Ski2Sea

Loyal and well-prepared spectators

Memorial Day Weekend: Wet and Wetter. And the Ski to Sea race on Sunday. Around noon I went out to stand in the rain by the Nooksack River and watch the canoe racers pass under the bridge. My camera battery died after about sixty canoes has passed by, so I was unable to get any photos of the next leg of the race, the mountain bikers.

Yesterday, on Saturday, after a sunny thirty-mile ride in the afternoon, I put my bike up in the rack for a thorough clean & tune. So naturally I didn't want to ride it in the rain today. But maybe on the next sunny day I'll go out and see if I can find the bike race route - my Surly CrossCheck is sort of a basic-level cyclocross bike, and does pretty well on easier trails, though it doesn't have shocks.

Maybe this is why I think of Mark Twain so much

The canoeists pass off to the bikers at Hovander Park; then the mountain bikers ride on the road to the intersection of Main St. and Hovander Road, near the bridge, where they cross under the railway overpass on the sidewalk, then zigzag around the back of the Haggen shopping center parking lot before disappearing in the woods. I saw riders on mountain bikes, 29ers and cyclocross bikes, already muddy from the start because it rained heavily for a bit just as the first canoes were arriving. There are some pretty tight turns and curb-jumping through the intersection and parking lot, but I don't think the route can be awfully rough (not that I've tried it myself, yet).

Anyhow, here's a bunch of photos of hardy Pacific Northwest canoeists:

First team to reach the bridge

These guys raced side by side under the two bridges, before one pulled ahead

First women's team to reach the bridge, in eleventh place, I think.
Followed by many mixed teams, and more women's teams.

The bridges are 17.5 miles from the start, and one mile from the end of the 18.5 mile river course.

Tight Genes

These guys were digging in hard and pulling a big wake

Some teams were a little unsteady

Many grey-hairs among the early finishers

Fifty Shades of Green

The petunias baskets are back, a bit late and a little down-sized. We had a week or two of sunny weather when I started using my bike instead of the bus for errand running again, riding twenty-five or thirty miles a day, three or four times a week.

I still use the post office in Bellingham, even though my emergency move to Ferndale is now more than two years past - this was supposed to be a short-term arrangement. I've come to like it, though, even with having to make regular bus trips to Bellingham to pick up mail and do my laundry. A yoga studio opened recently just a ten minute walk away. If there was a bike shop and a laundromat in town I would definitely change my post office box to Ferndale. But then I would have to plan bike excursions, rather than riding because I need to get somewhere.

This barn blew down in an early windstorm last fall

And a job, too. I still need paychecks.

These photos are from one of the prettier stretches of my old commute route, a marsh separated by railroad tracks from Tennant Lake, which isn't much more than a marsh, either. In the morning the roadside is alive with goldfinches and red-winged blackbirds, and frogs chirping in the ditches. Riding through on my way home in the evening, I sometimes heard heavy splashes in the water, maybe otter or beaver.

This is the season when the roadsides suddenly change from dull brown blackberry thickets, bare tree trunks, dead leaves and dry grass to layers of green, green, green.

River Watch

Anyone thinking of competing in this year's Ski-to-Sea relay should probably start training pretty soon, as the race date is one month away.

Again this spring, I've been amazed by the changes in the water level of the Nooksack River. I'm trying to refrain from posting weekly updates of pre-race river conditions at the Ferndale bridge near the end of the river part of the race course, but here are some photos from this morning.

The water is quite low now, and last year's big log pile is gone, but there are a few trees stuck in the sand bars at the base of the railroad bridge.

Skagit Valley Tulips

The ride starts here.

Saturday morning we had sloppy snow and rain mixed. I've been watching the weather reports for weeks, trying to plan a ride to the Skagit Valley tulip fields, but the actual weather never seems to coincide with predictions. So I decided to go on Monday, whatever happened. I got lucky.

I cheated a bit and loaded my bike on the bus to ride between Bellingham and Mount Vernon. Just for reference, it's a bit less than a ten mile ride from the Ferndale Post Office to the Bellingham Transit Center.

I walk my bike across the bridge. Car traffic is fast,
and both the car lanes and the sidewalk are narrow.

It's been awhile since I've been to Mount Vernon, so I was surprised to see a new Park & Ride lot, the Chuckanut Transit Center in Burlington, by the new roundabout at the Hwy. 11/I-5 overpass. I stayed on the bus all the way to the Skagit station in Mount Vernon, which is also an Amtrak station.

Old downtown Mount Vernon is tiny and not very bicycle-friendly. (The newer shopping district on the other side of the freeway is Bicycle Hell.) To reach the tulip fields you cross the Skagit River on the Hwy. 20 bridge, which has no bike lanes and only one sidewalk. But once you get over that obstacle, MacLean Road has nice bike lanes and marked Tulip Routes on the farm roads that pass the most colorful fields.

I could have gotten off the bus at the Chuckanut Station and ridden generally south-west on Josh Wilson Road to Avon-Allen Road, then to MacLean Road to reach the tulip fields. You can also by-pass the bridge by riding south on old Hwy. 99 to the tiny town of Conway on Fir Island Road, which crosses the Skagit River, then loop back north to see the fields.

On this trip, many of the fields closest to the main roads were just plowed mud, maybe waiting for crops of potatoes, corn or pumpkins. I zigzagged around for miles. Then I'd see a thin line of red, yellow and pastel in the distance and ride five miles or so toward it, to find acres of colorful fields on both sides of the road.

Early-blooming daffodils begin to fade before the tulips bloom

Some of the fields are still budding, waiting for a few days of sun for the flowers to open. During sunny spells, you can bike past fields of green shoots with pale buds in the morning - maybe head for lunch in LaConner, reputed hang-out of novelist Tom Robbins - then ride by again in the afternoon on the return trip, after a few hours of sun, and find fields of brilliant color.

The roads are flat for miles, but sometimes you'll fight headwinds and sideways gusts.

So here's a bunch of eye-candy to lure you out on the road.

 

Alpacas this time, maybe next year's SmartWool

Shame on me

From the pedestrian overpass above Alabama Street.
This is probably the hardest hill-climb in Bellingham.
The Railroad Trail angles up Alabama Hill, but it's a steep railroad grade.

The last weekend of March, when we had a deceptively spring-like spell of weather, I set myself a small challenge: three consecutive thirty-mile rides. On Friday and Saturday I combined errands in Bellingham with a little trail-riding in Whatcom Falls Park. By Sunday I was feeling lazy and heavy in the legs, especially on hills, but I still rode about twenty-five miles around Ferndale. I just wanted to see how I felt doing some longish rides on consecutive days, rather than shorter weekday rides and a long weekend ride. I felt pretty good. I'd like to increase my distances so I can do some weekend trips over the summer.

My Sunday ride also fell into the job-search category. I rode around some shopping centers, office parks and light industrial/warehouse complexes that are within a comfortable bike-commuting distance, taking notes on businesses, which I research online when I get home. I have found some interesting leads this way, but nothing that's paid off yet.

Then the weather turned stormy again, and I have been shamefully lazy. I've been checking out DVDs from the library, so I can watch movies on my computer at home. I spent hours playing Scrabble on Facebook and cruising Craigslist, but I have actually found more interesting job advertisements on Craig's than anywhere else recently.