2010 Cycling Recap

I've been off the bike for the last few days. Between holiday activities and icy roads it seems like a good time to stay indoors and reflect on what I did on a bike in the past year and think about goals for the coming year.

At the end of last year one of my goals was to spend less time riding. In 2009, my first year of randonneuring, I went a little nutso and spent what felt to me like a little too much time on a bike. In 2010 I was successful in dialing back the amount I rode, and yet luckily was still able to achieve all of my randonneuring goals. Basically, I cut out most of the long training rides and just rode the official randonneuring events and continued to commute to work by bike. Initially I was a little afraid I wouldn't be in shape for some of the tougher events, but I managed to get by. On the rare occasions that I did get out for a training ride, I kept it short and intense.

My rando goals for the year were to complete another Super Randonneur series (200k, 300, 400k and 600k brevets), get an R-12 award (an official rando ride of 200k or more in 12 consecutive months), and finish the Cascade 1200. I achieved those goals by riding a total of 4680km (2908 miles) of rando events. I'm sure there was a fair amount of pain and suffering in all those kilometers, but I can only remember having a great time on every event I rode. Some of the highlights were the fastest 300k I'll ever ride, the four passes 600k, the Cascade 1200 and the Winter Solstice ride.

The rando medals I earned this past year.

My commute amounted to a little over 3,000 miles for the year. That's about 44% of the total 6876 miles I rode in 2010. I feel very lucky to be able to commute by bicycle. I still enjoy the ride on all but the crappiest days.

Once again, nearly half of the miles I rode were on a single speed bike. My main commuter bike is a single speed and I rode it on a few of the 200k rando events too. I think riding single speed is a big part of what keeps me in shape well enough to survive the harder rando events.

In 2011 I really only have one serious cycling goal: ride in and finish the 2011 Paris-Brest-Paris Grand Randonnee, the granddaddy of randonneuring events. I'll still need to complete a SR series in order to qualify for PBP, so it's not like I'll be sitting around doing nothing for the first half of the year. :)

Solstice - Waiting for the Eastern Glow

This past Saturday night I rode the Seattle Randonneur's Second Annual Winter Solstice Ride. Yes, I know we missed the actual solstice by three days, but for working stiffs like me doing the ride on Tuesday night would make for a rough day at work on Wednesday. Besides, from the saddle of a bike one long, cold, wet night looks much like any other.

The idea of the solstice ride is to take advantage of the longest night of the year by spending as much of it as possible on a bike. It's a 200k ride that starts at 8:30pm, so if you ride slow enough you can roll into the finish just as the sun is peaking over the eastern hills. That of course assumes the sun does any peaking at all which it rarely does around the Winter solstice in western Washington. The ride was also billed as a Festivus celebration so it included the traditional Festivus pole, airing of grievances, and feats of strength.


About 25 of my hardy randonneuring buddies showed up at the start at Peet's Coffee in Redmond. Also at the start was a documentary film maker named Dan McComb. Dan is working on a feature length documentary called Beyond Naked that follows some "ordinary" folks as they prepare to ride in the Fremont Solstice Parade naked bike ride. Somehow Dan heard about our ride and decided to incorporate it into his film. I suppose our solstice ride makes a nice compliment to the annual naked ride in Fremont because of the obvious similarities. For instance, riders in both events probably wish they had more clothes on at times, and in both events many of the people who see the riders probably think they're totally crazy or maybe just dumb. It's also possible Dan, desperate for material, just Googled "bikes and solstice" and we were the only thing that came up.

I decided to decorate my bike for the event, so I zip-tied and duct taped some battery powered christmas lights to the frame and the wheels. Though it's hard to make out the lights, here she is anxious to roll outside Peet's at the start.


The lights were a big hit, especially once we got away from street lights of the city though the high-speed wobble that comes from duct-taping battery packs to the rims is a little spooky on the high-speed descents. A weight weenie I am not.


The route was a big loop that went from Redmond up to North Bend, then through Issaquah, Maple Valley, Renton and up around the north end of Lake Washington back to Redmond. It was about 38 degrees at the start and the moon and stars were out which was a bad sign. Clear skys mean cold and ice.

