Three Volcanoes 300k Pre-ride: Better than Perfect

Mt. Adams from Babyshoe Pass

Can a bike ride be too perfect? I was mulling over this question, and the nature of perfection in general (gettin' all filosofical and shit) as I did the pre-ride for the Seattle Randonneurs Three Volcanoes 300k last Saturday.

Lonely Roads - Approaching Elk Summit

The Three Volcanoes 300k has everything I love in a good long bike ride. The roads are as remote and car-free as anything you could hope for in this part of the world. Views of snow capped volcanoes and sparkling streams abound. A variety of climbs, some short and steep, some long and relentless, others with occasional rest stops as they step up in gentle stages keep you physically challenged. Thrilling winding descents pay you back (plus interest) for your sweaty investment in the climbs. Mossy old massive Douglas firs keep you shaded and cool when the sun comes out.

Descent from Babyshoe Pass

But in addition to the things I love in a ride, the 3 Vs also throws some challenges at you. About 10 miles of unpaved road as you climb up and over the summit of Babyshoe pass is rutted and dusty. 9% grades with loose gravel over nasty washboard make it tough to keep traction. On the unpaved descent from Babyshoe, the loose gravel gets deep enough in places to make a skinny-tired road bikes whimper. Occasional cracks and potholes in the paved sections hide in shade and threaten to swallow your front wheel whole if you don't pay attention.

Mt. St. Helens from Near Elk Summit

As I was struggling with the climb over Babyshoe pass I was thinking about how without the dusty unpaved 10 miles, this ride would be so perfect as to be downright boring. It would be like a rose without thorns. Like a big wad of cotton candy dipped in hot fudge, way too sweet to stomach. But there was Babyshoe pass with its deceptively innocent sounding name. The wasabi on the sushi. The olive in the Martini.

It's the the 3 V's imperfections that make it a perfect ride.

Wait a second... That makes no sense at all. Perhaps I should stick with randonneuring. My filosofer skillz aren't so great.

Anyway, whether you call it perfect, or perfectly imperfect, or just fabulously flawed (like most of my favorite people), I have to say that the Three Volcanoes 300k was among my favorite bike rides ever.

SIR Spring 600k: Put a Forks in it

Welcome to Olympic National Park

It was on the road between Forks and La Push that I first noticed the moon. It was last Saturday night, and I was about 380 kilometers into the Seattle Randonneurs’ Spring 600k. The night was dark with few stars visible, the only light for miles coming from my trusty headlight and taillight and the running lights of Chris Cullum, my Canadian riding partner who I had been riding with off and on for the past 300 kilometers. Suddenly there it was: the full* moon shining through a gap in the clouds like a saucer of vanilla flavored Ensure Plus®. Then it all clicked in my head (by this point nearly as cloudy as the night we had been riding through). The full moon… The nearby town of Forks… Vampires! Werewolves! What was I doing out here!? I didn’t actually read any of the Twilight saga, but I saw the movies (well, part of the first one anyway)! I know what evil, wrapped in sparkly skin and designer jeans lurks in this damp corner of Washington state!

Ward and Gary on the road near Matlock

A few minutes later the wave of panic passed as I realized that even if vampires were real, they would probably do their best to stay away from Forks. Way too many Twifans hanging around these days. A more well-founded panic returned a little while later as I realized that it was Saturday night and Forks was the only town around with a bar. It was rapidly approaching the drunk driver witching hour, not a good time to be on a bicycle.

In spite of vampires, werewolves, drunk drivers, bad convenience store sandwiches, occasional headwinds and lots of lactate in my thigh muscles, I managed to complete the SIR 600k brevet last weekend. It was an incredibly beautiful route that circumnavigated the Olympic mountain range in a huge clockwise lumpy circle beginning and ending at the ferry dock in Kingston.

Shadow riders

Riding a single speed bike throughout the SR series this year has often made it difficult to find well-matched riding partners, but this time I managed to ride with others at a very compatible pace for about half of the distance. Chris in particular turned out to be an excellent riding partner, happily pulling me through endless rolling hills.

