Ready Now

For Saturday, I had planned an 85-mile round-trip ride (Ferndale-LaConner-Ferndale) but deviations from the route I mapped on Google turned the ride into 92 miles. Out of habit, I turned off Hwy. 11 south of Chuckanut Drive and rode through the tiny towns of Bow and Edison, before realizing my Google cue-sheet gave other directions. Referring to my Skagit County map, I decided to follow Farm-to-Market Road as far as Young Road, then zag over to LaConner-Whitney Road in to LaConner. There was one short but steep hill on Farm-to-Market that I couldn't take, and had to dismount and walk half-way up, but otherwise I enjoyed a nice tailwind going south, though I was aware all the way that the ride home would be harder.

Tulips in the spring, wheat in the summer

On the return trip I rode LaConner-Whitney to MacLean Road and on in to Mount Vernon. The town seems to be going through a general remodelling right now - there are lots of vacant storefronts, and the waterfront boardwalk, usually the site of a summer Saturday Farmer's Market, is being rebuilt. I stopped to rest and read my maps again, and decided to turn back and follow Avon-Allen Road back to Hwy. 11/ Chuckant Drive. This turn-off is a little bit tricky: just before Hwy. 11 is an intersection with Sam Bell Road, where it's tempting to turn left, but that would send you out to Padilla Bay and Samish Island, which is a whole ride for another day.

The Skagit Valley farms seem to be less mono-culture than they have been: tulip and daffodil fields are now planted with wheat and pumpkins or squash, and there are tree and blueberry or strawberry farms, which smell delightful just now.

Edward R. Murrow lived here, according to local legend

Chuckanut Drive, as I've mentioned before, is a beautiful but difficult ride because of the short rollers, rough pavement and narrow road. The Samish flats are difficult going north as well because of the prevailing headwind, so I was pretty tired and weaving a bit on Hwy 11 as I approached Chuckanut Drive. My odometer turned 3000 miles just past the Edward R. Murrow house, where the Chuckanut rollers begin, but I had to ride on a half mile or so before I could stop safely to celebrate with a Clif bar and a slug of Powerade.

I got fired up somewhere along the way and made the last hillclimb before Fairhaven pretty well, and was just past the 80-mile mark near Boundary Bay Brewery in downtown Bellingham. This will be the finish area of the Red-Bell 100 next Saturday. However, after eighty miles on that day, I would still be back somewhere on Hwy. 11, just approaching Chuckanut. Still, yesterday I had to ride twelve miles more to get home, and the 92-mile ride is pretty close to a century, so now I feel confident I can last for the whole ride. I probably won't make it in less than seven hours, but maybe eight, and I expect I can get back in time to catch the #27 bus back to Ferndale after the finish party at Boundary Bay. If not, I might have to sleep in a doorway or something, and crawl home on Sunday morning.

Postcards from LaConner:

Swinomish Tribal Center, across the channel from LaConner

Nice weather for March

Too bad it's June. I had planned an eighty mile ride for one of my days off last week, Friday, Saturday or Sunday, but the weather turned stormy and I only managed a few 25-35 mile rides all week.

Next week I only have one more day of class, a review session, then a two-hour final exam. (I think, but the professor seems to be improvising the syllabus in these last few weeks.) I'll need to find some study time, but I'm hoping to fit in a long ride some time during the week, weather permitting.

I have noticed I don't recover as quickly from longer rides as I did back in 2007, when I trained and rode the Seattle-to-Portland. Rides of 30-35 miles are comfortable and refreshing for me; 45-55 miles is pushing a bit; sixty miles or more and I feel tired, spacey and dragged out the next day. Now that I've worked up to the 60+ range I have to make sure to eat well to be fueled up for a long ride - but when the weather turns bad, I don't burn off the calories the way I'd expected. I don't really ride hard enough to have sore muscles, except for stiffness in my back, I just feel very fatigued afterwards. By contrast, the summer I rode with Team in Training for the STP, the training program actually made me feel more energetic. Of course, I'm seven years older now, but I'm not sure whether it's age, or that I'm riding alone, without the support and enthusiasm of teammates, that makes me feel sometimes as if I'm just grinding along out of stubbornness.

In fact, this spell of rainy weather has reminded me of how I trudged through the winter day-to-day when I wasn't working. I will really need to pull myself together and find better use for my time. After spring quarter ends, I'm finished with school; then I'll ride the Red-Bell 100 on June 28. Then I have no other plans.

