F The Blue Angels

Warning, political rant below!

When it's Seafair time in Seattle, that means a few things:

• Hydroplane racing on Lake Washington
• People will get drunk on their boats and injure and/or kill somebody, it seems to happen every year
• The Blue Angels roar over town (just saw one go by apt at probably 500 mph and 500 feet away - I always forget how friggin loud those things are!)

But I've got a little problem with the Blue Angels - can you say propaganda? Everyone seems to forget that we're paying the fuel bills for those military jets as they entertain us. Not to mention there are pilots doing real bombing runs over Iraq, maybe even at the same time as the Angels fly over Seattle, upside-down to the roar of thousands of spectators..

America is one of the few places where citizens hear fighter-jet engines roaring and run outside to cheer - in most other places civilians have to run and hide from American-made bombers..

What's this got to do with cycling? Not much, except the I-90 bridge is closed (including the bike path) during their runs! They made me late to work last year... dammit. Hopefully they can't stop me from doing the Lake Wa Loop today.

So when you see the Blue Angels, think twice about cheering. I'm just as impressed with jets as anyone else, but this is more than politically charged entertainment - it's military-approved entertainment, and that just seems wrong to me.

Cougar Mountain aka The Zoo Climb

I'd heard about 'the zoo' climb before, but had no idea where it was - but lo and behold, somebody saved the route on my site, veloroutes.org! (as a side-note this is how I know the site is working - not just saving my own routes but discovering new ones!)

The climb is 2.5 miles long, and gives you over 1K feet of elevation gain! This is about twice as big as Tolt Hill Road, which used to be the best (or worst, depending on how you feel about climbing) local climb I knew about. Probably the hardest local climb excluding the mountain passes like Snoqualmie and Stevens.

The Ascent:

The first section of this climb is probably a good 10% grade, and it seems to fluctuate between 7 and 10%, but I'm estimating, so I can't be sure. My rear tire was skidding a bit going up, due to the dampness that was still on the ground and the steepness of the road! About half-way there's a small plateau of sorts to give your legs a rest, but once you turn onto 60th St the rollers start, and they seem to get steeper and steeper! Some of them towards the end must've been over 10%, at least it felt that way. Once at the top you can take a hard left and continue up the mountain for a quarter-mile or so, which I now call it the "bonus climb."

The Descent:

You might think that since this is such a big climb that the descent would be a screamingly-fast one, but it's not! The hair-pin turns force you to keep your speed way down, and I almost learned this the hard way: I was coming down the first hairpin, my bike started to drift more and more towards the guard-rail on the right side of the road, and the wet mold next to it! It's a scary feeling when you know you can't slam on the brakes due to the damp ground, and you can't do a hard turn 'cause you'll slip, so I just had to ride it through while tapping the brakes! I came within maybe less than a foot of the edge, and got to peer down the steep slope that probably drops a good 40 or 50 feet! Scary sight indeed. Next time I'm gonna go as slow as a snail around those turns!

The Views:

You might also think that being 1,100 feet above sea-level you'd be able to see the city and lots of cool sights, but you can't; there are lots of tall trees blocking most of the views! You can see Lake Sammammish pretty well, and the Eastside as well. Definitely puts 'hills' like those around Bellevue into perspective, that's for sure! The 'bonus climb' had a little clearing that gave a pretty good view of the Cascades, but that was about as good as it got.

To sum it up, this is a great climb, but don't get your hopes up about a fast descent - Tolt is better for that.

July 2007 Critical Mass Conquers Aurora Bridge Again

The scene at Westlake Center yesterday (photo from flickr):


I made it to Critical Mass yesterday, and the turnout was huge, as it usually is in the summer months. Must've been 300 or more people! The Westlake Center was full of cyclists of all types: smokers on fixies, freds on commuter bikes, squids covered in lycra, and a tall bike!

Two frowning cops watched as the 'peloton' rolled out just after 6 PM, heading down Pine St towards 1st Ave. After a slow and winding route we ended up on Highway 99, aka Aurora! I've done the bridge two other times with my fellow Massers, and it never loses its appeal! (99 is a four-lane, 50 mph highway that goes through Seattle, normally off-limits to cycles)

Some peeps at the front tried to make the mass go right and exit just before the bridge, but they must've been new to the area.. Once you're riding with 400 people on Aurora you might as well go to at least Fremont! A buddy and I corralled some peeps to keep going straight and alas, we did, we went over the bridge.

There were cyclists covering up all four north-bound lanes of the bridge, and extending across the whole length of it! It must've been a half-mile long at that point!! We ended up going through Fremont and towards Golden Gardens, but I turned back towards Capitol Hill before we got there, it was time to go home.