The view from Kalaloch

Every long brevet has it's warts and imperfections, but I really can't think of much about which to complain. Yes, there was a brief rain shower or two. But come on, we were riding through miles of Pacific Northwest rainforest in early June! What do you want? Maybe that last stretch of highway 104 from 101 to Kingston with the hills that took a couple of cheap shots at me when I was down on the ground? But that's not the hills' fault. They were there long before we decided to ride our brevet and they'll be there long after my trusty Trek has turned to dust and returned to the earth. Honestly I have to say this was my favorite 600k yet, and maybe my favorite brevet ever.

Some highlights for me:

• The excellent homemade chocolate chip cookies at the Hood Canal control (Jennifer's recipe and Kole's execution).





It was steeper than it looks, honest



• The lovely rolling, car-free back roads between Matlock and Humptulips, especially that steep dirt section that forced me to use my "granny gear" (i.e. get off and walk).


• Okay, this is for real: In the Matlock General Store the clerk found $40 on the floor and asked if it was someone in our group who had lost it. None of the group I was with thought it was ours. Then at the very next stop in Humptulips, 45 miles down the road, as I was walking to the cash register there on the floor at my feet... two crisp $20 bills. They weren't mine. I asked if anyone in my group had dropped them, but none of us had even come in with two twenties. Weird. I left them with the cashier and walked out wondering if the same $40 would be following us all the way around the Olympic peninsula.


• Chris and I helping a woman with a flat tire along 101. I'm convinced that woman would still be there trying to figure out how to fix that flat if we hadn't stopped (not exactly a whiz bike mechanic). She said she was riding to San Francisco. She'll either develop some bike mechanical skills along the way or continue to depend on the kindness of strangers.





"Dinner" at Kalaloch



• Celebrating the first real view of the ocean at Kalaloch with a dish of soft-serve ice cream.





Leaving Forks at 2:30 AM



• Making the most of the Forks control by stopping there not once but twice. The first time for an excellent bowl of homemade chicken soup to fortify me for the out-and-back to La Push. Then for a fiery bowl of chili and a couple hours of sleep before setting off again at 2:30 AM for last third of the route.


• The quiet and lonely slog from Forks up to the control at mile marker 218.7 in the wee hours (Chris and I had parted ways at Forks and from there on I rode alone). Perhaps I saw three cars in an hour and a half. A great time for introspection and loud off-key singing.


• But even better was the oasis at mile marker 218.7 with hot chicken soup and friendly faces.





Just before the sunrise on Lake Crescent



• Watching the black night turn to grey daylight as I rode along the shores of Lake Crescent.
• East Bank Rd!





Dungeness Spit from the stone bench



• Sitting on the stone bench overlooking the Dungeness spit and reveling in the knowledge that there was little between me and Kingston that could keep me from finishing the ride (but naively unaware of the hills on highway 104 I had yet to ride).


• The feeling of rolling into Kingston shortly after noon having just finished the brevet and a complete SR series on a single speed bike, not too mention it being my second fastest 600k ever. Of course, my spirits fell quickly when I realized I still needed to walk up a flight of stairs to the second floor motel room to get my card signed.

This was really a great ride for me from beginning to end. I felt strong the whole way and was rarely bothered by aches and pains. My bike worked well and nimbly avoided any broken glass and other sharp road debris that conspired to deflate my tires. The route was one I've wanted to ride ever since I started randonneuring. There's something about the remoteness and the idea of going all the way around an entire range of mountains that inspired me. I rode with some good riding partners who shared the hard work, some for a few minutes, others for hundreds of kilometers. Thanks to Chris, John, Gary, Ward and the others I rode with briefly. Most importantly, thanks to Kole and Jennifer, and the many other SIR volunteers for putting on an outstanding event.

*Okay, it wasn’t really officially a full moon until the 5th, but three days away from a full moon looks pretty darn full.

SIR Spring 400k: The Ferry Waits for No Man

The running lights of the last ferry of the night may have still been visible from the ferry dock as I pulled into the final contrôle of SIR's Spring 400k brevet. I didn't bother looking for the ferry because I knew I had missed it and besides, there was a slice of pizza and a cold beer with my name on it at the contrôle. My card was signed at 11:53 PM. The ferry had sailed at 11:40 PM. For the most part I rode as fast as I had hoped to ride, but I just dawdled a bit too much at a couple of the contrôles.