Sumas & Vicinity

Finally, I passed the 62-mile barrier with a seventy mile ride on Sunday. I've been wanting to ride to Silver Lake Park, very near to the Canadian border, about thirty-three miles northeast of Ferndale. I planned a route on Google maps, which gave me three alternative routes, but unfortunately the map I printed out didn't show very many crossroads, and the type was so tiny and grey I could barely read the road names it did show. I also have a Bellingham/ Whatcom County bicycle map published by the Mt. Baker Bicycle Club, which helpfully shows the route of the proposed Bay-to-Baker Bicycle route, which would have been a good way to go, except that the route is actually still in the proposal phase, and doesn't actually exist yet. Furthermore, the names of the roads on the two maps, and the signage on the actual roads often don't match up, and out in the county, roads often sort of segue into other roads, without any definite turn-off. Actually.

In other words, I didn't make it to Silver Lake again. But I did ride to the border crossing at Sumas, then toured around the farm country east of town, before heading south until I connected with Mt. Baker Highway at Nugent's Corner. After that, I passed through a new roundabout on the highway, where I turned off to Smith Road to get back to Ferndale.

I had my first clip-out-fail of the season at the intersection of Hannegan Road and Front Street in Lynden, just as I got to the red light at the top of the hill. My right clip got stuck and I fell over in the crosswalk. Oops.

The first navigational problem I ran into was finding Hampton Road on my way of of Lynden. It seems all roads lead to Highway 546, which I didn't like riding last weekend, so I kept turning back trying to find Hampton. I finally hit upon it, and rode several (?) miles until the intersection with VanBuren Road, which would be the connection with the Bay-to-Baker bike route, once it exists. There is no signage for the route now, it's just marked on the bike map. I turned left here, aiming for Silver Lake.

This is cow, corn and blueberry country.
It's curious the way the hills rise straight up from flat
 farm lands. I wish I knew what geological processes
were at work here. I think the grey triangular area
on the right side of the blue hills is a landslide,
 I'm not sure how recent.

VanBuren Road lead me to Hwy. 546 again, and I tried turning back but couldn't figure out how to connect to the route I wanted to use. At this point, I'd ridden almost ten extra miles trying to find my route. Realizing that if I tried to go on to Silver Lake Park the ride would be much longer than I was prepared for, I decided to give in and follow the highway to Sumas and explore around a bit.

Sumas' business district is a lot more active than Ferndale, but smaller than Bellingham. A lot of businesses are car-centered - gas stations, convenience stores, and auto repair shops. Several shops are vacant, including two big truck service stations, I think former Shell and Chevron stations.

The restrooms in the petty little public park were locked. Instead, I went to a giant log-cabin-style gas and convenience store on Cherry St. with a clean and accessible bathroom, where I could also get an americano and ice cream, and sit outside on a shady lawn to read my maps.

Young corn

I thought, on leaving Sumas, I would ride Cherry St. to Halverstick Road, then turn off to North Telegraph Road and follow that south to South Pass Road in Everson and head west toward home from there. However, inside Sumas city limits, Halverstick is called Front Street (or possibly Main or First . . . ). I made a guess on that point and hit the right road anyway, but when I got to the probable turn off to North Telegraph, I discovered the road was actually Hwy. 547, which is much like Hwy. 546, and not nice to ride. But there was an interesting looking gray-paved farm road called Rock Road heading east parallel to the border, so I decided, what the hell, see where it goes. It turned out to be a very nice ride, connecting to the zig-zagging Hillview Road which runs near the base of the mountains.

On the way to Sumas my speed held pretty steady at 14-15mph average with a light tail-wind. Hillview Road was a lucky choice once I turned back because it tacked across the wind rather than heading straight into it all the way, so I didn't have to struggle so much to keep my speed up.

I might have to consider learning to use GPS to figure out where I've been. I'm pretty sure I went south via Telegraph Road and Siper Road to Nugent's Corner, where I turned right/west to Hwy. 542. I crossed the Nooksack river and rode up the hill until I encountered the new roundabout on the Mt. Baker Hwy., where I decided to take Smith Road all the way back to Ferndale. It's a long, straight shot, with good bike lanes but high-speed car traffic, and some steepish rolling hills.

A common affliction of cyclists

New roundabout on Mt. Baker Hwy.

Rambling

. . . but not very often.

Last week I made up for my short mileage the previous week, but now I think I'd better ease off a bit. I rode almost 170 miles over six days, with only one rest day, but never felt up to breaking the 62-mile barrier. I really need to work up to at least an 80-mile ride before attempting the Red-Bell Century ride. I think if I allow myself at least two days off this week, I'll have the energy (and time) for a long ride next weekend.

My longest ride last week was 45 miles on Sunday, when I rode eastward to Evernook - the combined communities of Everson and Nooksack, with a bit of Sumas along the way. I meant to ride farther, but hadn't had a good dinner the night before, and not much breakfast either, so after about twenty-five miles I started to fade. Memo for next week: Highway 546 wasn't a good choice when I turned homeward. Lots of fast-moving big pick-ups, semis, and hay-trucks on a narrow, two-lane road.

