Tour of Eastside Hills

Today's ride, the tour of eastside hills, will feature some great climbs, roughly 90 miles of hilly Northwest roads - the steepest being Tolt Hill Road out in Carnation - a 10% grade for a mile! This will be about the 10th time I'll do that climb, and I can't say it ever gets any easier. Well maybe the 2nd time it was a little easier but since then it's been about the same - really hard.. 43rd Ave (out in Issaquah) is tough too, and you can tell the traffic isn't used to riders on that road, they buzz pretty close.

Towns/suburbs I'll pass through: Seattle, Renton, Issaquah, Fall City, Carnation, Redmond, Woodinville, Bothell, and then back to Seattle. From looking at the elevation profile, it looks like there are 6 or 7 major climbs - each maxing out at 400 or 500 feet.

Check out what the route looks like in Google Earth:



According to my cyclo-computer I got back in May, I've done 1,620 miles! If I keep up this pace I could probably do 4-5k miles this year, maybe more. I can't wait to see it hit 2,000 miles, which should happen maybe even this month!

I'm Sorry But That's Fucking Funny!

Saw this pic posted to the .83 forum and just had to throw it up here:

STP Hit and Run - Driver Caught

I was just watching the local news when a story about a cyclist hit by a car during the Seattle-to-Portland ride:

NEAR GOBLE, Ore. -- A Seattle man and two other cyclists were injured in a hit-and-run accident while they were participating in the Seattle-to-Portland ride on Sunday, according to Oregon State Police.

Police said a 1999 Jeep Cherokee was driving on Highway 30 when it crossed the fog line and collided into a cyclist around 9:22 a.m. Two other cyclists collided into the fallen man and his bike and were also injured, police said. [link]

Sounds like the hit cyclist suffered 'serious injuries,' probably some broken bones and nasty road rash. Well they caught the drunk fuck that was behind the wheel, so at least there was a positive end to the story.

I'm really not surprised that it happened on Highway 30 either - sure, it could've been anywhere (there are drunk drivers all over the world, after all), but that last 50 miles of the ride does seem especially dangerous. Cascade, can this (please) be your wake-up call that the STP route needs to avoid roads like Highway 30??

The 2007 STP - Two Hundred and Ten Miles in One Day

At 4:45 the one-day STP (about 2,000 riders I'm told) rolled out to cheers, and with the sun not even up yet we headed off. One woman fell in the first few feet of the ride, that had to be a hard start to the day! I hope she made it..

It was weird looking at my cyclo-computer and knowing that the 0.01 miles it read would eventually read 200-something later that day.. I still think the hardest part of a double-century is the mental side, although the physical toll can't be discounted.

Once we got onto open road the pace lines were plenty to choose from. We ended up on a 50+ person-paceline that was going a good 22-24 mph, and then jumped onto a 25-27 mph paceline and stuck with that for at least 20 miles. Thanks to everyone that pulled me for so long! Sure, I took some pulls at the front of a few of the lines, but some of them are so long and unorganized that you can sit on the back forever.

We finished the first half of the ride by 10:45 A.M., rolling into the half-way festival at the Centralia Community College. Our average speed at this point is still 20+ mph, which is way faster than my usual, but with so many pacelines to choose from it's not too hard to keep your speed up.

After a huge plate of spaghetti and some more sun-block and we were off once again at 11:30 or so. After Centralia is where you start hitting the really tiny/wacky towns that dot the route. Winlock has the World's Largest Egg which sits proudly on their 'main' street. (From my quick searching it looks like there's some dispute as to who's got the biggest egg, but their egg is just about all Winlock's got going for it!)

I love the interesting town-names that dot Washington and Oregon! Tenino, Bucoda, Yelm, Vader, Puyallup, Goble - too bad some of the towns' names don't match their atmosphere!

At mile 150 we took another break, and at this point were starting to get a sense of just how hard it is to do a double-century. It was about 3:00 P.M. and we were definitely slowing down. Dousing my head with cold water of course helped, but at some point I can only eat so many Odwalla Bars, and I can only drink so much Propel. I'm human god-dammit! I should start eating more food made for humans; I'm not an robotic athelete who's sole purpose in life is to consume energy gels and eat odd-tasting 'energy bars.' Luckily the organizers of the STP always have bananas and bagels at the rest stops, guess I'm not the only human in the pack! But at some point even real food doesn't seem to give me a boost. If only I could've had some Phad Kee Mao! Now that would've helped..