We couldn't have asked for a better day to spend riding hither and thither. It was 48 degrees when I left the house in the morning and it got into the low 80's by late afternoon. The winds out of the NE meant we had tailwinds for much of the morning and early afternoon until the route turned around in Raymond and headed back North. On the trip back north, the wind wasn't quite as helpful. It slowed things down a bit, but really not as much as I had feared.

On the Ferry

A crowd of about 55 turned out, and like two years ago when we rode the same route in similar conditions, many were looking to do a time (that's randospeak for "ride really fast"). Not two miles into the ride I realized that I'd have no hope of staying with any fast groups. The tailwinds and early ride adrenaline were pushing many along at 25 mph. That had me spinning my 68 gear inches of single speed goodness at over 120 rpm. It was too early and I hadn't had enough coffee for that sort of thing, so I let the faster groups fly on by and I drifted toward the back of the pack.

 Leaving Bremerton and being left behind

Of course, sometimes getting left behind is a good thing. For instance, not long after the picture above was taken, two of the riders in that group ahead touched wheels and the guy in back went down hard. If I had been in that pace line, I might have been taken down too. I quickly stopped along with a couple of others to help out. The rider who had crashed was still on the ground and looking pretty rattled when I got there. He had road rash on his face (ouch!) and knees that I could see but he seemed to be coherent and otherwise intact. Luckily one of the other riders who had stopped was Andy Spier, a retired fire fighter with mad EMT skillz. We got the rider and bike out of the road quickly as cars were still flying by at 60 mph, and Andy checked for serious injuries. After a few minutes we concluded that he had nothing more than bumps, scrapes and bruises and his bike seemed rideable, so we cancelled the 911 call and soon everyone was on the road again.

Hugh and Dave

In the rolling hills between Bremerton and Shelton I'd team up briefly with other riders, but it never lasted more than a few minutes. I'd catch up on the climbs and then the tailwinds would whisk them away as we descended to the next roller. Clearly the rhythms of a single speed on a windy day don't fit well with the rhythms of geared bikes. So, I quickly settled into my own rhythm and accepted the fact that I'd be spending much of the day alone.

Tailwinds

The morning was beautiful and the riding was easy. Even though I wasn't able to find a group that I could ride with, the tailwinds were still pushing me along at a good pace. Being alone allowed me to enjoy the scenery, which beats staring at the wheel in front of me on such a lovely day.

Blue Slough Road

Panda with gratuitous Ibex product placement

The road to Westport

On a typical brevet, riders tend to get scattered across the route like a one-dimensional version of the expanding universe. The start is the big bang and once into the ride, a rider's velocity relative to you is a function of how far away they are from you. The riders a quarter of a mile ahead are moving away from you ever so slowly while the ones way out there at the front are leaving you in their dust at what might as well be approaching the speed of light. As a result, once you've settled into your pace you don't have many close encounters with other celestial objects (a.k.a. riders) because they're all moving away from you.

On this ride I was finding that a single speed bike throws a monkey wrench in my cosmological model of brevets. The gearing of a single speed bike essentially limits your top-end speed like a governor (this kind of governor, not that kind), while on a geared bike your top speed is usually limited only by your ability to convert Clif Bars into watts. Hence the different rhythms that I mentioned earlier. As a result I was finding that even though I was riding alone, I was seeing a lot of other riders on the course as I'd pass them on a climb and then later they'd pass me on the flats. I had a lot of 15 second conversations "in passing" (literally).

I doubt that any of my observations are going to cause Einstein to turn in his grave, but at least it gave me something to ponder as I rode.

I got to the contrôle at Westport, a little over 100 miles into the ride, around 1:30. I was still feeling good so I decided to not stay for long. I quickly scarfed a sandwich and got on my way again eager to keep riding the tailwinds as long as they'd last.

Finally, the ocean

From Westport to Raymond is only 30-some miles, but along that road I encountered one of the temporal anomalies that always pop up somewhere during a long brevet. Time stood still. I'd pedal for what seemed to be hours, and my cycle computer would register the passing of only two, maybe three minutes. I wasn't able to come up with a cosmological model that adequately explains the temporal distortion between Westport and Raymond, but I know it's real.