Sure enough as soon as we came over Novelty Hill into the Snoqualmie Valley, the temperature dropped and the roads turned very icy. I had ridden the first part of the ride with some of the "fast boys", but at that point they all decided that while the idea of an all night ride sounded neat in theory, it wasn't worth risking a broken hip or dislocted shoulder for. So the fast boys all turned around and rode home. I decided to press on, so I slowed down and waited for some other riders to catch up. At least if I crashed and broke my hip there would be someone there to call 911. Not long after I was joined by a group of familiar faces including Greg Cox, Mark Van de Camp, Warb Beebe, Bill Dussler and Michael (whose last name I've forgotten).

As we started to climb up out of the valley toward Snoqualmie Falls the wind picked up and the temperature with it. We traded icy roads for vicious head winds which, all things considered, seemed like a reasonable trade. With tempertures back into the upper 30s the riding was almost comfortable for the next few hours.

By far the nicest part of the ride for me was from Fall City to Issaquah on the Issaquah Fall City Rd. The wind had died down and it was warm enough to keep the roads wet instead of icy. Dan and his film crew (of one) drove along and filmed our little group as we rode the winding ups and downs. It sort of made us feel like we were something special.

Halfway through the ride we stopped at a minimart for a bite to eat. It was 1:30am and the ride was going pretty well, considering. But as we pulled out the rain started to fall and within a few minutes it turned to snow. As we rode up May Valley road we were soaked by big fat snowflakes mixed with sleet and rain. Lovely stuff.

The snow and sleet continued for about an hour and a half as we continued on down to Maple Valley where Joe Platzner had kindly parked his RV and was serving up hot cup of noodles, coffee and other snacks. Dan and his film crew were there too and they filmed us gobbling down noodles. Dan asked me some questions about why we do what we do and I gave completely incoherent answers which I'm going to blame on the time (about 3:30am), the cold (about 35 degrees) and on my IQ (low 70s). Hopefully none of that interview makes it past the editing process.

Another shot of my bike in the dark:


From Maple Valley on, the ride was uneventful and pleasant. There wasn't a lot of talking as we were all ready to get to the end and get out of the cold. Led Zeppelin's Battle of Evermore was playing in my head ("Oh well, the night is long, the beads of time pass slow/Tired eyes on the sunrise, waiting for the eastern glow"). We timed it right as the sun was indeed starting to show itself as we rolled into the parking lot at Peet's Coffee. I think it was around 7:00am when we finished.

As with all good randonneuring events, the painful memories of cold, rain, snow, wrong turns and endless hills had almost completely evaporated as I loaded my bike into the car for the drive home. Thanks to Joe P for throwing a heck of a Festivus party!

Bring it!

Crappy photos courtesy of my crappy cell phone.

Seattle got it's first good winter blast this week and as usual it brought the city to a standstill (If Canada would just keep it's weather to itself we wouldn't have these problems). Anyway, I'm usually pretty wimpy when it comes to bicycling on snow and ice so I rode the bus to work on Monday when I saw snow in the forecast. And snow it did. The commute home Monday night was a mess. I got on a bus in the bus tunnel around 5:00, and by 6:00 the bus was only about two blocks past the end of the bus tunnel and going nowhere. From there I took matters into my own hands and got off the bus and started walking. It was really quite a fun adventure to walk home in the midst of a blizzard, passing hundreds of cars doing little more than idling and sliding. It took me about an hour and a half to walk the six miles from downtown Seattle to Ravenna where Sarah came and picked me up about a quarter mile from home. I'm pretty sure I beat the bus.

While I was walking, I saw three or four cyclists go by. They seemed to be getting along reasonably well in the snow. The only thing about it that looked a little scary was all of the two-ton four-wheeled hockey pucks sliding around on the road around them.

But mostly I was inspired. I worked from home on Tuesday, but by Wednesday morning with a bit of cabin fever starting to settle in and the snow still on the ground, I decided to give biking to work in the snow a try.


The roads in our neighborhood were hard-packed with some icy patches. The main arterials had been plowed and had some pavement showing through, but mostly I stay off of the main arterials on my route to work. It definitely wasn't my fastest ride to work. It usually takes me about 35 minutes each way, but today it took nearly an hour.


My bike probably doesn't have the ideal setup for riding in the snow with standard 28mm road tires. Still, it was much easier than I had expected. I did a little bit of squirreling around on some of the icy patches, but managed to keep the shiny side off the road for the whole trip. I have to admit, I had more fun riding in to work this morning than I've had in a long time. I mean, I'm not ready to move to Minnesota or anything, but… well… bring it on!

