Bragging Rights

If I felt my ride around the tulip fields was more tourism than training, I made up for it last weekend. On Friday I rode 42 miles from Ferndale through Bellingham, then along the Interurban trail, which runs along the hillside above Chuckanut Drive, then back home. The railroad grade is an easy ride among fresh spring greenery, and it's always interesting to see all the places where old trees blew down in winter storms, or rock slides let loose in the rainy season. Besides, after my evening yoga class was cancelled last week, I got out a "Yoga for Cyclists" dvd and practiced a bit on my own. I should definitely stay with that: between the yoga and skimming along the woodsy trail, I returned home feeling limber, refreshed and energetic.

Saturday was a rainy day spent indoors doing chores and housework. And planning a more challenging ride.

The Chuckanut-Colony Mountain Loop runs along Chuckanut Drive to the Colony Road turn-off a bit past the Zen Garden; Colony Road loops around, crosses under I-5 and comes out near the Alger Park & Ride, where you ride uphill and back over the freeway to Lake Samish Road, which becomes West Lake Samish Road, until you cross the little bridge, where it becomes North Lake Samish Road. I rode up the hill to the Shell station at the freeway overpass, where I turned left to Old Samish Road, and rode in to Fairhaven. This makes a hilly 30-mile loop, but since I started and finished in Ferndale I rode 62 miles.

It's a difficult, tiring ride because, even though there are lots of fun downhill stretches, they aren't really long enough to recover fully from the uphills and sections of short rollers. Actually, I padded the mileage a little by riding a mile around Ferndale at the end, to earn bragging rights by making my odometer roll over to 62 miles, a metric century.

The ride took a bit more than five hours, which is not so good, because I'm hoping to finish the Red-Bell Century in less than seven hours. But I believe that will be a flatter route. (I hope)