The never-ending road to Raymond

After Raymond, the route heads north up highway 101 and goes over a series of hills. I've ridden this stretch of road a few times now and I've decided to name it Sisyphus Lane. The hills are so similar that it really feels like you ride up and down the same hill over and over again.

Near Elma

Maximum security prison near Shelton with me happy to be on the outside

The trip from Raymond to Potlatch was long and I was starting to feel a little like I was dragging an anchor behind me. My attitude was good, but my legs definitely didn't have quite the snap to them that they had had in the morning. My speed kept dropping off and might have dropped to zero if I hadn't encountered Brad Hawkins. We were approaching Potlatch State Park as the sun was setting and we worked together and seemed to give each other a little boost as we knocked off that last few miles. Brad burst into song at the sight of the contrôle.

Brad pulling me into Potlatch

The Potlatch contrôle run by Shane and his wife was the best setup I have yet to encounter on an SIR brevet. And that's saying something. They were making fresh homemade french fries (with lots of salt - yum),  soup, an espresso machine... In retrospect, I might have made that last ferry if I had just filled my bottles at the contrôle, grabbed a couple of cookies and got back on the road. But it was far too easy to stay and enjoy the party. I was there for over half an hour.

 

Potlatch - best contrôle EVER!

By the time I pulled out of Potlatch I knew I had no chance of catching the ferry so I took my time and savored the last leg. It was soon dark and the roads were becoming emptier with each mile. Deep into the Old Belfair Highway, with no street lights or house lights, and a moonless sky I could hear a chorus of coyotes not far from the road, yipping and howling like frat boys at spring break. Times like this are why I love randonneuring.

As you've already gathered from the beginning of this post, I made it to the finish eventually but missed the last ferry of the night. I actually got a decent few hours of sleep sharing a room with three other randonneurs. The ferry ride and the ride home from the ferry dock the next morning were glorious. It was another beautiful day, and though it was a little painful to be back on the bike so soon, I was happy to be heading for home after such a great adventure.

400k Plans and Grant's in Town

The sun is shining, the birds are out doing their cute little birdy things and rando season is in full swing. This weekend in rando-land, I’ll be riding the SIR Spring 400k. This 400k brevet will follow a fairly flat route. It leaves from Bremerton and heads out to Westport on the coast via Shelton and Cosmopolis. From Westport we head south along the coast to Raymond and then turn north on highway 101 and other side roads up to Potlatch State Park on Hood Canal’s funny bone. From Potlatch, it’s back to Bremerton pretty much the same way we came in the morning but in reverse.

SIR Spring 400k Route on Bike Route Toaster

I rode this same route two years ago, and with such a flat route and good weather quite a few Seattle Randonneurs were able to set a personal best for a 400k, myself included. This year I’ll be riding my single speed so I have no plans to set any new records, personal or otherwise. I do have a goal for the ride, but it’s going to be long shot. The last ferry from Bremerton to Seattle leaves at 11:40pm. My goal is to be on that last ferry. That means finishing the ride in about 16 hours and 30 minutes. That’s a huge stretch for me on a single speed bike. I can only spin those cranks so fast, so the key will be minimizing my time off the bike. I think if I keep my time off the bike to less than 45 minutes, then I’ve got a shot at making the ferry. But it’s amazing how easy it is to use up 45 minutes over the course of a 400k ride.

Luckily it’s not the end of the world if I don’t make it. SIR will have a room or two at the finish so there will be a warm place to nap until the ferries start running again on Sunday morning. Chances are good I’ll be sharing a room with a few smelly, snoring randonneurs Saturday night.

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By the way, to get inspired for the 400k I might try to stop by Free Range Cycles in Fremont on Friday evening to see Grant Peterson talking about double top tubes, flat pedals, long quill stems or whatever it is that he'll be talking about. Grant is in Seattle promoting his new book, Just Ride: A Radically Practical Guide to Riding Your Bike. I don't agree with some of Grant's opinions and design choices, but I definitely plan on reading his book, and I have great respect and appreciation for the "radically practical" influence he has had on all things bicycling over the years. As a matter of fact, if I were to build a momument to the founding fathers of practical cycling, it would probably include the oversized likenesses of Grant Peterson, Eben Weiss and the late Sheldon Brown carved into a mountain side, like three-fourths of Mt. Rushmore but with faces only a bike nerd would recognize.