There's hardcore and then there's hardcore

Last Sunday was Halloween so I decided to dress up as a Randonneur and go for a ride. This was a special ride for a number of reasons:

1. This was my twelfth consecutive month with an official rando ride of 200km or more thus earning my first R-12 award.
2. It was the first real ride on my new bike, a Velo Orange Randonneur.
3. It was Halloween. duh.
4. It didn't rain even though it was late October. Well, it didn't rain much.
5. Near the end of the ride I rode through the drunken procession to a Sounder's game at Quest stadium... on Halloween!! (The only thing more entertaining than a bunch of drunk Sounder's fans in full green game regalia, is a bunch of drunk Sounder's fans in Halloween day full green game regalia.)
6. And if the Sounder's fan's weren't enough, I finished the ride on the top of Queen Anne where thousands of miniature Power Rangers, Princesses, Sponge Bobs, Wonder Women, Cowboys, Storm Troopers and Mermaids were parading down Queen Anne Ave and harassing the local merchants for free candy.

I really couldn't have asked for a better ride to put a fork in 12 months of Randonneuring.

The route started and ended on the top of Queen Anne. It headed North up to Edmonds, then over to Woodinville, Snohomish, Monroe, South through the Snoqualamie river valley to Fall City, on around the south end of lake Washington, and finally through downtown Seattle and back to the top of Queen Anne.

A nice Raleigh Superbe at the ferry terminal in Edmonds

I really enjoyed this entire route. It was a great mix of urban and quiet country roads. It had a bit of suburbs too which I'm never fond of, but you just can't get from the city to the country without going through the 'burbs.

The weather was pretty fantastic all day too. Cool, mostly clear, a few sprinkles but I never really got wet.

My new 'neuse taking a break near Carnation

Ah, and the new bike seems to be working out very well. It rides like a Cadillac, very smooth and steady. It's not a bike to win a Criterium on, but it loves to gobble up the miles. Even though I haven't been riding a lot lately, I felt good at the end of the fairly hilly 200km and I attribute that to the ride quality of this bike. It also doesn't hurt that it's a couple pounds lighter than the old Cross Check.

This sort of reminded me of that Rembrandt painting with all the guys standing around looking at a cadaver.

As I came through the Mt Baker/I-90 tunnel heading for Queen Anne and the end of the ride, I came upon a bike polo game underway in Judkins Park. Some people think I'm hardcore because of the long rides I do. Pffffft! These guys playing bike polo? They are hardcore! I was humbled watching what they could do on a bike.

Semi hardcore - Bike polo in Judkins Park.

Anyway, overall it was another perfect day on a bike. And I even made it home in plenty of time to head out trick-or-treating with Adam. Wait... did I say the bike polo guys are hardcore? Maybe, but Adam trick-or-treating is as hardcore as it gets.

Mountain Loop Highway 200k

Early last week as I was riding my usual route in to work, I ran into one of my fellow Seattle randonneurs, Gary Prince. We rolled through the downtown traffic talking about upcoming rides and the fact that neither of us really had the time to drive all the way up to Bellingham for this weekend's scheduled 400k brevet. I had been thinking of doing a 200k permanent closer to home and Gary liked the sounds of that so we made plans to do the Mountain Loop Highway permanent on Saturday.

I've wanted to do the Mountain Loop Highway permanent for quite a while. I was intrigued by 14 miles of unpaved and seldom traveled road. Somehow the lack of pavement translated to adventure in my mind; not exactly exploring-the-upper-Amazon adventure, but still something more interesting than just another lap around Lake Washington.

So I picked Gary up early Saturday morning and we drove up to Snohomish for the start of our little adventure. The route starts in downtown Snohomish and heads up the Centennial trail for a bit until it jumps off and follows bucolic backroads to Arlington. From Arlington the route heads east on highway 530 to Darrington, then turns right and follows the Mountain Loop Highway over Barlow pass and on down to Granite Falls. Some more back roads from Granite Falls get you back to Snohomish, but not before doing a few odd twists and turns to make sure you don't miss any of steep hills along the way. The 14 miles leading up to Barlow Pass are all unpaved and make the gradual climb a little more challenging.

