Back to the Bay

Tired of wearing a groove in the bike lanes on Northwest Drive, on Sunday I took a ride up to Birch Bay. The shortest route is only a little more than twelve miles, making a twenty-five mile round-trip, but I rambled around a bit and made it forty miles. With a stop to have ice cream and an americano on the beach.

The main bicycle route north out of Ferndale, on Vista Drive, is closed for paving and reconfiguration of lanes this summer - maybe I should have mentioned this earlier. For now the two alternate routes out of town are Portal Way, or Main Street to Mountain View Road, which is the direction I took.

From Mountain View, there are many turn-off roads to explore the small-farms and semi-rural neighborhoods in the hilly, sometimes woodsy area northwest of Ferndale. But I still bring a map with me if I plan to explore, and carry a little keychain compass, because it's easy to get confused and turned around, especially when you begin to get hot and thirsty. I remember one early ride when I could swear I crossed Kickerville Road three times. Finally I turned on to it, then rode up and down for two or three miles a couple of times because I couldn't tell whether I was going north or south, or remember which turn-off would take me back to Bellingham.

. . . but what about all those feet?

I believe this is a potato field in bloom

Sunday's view of Mount Baker

Going in Circles

The weather forecast over the next two days is for rain, thunder and lightning storms, with high temperatures up to 90F. This is an interesting prospect, I love summer storms.

On to another matter: this spring the city of Bellingham completed a second traffic roundabout on Northwest Avenue, at the McLeod Road intersection. This is just on the other side of I-5 from the roundabout put in at the freeway on/off ramps near Sterling Drive. Traffic moves pretty smoothly through both roundabouts during the day, though I haven't seen them during the morning or evening rush hours.

The older roundabout by Sterling Drive

But of course I have a couple of small complaints about the configuration of the bike lanes. I griped a bit previously about the first roundabout, where bicyclists riding through the roundabout have to cross the car turn lane leading to the freeway on-ramp from the bike lane. Riders who are nervous about trying to ride with the flow of car traffic can ride up on the sidewalk, then use the crosswalk to the south side of the street, but are then stuck on the sidewalk on the "wrong" side of the street until after crossing under the freeway. The next crosswalk to get back to the right side is at the entry to the McLeod Road roundabout.

The new roundabout is smooth and more symmetrical than the older one, and makes for a fun, easy, swooping downhill run under the freeway. My gripe here is that the bike lane on the downhill side is designed to guide bicyclists up on the sidewalk, rather than directing them to ride through with cars. On the uphill side, going up Northwest Ave. to Bakerview, I belong on the sidewalk going through both roundabouts, and most cyclists would slow car traffic down and annoy drivers.

The new roundabout at McLeod Road. You can kind of see
under the black truck where the bike lane heads up on the sidewalk

As I said in my previous post, on the downhill ride in to town, it is very easy for cyclists, even arthritic middle-aged ladies like me, to get going as fast as car traffic. In fact, I usually have to slow down to avoid over-taking cars going through the roundabouts. Most experienced, confident adult riders would probably prefer to stay on the street through both circles, but these intersections are close to Shuksan Middle School so maybe the lanes were designed with safe routes to school in mind.

Warning Signs

You think someone really means something by this?

Feeling the Heat

"Horses sweat, men perspire, children glow, and ladies feel the heat." - anonymous

Sunday afternoon was the hottest day of the summer, so far. I'd been out for a few 25-30 mile rides during the week before, so after going out for espresso and pastry in the morning, I decided to set up my bike repair stand in the parking space behind my apartment and spend the afternoon cleaning my bikes instead of riding. I worked from about noon until three or three-thirty in full sun, surrounded by black-top pavement, but it was breezy enough that I never felt especially warm, until just about the time I was finishing up, when I suddenly felt sweaty and flushed with heat. I was starting to have some back pain, and my bad left leg was hurting after being on my feet for more than three hours without a break. I'd been drinking a big iced americano coffee, and when I lifted my bike down from the rack I felt very full of fluid and needed to pee urgently, but when I went to the bathroom I couldn't. I took a cool shower and started drinking ice water, but my lower back, neck and shoulders were painfully tense. About twice an hour I felt the need to pee, but only produced a burning trickle of urine. I decided that was just from nerves, but I was feeling worse every time, so I put a cold pack on my neck and back and lay down on the floor to nap in front of my electric fan for a couple of hours. I wasn't sunburned at all, despite spending  three hours in the afternoon sun.

When I woke up I felt a bit better and ate a little bland dinner - teriyaki chicken and vegetables with rice - but still couldn't urinate much despite drinking quarts of water. I sat up reading for a few hours and went to bed around eleven. By that time I was having chills, though my apartment still felt warm, and I slept rolled up in a sheet and shivering, curled up in a painfully tense fetal position. But all the water I'd been drinking finally started working through my system, so I had to get up at least once an hour to go to the bathroom and didn't get much sleep.

Monday morning I was up early, still feeling stiff and sore and exhausted, and did some very easy yoga exercises. I switched to drinking Vitamin Water or Powerade instead of plain water, and ate salty nuts and buttered toast. I went out to do a few errands by bus, but by mid-morning I was so sleepy and confused that I went home and spent most of the rest of day napping.

Tuesday morning, and I'm up early again, which is a nice habit I'd like to keep. And I really need to get my caffeine habit under control. I'm not sure whether I was suffering from dehydration, heat exhaustion or heat stroke, or what. The temperature on Sunday was not much above ninety, but I spent the hottest part of the afternoon in a hot parking lot, and I probably wasn't too conscientious about proper hydration and diet during the week before, so the heat snuck up on me.