Flèche 2012

I rode in my first flèche this past weekend. It was a lot of fun and definitely not like any other Randonneuring event I've ever done before.

The object of a flèche seems to be as much about finding places to hang out and kill time as it is about riding. Don't get me wrong. We rode 370 kilometers. That's a long ways to ride no matter what. But it's definitely not enough riding to use up all 24 hours. So, that out of balance time-to-kilometers ratio leads to a fair amount of stupid stuff like hanging out in restaurants with fish and chickens all over the walls, sleeping in post offices and riding interesting looking trails that you think might go where you want to go even though you really have no idea where they go.


The obligatory "riding to the flèche panda"



My trusty steed at the Seattle ferry dock

I started this adventure by riding downtown to meet my teammates Gary, Dave and Joe. After a cup of coffee at cafe D'arte we headed down to the ferry dock to get our picture taken while the Gilligan's Island theme song played in the background ("a three hour tour/ a three hour tour...").

The Olympic Discovery team waiting for the ferry

Off the ferry, we made a quick stop at Classic Cycle (a very cool bike shop, worth a visit next time you're on the island) to get our cards signed for the official start, and then we headed off up Hwy 305 to begin 24 hours of cycling and time-killing.

Dave taking the lead on Bainbridge Island

From Winslow to Port Townsend, the roads were dry and the weather was perfect.

Nice quiet and notably dry roads

Gary with enough clothes in that pannier to last a month

Approaching Port Townsend we made our first unplanned detour by jumping on the Pacific Northwest trail. The trail is unpaved, but definitely the more fun than riding on the busy highway.

The team on the trail

Approaching Port Townsend

In Port Townsend we met up with Jon Muellner, a fellow Seattle Randonneur who lives there. While sitting there chatting with Jon in Port Townsend I was beginning to realize that I needed to adjust my thinking for the flèche. Normally on brevets I'm trying to get through controls as quickly and efficiently as possible. I rarely just sit and relax. With my brain in brevet mode the sitting was making me feel like a New Yorker who just got off the plane in the Bahamas and hadn't adjusted to island time yet. I was anxious to get moving. Luckily the adjustment didn't take long. By the time we rolled out of PT, I was already shifting gears (figuratively... no real gear shifting on a single speed bike).

From Port Townsend to Sequim we managed to stay off of the highway for most of the trip. First we found the Larry Scott Memorial trail, another unpaved multi-use trail that weaves and rolls its way out of Port Townsend and eventually turned to single track. Then we jumped on every road we found that paralleled highway 101 until we got on the Olympic Discovery trail which parallels 101 some more and goes on for miles and miles. I'm sure it wasn't the most direct route, but it made for some lovely riding.

Trestle on the Olympic Discovery trail

Between Port Townsend and Sequim we saw our only real rain of the trip and a bit of hail (always fun on a bike), but the sun found us too and the weather was definitely nothing to complain about. Yet.

Sunshine has us totally confused

Gary dropping us as usual

Near Sequim on the trail

In Sequim we had an excellent Mexican dinner with a frosty hoppy beverage to wash it down. We were all still feeling strong and fresh. Meanwhile, outside the sun was setting and the temperature was dropping ("a three hour tour/ a three hour tour...").

When I was working out our route, I remember looking at the town of Quilcene on Google Maps and thinking, "a town like that has got to have a bar that stays open until two, right?" "I mean, what else would people in Quilcene do on a Friday night?" Quilcene would have been a great place to stop and warm up a bit on our long 110 mile stretch from Sequim to Elma. Unfortunately the poor souls of Quilcene have to go someplace else to shoot pool, quaff a beverage and share some craic with their mates. There was nothing open in Quilcene when we rolled through at about 11 pm. So, that left us with a full night of riding and 110 miles of road with no services of any kind.

Actually, it's not accurate to say "no services of any kind." Randonneurs are nothing if not resourceful. While most people might look at a post office and see only a place to pick up and drop off mail, a randonneur might see a five star hotel.

Lilliwaup PO: Your tax dollars at work

The thermometer on the bank in Hoodsport read 28 degrees when we went by. The temperature dropped quite noticeably after that as we climbed through the hills near Matlock. I'd guess it was somewhere in the low 20s.