We parked in front of the antique store where I eyed the selection of cowboy boots, contemplating whether I was properly outfitted for our little adventure. Gary was hoping to hit the bakery across the street before we got started, but they weren't open yet so we opted for stale donuts at the 7-11 and had a nice chat with the guy working there before taking off just after 7 AM.

The first 25 miles to Arlington were about as pleasant as a ride can be. The temperature was upper 50s and the scattered clouds were getting more scattered by the minute. I mentioned the bucolic back roads, right?



We took our time at the first control in Arlington and sat down with a cup of coffee and my second donut of the day (chocolate old-fashioned this time). Gary made some comments about the way I eat on Rando rides. Ok, generally I'm a pretty healthy eater, but for some reason when I'm on a long ride good nutrition and all that great food culture stuff that Michael Pollan writes about get tossed out like some wilted organic lettuce that's been hiding out for too long in the crisper drawer. For me, ride food is not really food, it's fuel. My body doesn't seem to be too picky about fuel. It has simple needs. Sugar for energy. Salt to replace the lost electrolytes. Fat... um, because it tastes good.

So, after a nice leisurely breakfast stop we headed east on highway 530 toward Darrington. This stretch of highway isn't bad, but it's the busiest road on the route. Cars and trucks whiz by pretty consistently at 50 mph and keep you focused on that fog line.



In Darrington, again we took some time to sit and relax and enjoy a bite too eat, this time I had a relatively healthy sandwich. Apparently Gary had made me self-conscious about my eating habits.



As soon as we left Darrington the road became much quieter and started tilting upward ever so slightly. A few more miles out of town the pavement ends. The road has a pot hole here and there and some washboard and loose gravel now and then, but for the most part it's pretty pleasant riding.



We stopped at a nice view point for wardrobe changes and other important business. The scenery was gorgeous, but of course I chose to take a picture of my bike instead. That's my converted single speed Bianchi Volpe. The climbing as we approached Barlow pass never got so steep that I regretted having only one gear.



In 14 miles of road leading up to the pass there are about 200' of pavement if you count the two bridges along the way.

After Barlow Pass, the highway heads slightly downhill for 30 miles on wonderful smooth pavement. Don't get me wrong, I really enjoyed the unpaved section, but after an hour of bumping along in the dirt, pavement feels like you're riding on a pool table.



Since we had already blown any chances for a speedy time by enjoying leisurely stops at the first two controls, we figured we may as well see the sights on this second half of the ride. First we stopped at the Big 4 picnic area to soak in the tourist thing. We had a nice chat with an old Italian guy there who seemed to know a thing or two about bikes. He asked if we had ever heard of "Campagnolo". Yep, we had both heard of the brand before.

We stopped again not long after Big 4 at the Verlot Ranger station to refill water bottles (for those of you planning to do this ride, make sure you fill up a couple of bottles in Darrington as it's the last chance for water until Verlot, 43 miles down the road). At the ranger station a guy approached us and asked if we were riding a permanent. This isn't the kind of question a normal person would ask. Then we noticed he was wearing a Cascade 1200 T-shirt from a few years ago. Nope, definitely not a normal person. His name was Dave Johnson and he said he used to ride the ML Highway back before it was a permanent. Apparently he's not riding much with SIR these days since neither Gary nor I knew him, but obviously he's spent a few hours on a bike in the past.

As we continued on toward Granite Falls, we passed a 70s (?) Rolls Royce Silver Shadow going the other direction. Apparently this would be a day for rare sitings, Randonneurs, British luxury cars... later we saw a cocky coyote trotting down the road looking like perhaps he had just eaten someone's cat.

In the final few kilometers of the route it does some odd twists and turns for no apparent purpose other than to send you up a hill that climbs a couple hundred feet in less than a half mile, the last part being probably a 10% - 12% grade. Gary grumbled about the hill being "completely gratuitous" and I shifted into my granny gear (i.e. I got off and walked). I'm pretty sure the course designer was just thinking it was a funny joke. But, the payoff was a screaming fast descent down into Snohomish which put a nice cherry on top of what was already a beauty of a ride.

Back at the Bakery in Snohomish ice cream seemed like just the thing. "This is about one hour of cycling" said Gary as he held up his generous scoop. Indeed, this is a big part of why I ride. Two donuts, two sandwiches, two bananas, two Starbucks Frappuccinos, a cookie and an ice cream cone, and it wasn't even dinner time yet.