Un jour sans

More than one, honestly. I didn't ride at all the week after the Red-Bell 100. Since then I've been riding three or four times a week, 25-35 miles each time. The new softer, wider saddle I put on my bike seems much better for my middle-aged sit-bones, though my knees feel a bit unstable. The twinge in my right knee has gone away, but my left knee seems to slip out of place a little, and I get some pinches and twinges when I sleep turned on my side, which I take as a sign that my bones and ligaments are realigning themselves into better position.

We've had alternating heat waves with temperatures in the mid-to-high-90's, followed by rainy spells to remind us what being a Pacific Northwesterner is really all about.

Supposedly on Wednesday we had record-breaking rainfall, but I didn't notice particularly. It seemed normal.

So I am gradually returning to riding, and wondering what will be my next little adventure. In the meantime, some pix of the ever-evolving Nooksack River woodpile.

It is evolving, too. A bare willow tree trunk is sprouting branches, and there are clumps of Chinese knotweed, an invasive noxious weed, getting established in the middle of the river, which is silty and low whenever the rain stops.

The bird life is most interesting - iridescent black/blue/green/purple-backed swallows with creamy breasts, some kind of crested brown bird with a yellow and cream throat and belly, and maybe some bars of red on the wings and tail. Much more interesting to watch than the usual gulls and pigeons.

A Few More Observations

• Since I began training for the Red-Bell 100 back in February, I've logged more than 2100 miles. Looking back at my training calendar, it seems I usually alternated weeks riding minimal mileage because of bad weather or school conflicts, with weeks when I crammed in two long rides on the weekend, plus added extra miles to my commute to campus or errand running trips during the week.

• No doubt I would have done better building my distances more consistently, but this is the Pacific Northwest. Besides, it was a lot easier to get motivated and stay committed when I rode with Team in Training than when I was riding alone this year. Although, probably my biggest contribution to the team back then was just that I always showed up, ready and eager to ride.

• On my last few longer training rides, of 62+ miles, my sit bones started to feel sore and achey. I finally decided to order a softer saddle from the Terry catalog, but didn't receive it in time for the century ride (my own fault for procrastinating). This afternoon, after taking a five-day rest, I cleaned up my bike, put the new saddle on and discovered the old one was broken - the nylon shell base was cracked at the back of the cut-out. It probably lost its springiness and shock-absorbing property because of the crack, which made my butt hurt. Besides, the rails were scraped and corroded and the white dye was rubbing off the cover, making it look sort of pinkish. In short, after four years of year-round riding, it was worn out.

• The old saddle was a Terry Falcon X; the new one is a Terry Liberator X. I'm looking forward to trying it out as soon as the Fourth of July rain blows over.

• Did you know the intercom system on Amtrak trains can pick up cell phone signals? Don't use your cell phone on the train, especially if you're the kind of person who uses the word "like" on average more than twice per sentence. Because, like, you know, she was all like, you know, and then she got all you know, like that. And then she goes, she goes, whoa you know, like that, and . . . 

All Over Now: Red-Bell 100

The event weekend is past and I've had a few days to recover my wits. I felt better physically than mentally on Sunday - no injuries or major sore spots (other than my sit bones) but I felt spacey and sleepy all day Sunday and Monday.

Travel Plans

For a couple of years I've wanted to try using the public commuter bus system to get from Bellingham to the Seattle area. I know from a past trip that if you start out very early in the morning you can take Whatcom Transit to Mount Vernon, catch a Skagit Transit bus to Everett, then take the Swift commuter bus in to Seattle, all with bicycle on board. But in the end I didn't want to improvise before my big ride, so I booked a one-way trip on Amtrak, then caught a Seattle Metro commuter bus across Lake Washington to Redmond. 

The outdoor velodrome at Marymoor Park

To make sure I could find the ride start at Marymoor Park on Saturday morning, I explored around the town of Redmond a bit on Friday afternoon. Thanks to Microsoft, the town has been transformed from a dull little Boeing-suburb to an upscale techie haven. Because of construction and street improvement projects, many streets were blocked off and trail access points were detoured.

. . . the only one I know of in the Northwest

I had delayed too long to book my hotel room and ended up staying five or six miles away from the ride start in Marymoor Park, at the Totem Lake Carlton Inn. It was cheap but had received some very ominous ratings online, so I was a little alarmed when I looked out the window and saw police, fire and Medic One units (two each) outside the entrance. But they went away soon, with no disturbance. My room was big, clean, quiet and comfortable - everything I needed to get a good night's rest and get out early in the morning. The decor was dated and the carpets were dirty, but that's for the best when you're bringing a bicycle along.

The Yuppie Pawn Shop, Tavern and Food Cart is next door, and the Veloce Cafe with espresso and pasta for dinner. Before I left Seattle I had cruised the waterfront a bit and stopped at a deli to eat a huge veggie sandwich, so I just bought fresh fruit, sparking water and Luna bars at a nearby Trader Joe's for a light dinner in my room instead. I brought my own instant oatmeal with nuts and raisins for breakfast, plus Clif bars and Powerade for the ride.