We arrived in Elma as the eastern sky was beginning to glow purple, and promptly found the Rusty Tractor Family Restaurant, which at the time seemed like a kitschy Shangri la.

The Rusty Tractor in Elma

You had to be there...

Spirits and heads were drooping a bit in the Rusty Tractor.

Gary providing inspiration to the team

I don't think Dave said anything intelligible after this. And we were still a five hours away from Olympia.

But with a fifty year old cheerleader for a waitress backing us 110% we were able to hold it together and get back on the bikes for the trip to the 22 hour control two hours away in Rochester.

The wind blew in our faces pretty much all the way to Rochester, and then again from Rochester to Olympia. But by then we knew it was in the bag. There was nothing left to do but keep pedalling until we were greeted at the Governor Hotel in Olympia by a smiling Don and Mimi Boothby. It was 12:10 pm Saturday.

As much fun as it was riding through the freezing night (cough, cough), I have to say that my favorite part of the fléche was the banquet the next morning. It was fascinating and entertaining to hear the tales of adventure and misadventure from the other teams.

Thanks to Josh Morse and Seattle Randonneurs for putting on a great event.

On Randonneuring and Time

Wet pavement, gray skies, pickup trucks and single-wides...

March: In like a lion, out like a soggy, hypothermic ruminant. That’s what we say up here in Seattle anyway. And the saying was dead-on accurate on Saturday as I rode the Seattle Randonneurs 300k. The ride started in the dark with a cold hard rain falling, and though the sun came up an hour or so into the ride, it was pretty hard to tell.

I spent the first half of the ride from Tacoma to Centralia and back up to Olympia riding with Todd Sahl and Andy Ziegler. Todd and Andy are strong riders, nice guys and great riding partners, but together we managed to sort of bungle our way through the first 100 kilometers.

First we missed a turn on our way out of Tacoma, venturing a couple miles off course. After a couple of sessions of head scratching and smart phone consulting we figured out where we were and got ourselves back on the route.

Then a couple hours later Andy got a flat tire. Andy’s hands were too cold and numb to deal with fixing the flat so Todd and I got to work on it. We got the new tube in and pumped up and then the valve stem of the new tube came apart. Not a big deal, these things happen… However, while Todd and I were fumbling with the tire in the cold rain, Andy was going hypothermic. He was shivering uncontrollably and literally turning a pale shade of gray. Luckily there was an open Subway sandwich shop close by (isn’t that always the case?) so we decided to take our wheel in with us and fumble around with it in a slightly warmer environment. Andy had more clothes with him so he added dry layers while Todd and I fixed his flat for the second time. Eventually with mechanical issues sorted out and core temperatures back to life-sustaining levels we were able to get back on the road.

By this point we were only about 50 km into the ride and well behind all of the other riders but we rode hard to make up lost time and to stay warm. We were making such good time (thanks in part to a tailwind) that by the time we got to Olympia, about half way through the ride, we had caught up with the most of the other riders.

At the Blue Heron bakery in Olympia I had a yummy Spinach and Ricotta croissant and would have had five more if it hadn't been the last one. I was a bit worried about staying too long because I knew my core temp would drop quickly and it would take a long time to warm up again if I didn't get moving quickly. Also, my legs were pretty cooked from keeping up with Todd and Andy in tailwinds for much of the morning. I was on my single speed bike and they were both fully geared which meant a lot of time with them in their big gears pedaling along casually at 25 mph while I was spinning like an eggbeater on speed. Todd and Andy wanted to stay for a while to have some coffee, so I told them I was going to take off at my own pace and see them down the road a ways when they caught up.

That was the last I saw of Andy and Todd other than a brief fly-by on the out-and-back section out to Hoodsport. Apparently Andy had had another flat that kept them from catching up to me. So I was mostly alone for the last 90 miles of the ride.

The weather never really cleared up for the rest of the day, but at least it went from constant rain to intermittent drizzly showers. The sun even managed to peek through the clouds a time or two as I meandered along the shore of Hood Canal on highway 106.

