the start I saw my buddy Dennis setting up his bike! Hooray for some of my friends being late like me. We acquired our control cards and split, heading back down the same monster of a hill I'd just come up. (This was at 7:30, so we were already 30 minutes late)

There were a few other stragglers with us at first, but for the most part we rode the route alone. The route took us from Kent over to Federal Way, then to Auburn, Black Diamond, Ravensdale, Enumclaw, Greenwater. Lots of rolling hills, and then a 17-mile stretch of Highway 410 that took us up to an elevation of ~1700 ft.

A brief summary of the things we saw & experienced along the way - good and bad:

• An amazing array of farm animals, especially along Green Valley Highway between Auburn & Black Diamond: goats, a pig, yaks, llamas, cows, horses, a cat sitting in a field. Lots of country dogs but none free enough to give chase.
• We also saw a lot of other animals that had met unfortunate endings, and each one of the roadkill scenes we saw seemed to get worse and worse: a raccoon with its innards splayed; then an armadillo with its head squished; then (what i think was) a cat with its face peeled off and what seemed to be only a jaw with jagged teeth. Gruesome scenes indeed. You're lucky I didn't bring a camera!
• A redneck in a jacked-up pickup truck called us "assholes" when we used a cross-walk while it was showing the walk sign! Not sure if he just didn't like the fact we were "not from around here" or what, but as we passed in front of his truck he rolled down his window to say "you assholes" as if we'd just spit on his windshield. We threw up our hands in both amusement & confusion, as in, "Wtf are you talking about?!" But my temptation to challenge drivers like that is inversely proportional to the probability of them carrying a gun - so in this case, I didn't want to push it.
  
• A big brown van that swerved into the bike lane on Highway 410 at the bottom of the climb! He buzzed us with maybe a foot to spare, and kept swerving (most likely a drunk) as he went on. Hopefully he got to where he was going without killing anyone!
  
• I bought some new wool socks at the general store in Greenwater - best purchase I've ever made. After having wet socks on since about 8 that morning, it was a welcome relief (it was about 4 PM at that point)
  

We ended up going off course by about 5 miles in Black Diamond, and this technically disqualified us (see Article 9) since we were out of the time limit for the control. The Bakery control closed at 12:12 or so, and we didn't get there until 12:40! There were a ton of things that led up to us not making it in time, but according to the official rules it seems like this was under our control and was basically our fault. The offcial word:

"If a rider arrives at a checkpoint after it has closed and the ride organizer is satisfied that the rider's lateness is due to the occurrence of something unforeseen and beyond the control of the rider (such as a road closure or stopping to help at a traffic accident), then the ride organizer may waive the fact that the rider arrived at the control late and allow the rider to continue. Poor bicycle or equipment maintenance, fatigue, lack of fitness, hunger, etc. are not unforeseen and beyond the control of the rider and therefore will not serve as a valid reason for being late. Subject to the foregoing, failure to make all checkpoints, even if the brevet is done within the overall time limit, will result in disqualification."

So I'm OK with taking the hit on this one, it's not like this 200k counts towards the PBP qualification anyway. And I'll still bang out the 300k, 400k, & 600k routes, and probably do the 200k again later on this summer.

Back to the ride: I made the Greenwater control by 4 minutes! When we started the climb I thought there was no way we'd make it in time, but after a little uphill sprinting I made it there at 4:04, and the cutoff was at 4:08. We made the Circle K control with 10 minutes to spare, and then made it back to Greg Cox's house in Kent by about 7:40, so there was maybe 40 minutes to spare on that one.

It's tough to swallow after having done such a long ride, but hey there's another 200k later on this year, and nothing is stopping me from still doing the 300k-600k series!

Start time: 5:30 A.M.
End time: 7:40 P.M.
Total distance: 126 miles of brevet + 10 miles of being lost + 25 miles to get there = 161 miles! (259 km)

[route map]

P.S. Robert wrote up a nice entry on this ride as well [link]