My plans went a little awry in the morning. I was able to retrace my route back to Redmond along the Sammamish River Trail pretty easily, but all the road blocks and detours from Friday afternoon had been removed by Saturday morning and I lost the trail somewhere between downtown Redmond and Marymoor Park. I backtracked on a bike route under the Hwy. 520 interchange a few times before picking up the route again, but I rode nine miles just to get to the start area.

The Big Event

Very orderly crowd at the starting line

According to the announcer at the ride start, about five hundred riders were starting out, but the crowd didn't seem that large. Because I'm a slow, steady rider I went up to the head of the crowd to get out the gate early, knowing I'd soon fall behind. I had a panicky moment on a tight curving trail access ramp when I downshifted and my chain jammed - while I was in the middle of a group of club riders. But I managed to back-pedal then start up again until the chain caught smoothly, without taking the whole group down.

I saw some Cascade Bicycle Club jerseys, and several other club/race team jerseys - from the back, as they passed me. The first eight miles were easy, along the flat Sammamish River Trail, but then there was a monster hill-climb on Woodinville-Duvall Road. The team riders passed me easily as I chugged up a mile-and-a-half climb, and I struggled to keep them in sight, then catch up on steep down-hills. I've learned not to be embarrassed to take big breaths, and huff and puff loudly on hard climbs so I can recover faster, and I was able to manage my gears and momentum on downhills to help me up the next hill. But I was trying too hard, and regretted it farther on.

Machias rest stop, mile 28

After the hilly section we followed easier roads until we picked up Snohomish County's Centennial Rail-Trail at about mile 23, and rode five miles on to the first stop. This is where I realized that I would wear myself out before the end of the ride if I didn't take it easier and recover from the hard start. The Centennial Trail is a lovely, flat, paved trail with a down-grade as you travel north for the next twenty-five or so miles. There is a wide, grassy equestrian trail next to the paved bike and foot trail, and you can ride straight for miles listening to birds, seeing nothing but moist greenery. It actually gets a little tedious.

Dairy monument in Arlington

About three miles before the Arlington rest stop (at mile 45) it began to rain hard. We were back on city roads by then and I was skating fast on the smooth, wet pavement, but a couple of people crashed crossing wet railroad tracks - no major injuries, just muddy, gritty scrapes. I waited out most of the rain storm, snacking, stretching and chatting with other riders under a pergola in the park, leaving the park at around 11am.

After leaving Arlington and the Centennial Trail, the route followed Old Hwy. 99 parallel to I-5, which is not the loveliest scenery, but it is a pretty direct route to the lunch rest stop at the Skagit Valley Produce barn by the Hwy. 543 overpass across I-5, 64 miles along. At this point my stomach was full of a pasty glop of Clif bars and Powerade, and I really didn't feel like eating even though I knew, with forty miles to go, I'd need more fuel. Some nice wrap sandwiches were provided, but all I could manage was a big helping of Greek salad and some Talking Rain seltzer. Fortunately this seemed to lighten my stomach a bit.

Lunch break

After lunch the route moved on to roads that are familiar to me from my spring training rides - near the Skagit River, around the tulip fields, and the stretch of Avon-Allen Road I had followed the Saturday before on my way home from LaConner. Our last rest stop was at mile 84, at Allen Community Park, where we were served some refreshing watermelon. By this time I was feeling a bit hungry and knew I'd need more substantial food to make it through the Chuckanut Drive rollers, so I ate the two bananas I'd been carrying, then set off for the final, familiar 20-mile stretch.

I posted photos to Facebook at each rest stop on the way, and at the Boundary Bay finish party, which is a pretty high technological achievement for me, under the circumstances. But my cellphone photos weren't very good quality and I didn't take any others after the lunch break. So the only way to see the fabled Chuckanut Drive bay views is to go ride it yourself.

I was tempted to turn off the road and take the flatter Interurban Trail, but I'm too stubborn, even though there was no one around to see if I did. I reached the lemonade stand at the top of the last hill climb at 5:10pm. The last #27 bus to Ferndale leaves Cordata Station at 5:20pm on Saturdays, so at that point I knew I'd be riding my bike all the way home. I rolled on to Boundary Bay Brewery to enjoy a leisurely and excellent dinner of a veggie-burger, fries and lemonade.

My road-time for the 104-mile route was about 7.5 hours (not counting rest and lunch breaks); including breaks, my travel-time was 10.5 hours. Add the nine miles to get to Marymoor Park before the start, and the (slow and wobbly) ride home to Ferndale, and I rode a total of 124 miles for the day.

I celebrated my 55th birthday this June, and I'm glad I pushed myself to complete this event. But from now on I'll stick to shorter, more touristy, sight-seeing rides.

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