Surprised Myself

WYSIWYG

I hate taking selfies, but here I am with helmet hair at 65 years old.

All this month I had been meaning to go for a 65 mile ride to commemorate this milestone birthday. I thought, given my usual average speeds, that the ride would take me at least six hours, maybe seven, so I procrastinated because I just haven't felt like devoting a whole day to logging miles around Whatcom County. Suddenly it's the last week of the month and the weather is iffy, with only a few days when rain isn't in the forecast.

Today, Wednesday, I woke early in the morning. My other plans for the day had been cancelled so it seemed like a good day to get out for a ride before the rains came. I didn't really feel like doing the whole 65 miles, but thought I'd head out to Everson and then maybe cruise through Lynden and add on other detours and loops, depending on how I felt.

People have told me I'm a diesel engine - I start slow, but once I get warmed up and get my steam up I keep going pretty strong for a long time, though maybe not very fast. When I got to the Glen Echo Community Center, about 20 miles from home, I was getting warm. I took a long way around to get to Lynden, coming in on Hampton Road, which is being repaved and widened, with new bike lanes. On the smooth, virgin blacktop I was zipping along at about 15mph, pretty fast for me, until flaggers and orange cones for the paving project appeared, and I had to stop for about 10 minutes until they waved traffic through. Not long after that the wind turned around and I had to fight to keep my speed up until I got on to Front Street in Lynden.

Conveniently, my odometer hit 30 miles just as I reached The Woods coffee shop, where I stopped for a snack break. After that I back-tracked down Front Street to Hannegan Road, planning to add on 10-mile or 5-mile increments to maybe eventually add up to 65 miles. Or not, if I didn't feel like it.

A new roundabout is under construction at Hannegan and Smith Road, so I turned off before that intersection, at Axton Road. There are a few small rolling hills on the first bit of Axton, and I had to push hard to get up the first, steepest ones, but after that I got the momentum and rhythm worked out and had a pretty speedy ride back toward Northwest Drive. By this time, at about 40 miles, I was fired up and decided to aim for the whole 65 miles. I began zigzagging around to add distance. Now I'm not exactly sure what route I followed.

By the time I crossed the freeway overpass to Main Street in Ferndale, I was still about 12 miles short, getting pretty tired, and it was beginning to rain. But I stuck it out, looping around the flat farm roads west of the Nooksack River, and finally returning to town by way of the gravel trail through Hovander Park.

My bike computer showed my time at 5:22:54, with a 12.1 average speed and 24.8 maximum, probably because of the construction delay on Hampton Road. My back was hurting in the last several miles, and now my legs are sore, but I'm pretty pleased with myself. If I hadn't been so pessimistic about how long the ride would take, I probably would have gone out earlier in the month. However, I usually ride faster in cool, rainy weather. Maybe I wouldn't do so well on a warm, sunny summer day.

On Woodlyn Road, at about 50 miles