I'll admit I probably would have hated growing up in an area like this back when I was a sulky, discontented teenager, but the ride reminded me of how trapped and stir-crazy I used to feel living in Bellingham without a car. Once I bought I bicycle and started rambling around a bit I got to see parts of the county I'd never visited before and felt a return of some freedom.

On the plus side, I'm getting used to riding clipped in again, and my knees are feeling better. On the negative, the end of the school year is coming up and in the next few weeks I will have some assignments due, one exam, and a comprehensive final exam the week before the big event date. So I really need to get organized and work diligently to have time for everything. Starting right after I finish this post.

A peony farm near Sumas

More Excuses

Memorial Day, 2014

Barely made 100 miles this week. I've been feeling a twinge in a certain spot in my right knee, which usually means the saddle is too low. I raised it about 2mm and the twinge went away, but after riding that way for several days I noticed that both my hands were starting to go numb after about ten miles of riding, my neck and shoulders got stiff and sore, and I had some numbness and pain in my legs after riding. Sunday, after a moderate hill-climb about six miles into a ride, I felt stabbing twinges in a couple of spots in my spine. I stopped and put the saddle back down. Rode another 25 miles, going easy. My right knee popped on a small uphill, but feels OK otherwise; after the ride my spine is a bit crackly, but no phantom pains or numbness in my shoulders, arms and legs and no pinched spots in the vertebrae.

These tiny adjustments can make a huge difference in comfort, but sometimes it takes a lot of tinkering and trade-offs to find the sweet spots. And I expect the exact right set-up can change depending on the season, fitness, fatigue and injury, the type of terrain I'm riding, etc.

Almost Forgot - Ski to Sea

The annual Memorial Day weekend Ski to Sea relay race is coming up early this year, this weekend. I'll be missing the fun because I'm going on an excursion to the Seattle International Film Festival with my community college class.

I haven't been watching the Nooksack River as in previous springs, but here are some photos of the big woodpile, for the benefit of passing canoes. The old pile at the base of the railroad bridge has washed out, leaving just a sandbar with a few old trees stuck in it on that side. Now there is a loose, dirty pile at the Main Street auto bridge.

From the sidewalk on the other side of the bridge, you can see the starting point of the new Nooksack River Trail. This view is of the off-leash dog area near the boat ramp. The wide, packed gravel path runs along the river side through Hovander Park, with side paths to Tennant Lake, as far as the Slater Road bridge. The trail continues on the other side of Slater Road to Marine Drive, but it's not developed yet, and it's pretty overgrown, muddy, rocky, rooty and narrow; also, the Slater Road crossing is a bit dangerous. I've ridden it a few times on my Surly CrossCheck, though, so it's not exactly brutal terrain.

A Slightly Off Day

Actually it was a nice, sunny breezy day and my class was cancelled, so I went out for a 35-mile ride in the afternoon. Unfortunately there seemed to be an unusually high proportion of bad drivers on the road. I was barely out of downtown Ferndale when two SUV's with British Columbia license plates passed me illegally in an intersection as I was making a left turn from the turn lane. Two cars almost crowded me off the pavement when I was riding near the edge of the lane on a road with no paved shoulder. I moved left, taking the traffic lane to keep following cars from passing too close, but the drivers continued to make dangerous passes, crowding both me and oncoming cars. I even got blocked in by two guys on skateboards on a fast downhill near the university. I was going faster than them and wanted to pass, but they were weaving across each other's paths trying to slow down. My eyeballs went nuts trying to track both of them at once. I finally had to pass them on the right while they zigzagged across two lanes.

Also, it's tent caterpillar season. Bleaggghh.

So it was not a fun day, despite the nice weather and unexpected mid-week day off.

To keep perspective, though, I remind myself of the many magazine stories I've read by or about people who have made solo long-distance bike trips. Almost every one of them admitted to melting down somewhere along the way, sometimes more than once, sometimes because they had crashed, been chased by a dog or harassed by drivers. But often there was no reason, other than fatigue, hunger, thirst, heat or cold, plus loneliness and homesickness.

Several times when I've been out rambling around the county for hours on some back road, I've suddenly been overwhelmed by a feeling of something or other, thinking "Why am I doing this? This is so dumb. What a waste of energy. What a waste of time. I could be back at home . . . "

Doing what? Keeping my cat company. Tidying up. Reading magazines about bicycle travel. Actually, I feel bad about leaving my cat home alone so much and I miss him if I'm gone overnight, but otherwise rambling around on a bike is better.