Remember, last Friday of every month at 5:30 PM at the Westlake Center. Don't live in Seattle? There's probably a CM in your town too!

Seattle To Carnation and Back - Hilly and Fun

Yesterday I rode out to Carnation and back, for a total of 106 km (60+ miles), and lots of climbing. It was basically a tour of major Eastside hills, excluding 'the Zoo', which I have yet to try out. Once I got to the top of Tolt Hill Road I just turned around and came back - this is where I hit my max speed for the day of 77 km/h! (roughly 45 mph). This isn't too hard to do going down a 10% grade for a mile with no stop lights!

This ride is mostly suburban and country riding, with awesome views of the Cascade Mountains and Mt Si. Lots of rolling hills and small climbs - Mercer Island, for instance, has a number of little climbs. But these don't even compare to the big ones I hit on the way out.

Click on the image to see the full elevation profile of my ride:


Hills covered on the way out East were:

• The climb on 32nd Ave up from Eastgate towards Issaquah: not too steep but lasts for a mile or so
• Going up Issaquah-Fall City Road in Issaquah: The sign at the top reads 9% for 3/4 mile, and I can attest to it! Unfortunately there's no bike lane until you get to the top, the shoulder is only about a foot wide for most of the climb.
• Tolt Hill Road: 10% for one mile, this is the toughest part of my route. It's not too bad at first, but after a short plateau it kicks up to 10% indeed - hard but I got to where I can kinda sprint over the top, this will help in next year's Carnation Hills Time Trial.

Going (West) back to Seattle you've got:

• The rolling hills heading back up the plateau on Issaquah-Fall City Road - almost zero cars out here, but no shoulder so use caution.
  
• The climb back up Newport Way - not very steep at all, but lasts for at least a mile and a half, good shoulder.
• Back up Capitol Hill - After getting off the I-90 Trail I follow 20th Ave over to Jefferson and then up 12th ave. Not very steep at all but is a few miles of steady uphill.
  

Here's what the route looks like in Google Earth - the large incline on the right is Tolt Hill Road: (pic facing West towards Seattle)


(Btw, anyone can generate their own maps in Google Earth using my site, veloroutes.org)

Stats:

Distance: 106.6 km
Avg Speed: 25.9 km/h
Max Observed Speed: 77 km/h (going down Tolt!)
Time on Bike: 4 hours, 7 minutes
Total Time: 4 hours, 25 minutes

Cycling with Metric Measurements

Having watched a few weeks of Le Tour, you can't help but notice that the race is (obviously, it's held in Europe!) using the metric system - 10 km to the finish line, the peloton is averaging 40 kph etc. Of course, Versus will do the conversions for the U.S., but I'm starting to think that I'd like to get to know the measurement system used by most of the world a bit better. (I doubt the U.S. would ever switch though - reminds me I'll have to move to Europe one day!)

So I changed the settings on my cyclo-computer to use metric, and now instead of cruising at a cool 20-22 mph, I'm looking at speeds of 32-35 kph! Obviously the same speed, but all of a sudden the numbers look so much bigger, it throws off my perception of how fast I'm going. Which can be a good thing if you find yourself checking your cyclo-computer more than the road ahead of you, as I sometimes do!

So the hilly lake washington loop is now a whopping 81 km!! Makes it sound much more enticing, doesn't it? The Seattle-to-Portland ride is 321 km - doesn't that sound crazy! (As if 200 miles doesn't sound crazy enough). I'm gonna do the lake wa loop today - let's see if I can keep up a speed of 31 kilometers an hour! (My site has a tool to do the conversions)

Anyone else out there using metric?

Update: I only achieved 26 km/h

Floyd Was Here!

Floyd Landis was in Seattle recently, and guess who's friend got to meet him?! Yup, my riding buddy Dennis Kindred had the chance to meet Floyd during his recent visit to Amazon.com's HQ here in Seattle. From Dennis:

I just met Floyd Landis. He signed his book for me and best of all...

I got a GREAT picture of us both!!!! He happens to be a pretty f*ckin'
funny guy.

WOOT!

FREE FLOYD!

It wouldn't be worth posting this if I didn't have this photo to go with it, so here ya go!!

Damn, I wish we could have taken Floyd on a tour of Seattle hills - I'd love to see how fast he could ascend up Queen Anne's south face!!

Wondering what else Floyd is up to these days? Check out his blog for the latest Floyd news.

2007 STP Photos

Just ordered some photos from this year's STP double-century! Once I get the larger versions I'll throw 'em up here, but for now here are some tiny versions.

Here's Dennis and I a few miles into the ride:


Not sure exactly where these were taken:





Here I am finishing (and finished) in Portland:


Here's me (on left) and Dennis in Portland, proudly holding our STP one-day patches!



Can't wait 'till next year!