The organizers of the ride (Cascade.org) do a great job with the route, taking you on some of the most scenic country roads of Washington State, and showing you some of the most quirky towns along the way. But once in Oregon they decide to throw you on a four-lane highway (Highway 30) for the last 50 miles of the ride! The last 30 miles of hwy 30 are nasty strip-malls and cars pulling in and out of them.

Maybe they're trying to make us hate Oregon? That would make sense because Highway 30 has nothing but fast-moving traffic and worthless towns that weren't even towns. I suppose this is the 'quickest' way to Portland, but can't they tack on 10 or 20 miles somewhere and put us back on country roads? Sure, it's better than the interstate but it stands in stark contrast to the rest of the ride.

So I was beat at the end, and was glad it was over fore sure. But it felt great to accomplish a new milestone, a double-century! Next year I'll try to see just how fast I can do it!

Total Distance: 210 miles (4 miles from my house to the start)
Total Elapsed Time: 14.5 hours
Total Saddle Time: 10.5 hours
Overall Average Speed: 19.1 mph
Flats: 1
Roadkill seen: 7+ (including two birds stuffed in a drain in Portland, go figure)
Mountains seen in the distance: 3 (Rainer, St. Helens, Hood)
Energy left at the end of the ride: zero

Update: got some pics of me during the STP - see here.

STP starts in less than twelve hours!!

At 4:45 AM tomorrow about 1,000 cyclists (including me) will start a 206-mile journey: the Seattle-to-Portland ride. The fastest will do it in 10 hours or less, while the slowest will take 16 hours, and of course some will give up. The one-day finish festival closes at 9 PM, so that gives us 16 hours and 15 minutes to 'officially' complete it. I think my riding partner and I will make it in about 14 or 15 hours, but we'll see how it goes. I really hope we make it before the close or we won't get our special one-day patches!

I think the hardest part about the day will be getting up so friggin' early (roughly 3 AM!), but I'm probably wrong and the hardest part of the ride will be after 150 miles or so, when I'm dead tired and way sun-burned. In total I'll do about 209 or 210 miles, since I'm riding from my apt on Capitol Hill to the start in the U-district.

My cycling log's graph shows the spike in my mileage over the last few months:


As you can see this will be my longest ride in quite a while! I hope to top it one day with an even longer ride.

Check out an approximation of the STP in 3D using Google Earth. (and turn on elevation exaggeration!). Don't have Google Earth? Here's what the route looks like, but you can zoom in and see the elevation profile in 3D!

Partial STP - Seattle to Spanaway and Back

Yesterday I set out (and did) the first 60 miles of the STP, following the spray-painted symbols all the way to Spanaway, and then rode back for a total of about 120 miles. There's only one notable climb in the whole first 60 miles of the route, which made it a quick ride; I was holding 22-25 mph on the flats, and made it down there in about three hours.

As a side-note, why oh why did they choose dark purple for the spray-paint color? It's on dark asphalt after all! I'm sure there's a reason, but those symbols aren't the easiest to see if you ask me. Maybe neon green would be better next year...

Just past Puyallup (yes that's really the name of a town around here!) there's 'The Hill', a one-mile ~7% grade, which is talked about as if it's the Alp d'Huez f-in climb... I saw people walking up it during the 2005 STP! Come on folks, that hill isn't even as bad as climbing 10th ave up Capitol Hill.

The way back from Spanaway was a totally different ride; 20+ mph headwind, tons of traffic (especially around Kent, which I now officially hate), and I was starting to tire a bit. I can't wait to roll with 1k other riders, that'll keep the traffic at bay!

STP Training and the Three Feet Campaign

I'm still preparing for next weekend's Seattle-to-Portland double-century, although I haven't been getting in the miles I'd like to. Dennis and I did the Lake Wa loop yesterday, putting in a hot 55 miles with some nice hills. The STP-training guide says to do a 140-miler a few weeks before the big day, but screw it, I'm going for the mind over matter! I've been putting in 100-200 miles per week in the last few weeks, so hopefully that'll be enough saddle-time. (Oh yeah, and don't forget the ass cream!)

My longest ride in a day was 110 miles during the first day of the 2005 STP. 206 miles will take a long time, but it will be a great ride. I wonder if the route is similar to the 2005 route? I'll have to study the map and check it..

As a side-note, check out Cascade's Give Cyclists Three-Feet campaign, it's a great idea!


I'm lucky if I get a foot of space from cars on some roads here in the North West... as I'm sure is the same across many a car-opolis in the U.S. and all over the congested globe.