Hood Canal from Hwy 106

I spent a lot of that alone time thinking about the relationship between Randonneurs and time. Someday, thousands of years from now, the language of the Randonneur will have adapted to the Randonneur's environment similarly to how the Inuit languages have adapted to the Inuit's environment. They say Eskimos have [insert made up number here] words for snow (cough, cough, urban legend, cough). Perhaps Randonneurs will develop a rich language to describe the many various flavors of the passage of time experienced while pedaling a bike miles from nowhere.

There's the time left behind you on the road you've already traveled, limp and empty, like a discarded banana peel, its usefulness completely depleted.

And the time that lies before you when you're all alone, the sun is setting and you're not even close enough to the finish to start counting the miles yet. That time flows toward you like dark cold molasses oozing down a 1% slope. And then a headwind comes up and the slope goes from 1% to 0%. The molasses is still flowing out in all directions, but only imperceptibly so.

Time standing still

Then there's the time that swirls around you like a dust devil on a scorching day, while you're at the control but trying to get in and out quickly so you can stay with a fast group. "Fill the bottles, get the card signed, put on sunscreen, get some food for the next leg..." "Oh crap, there goes the group and I still need to pee!"

Of course there will be a special word for the Randonneur's version of Zeno's dichotomy paradox. I've experienced this one many times... "I'm moving 10 mph, and I'm 10 miles from the pass. I'll be there in an hour." Then a little later, "Now I'm moving 8 mph and I'm still 8 miles from the pass. Just one more hour..." Then a little later, "6 more miles to the pass and I'm rolling at..." (looks at speedometer and groans).

Or maybe we'll just develop a rich and complex language to describe saddle sores.

Tacoma is a lot of things, but it ain't Purdy

Anyway, my afternoon alone was long and quiet but really pretty pleasant. I was riding at a more comfortable pace but still making decent time, or at least decent enough to be able to finish before the sun had gone down. As I approached the Tacoma narrows bridge, the rain had stopped for long enough to tempt me into taking off my rain coat. And then as soon as I was across the bridge the rain started again (There will someday be a Rando word for that too).

A brief sun break as I approach the narrows bridge

This was my longest ride to date on a single speed, and I finished feeling purdy good. It seems like the 400k is doable, though I have to keep in mind that this 300k was an extremely flat route.

Next weekend is the flèche. Randos already have their own word for that.

What a Difference a Week Can Make

Yesterday the Seattle Randonneurs Spring 300k brevet was held on what turned out to be a beautiful spring day. There were some clouds here and there, but there was also a fair amount of sunshine, and the temperatures were warm enough to entice a few riders to show off their blindingly pale arms and legs.

I wasn't riding in this event. No, I was one of the martyrs who made the sacrifice to the velo weather gods (their names are Campagnolo and Shimano) last weekend by attempting to preride the route in a blizzard. But I was glad to do it to assure perfect weather for yesterday's ride.

Just so I could get a little riding in this weekend, I rode my bike up to Machias where I was helping to man the penultimate control on the 300k. I have to admit I was startled when I looked over and saw this stranger next to me as I was approaching Snohomish.

I had a great time hanging out at Machias and seeing a lot of my fellow Seattle randonneurs as they came through the control. The perspective you get hanging out in a control and watching everyone flow through is so different than what you experience from the saddle of your bike in the midst of the pack of a long brevet. Often when I ride a brevet, I'll see everyone at the start for a few minutes, but we quickly scatter ourselves across the field and then it's not unusual for me to see only a handful of other riders for the rest of the ride. Hanging out at a control is sort of like seeing that MRI slice through the brain of the entire rando club. You can clearly see the similarities and differences between the "fast boys" (apologies for being sexist, but they were all boys) who come blazing through on their carbon fiber race bikes (except Jan of course), and the mid-pack crowd, all smiles and getting their money's worth out of the ride. Unfortunately I had to leave before the lantern rouge crowd came through, but I bet most of them were smiling too since they were getting the most ride for their money.

Even though I hadn't ridden nearly as far as the brevet riders, my ride home felt like the end of an epic journey. I was alone on mostly empty roads.

As the sun set and I rode on into the night, it was cool but I was comfortable without having to put on every piece of clothing I had with me. It reminded me of so many other nights riding brevets as I rode on lonesome roads alone from daytime into night. That experience has always been one of my favorites of randonneuring. Ah, what a difference a week can make.