Endless Summer

Autumn crocus

In September I got myself together and started logging some miles, mostly thanks to MapMyRide. Also thanks to some taichi workout DVDs I found at the library, which have helped to strengthen and limber up my neck, spine and hips. Now I'm finally feeling more energetic and getting out for some favorite late-season rides. On Thursday I rode a 40-mile round-trip to Blaine for lunch at my favorite Bordertown Mexican Grill.

Usually I take a zig-zagging route on farm roads, but this time I followed Sunrise Road straight up to H Road, which runs parallel and close to the Canadian border into Blaine. It also has some challenging rolling hills - my speed varied from about 6mph going up, to over 25mph going down. I could have gone faster, but I'm more risk-averse than I used to be and I was holding the brake levers a bit. I took the flatter, zigzag route going home.

The morning started out brisk enough for a jacket and full-finger gloves, but I got warm and sweaty on H Road, and it was warm going home. Also a little hazy from distant wild fires. But a lovely day, pretty fall weather, interesting and entertaining sights, and a nice light lunch in the middle. It was a good day.

Hello!

From across the road, I thought this said "Bud Dood"

Hills, Trails & Terrain

The weather has been turning crispy over the last week of September. Saturday I realized that I haven't ridden the Interurban Trail yet this summer and might not get another chance before the rains start. In the past I've ridden the whole way starting from Ferndale, making about a 50-60 mile round-trip, but this year my energy level hasn't been up to such a long ride. Instead, I took my bike by car to start from Fairhaven Park, riding only about 16 miles, including a detour into Fairhaven for an affogato to revive me at the finish.

The trail was pretty as ever, the shaded parts cool enough for long sleeves even in the afternoon. At a couple of road crossings there are gulleys that would have had trestle bridges back when the trains were running, but now there are just steep down- and up-hills with a lot of loose gravel. In previous years I've ridden down (and even up once or twice) on skinny tires or on thicker knobby tires, but this time my front wheel slithered around so much that after one try I walked my bike on the steep parts. Not sure whether it was from nerves or poor condition - but the uphill pushes were a good workout for the ol' posterior chain. 

This sign board map is probably out-dated now

Halfway out I stopped at the Fragrance Lake Trailhead lot, thinking I might try riding up the trail for a change, but only about two turns up the hill the upgrade and loose gravel got to be too much for me and I turned down. Instead I went back to Chuckanut Drive, and rode as far as that one viewpoint with the big tree in the middle, where I took in the view of the bay before heading back to town.

When I rode up Lemonade Hill, the last climb on Chuckanut Drive before getting back to Fairhaven, the slope seemed much easier than before, but realistically that's probably because I've usually ridden it at the end of a much longer ride.

On Wednesday when the weather was turning cool and a little cloudy, I went back for another last-chance day trip, to walk the Fragrance Lake Trail that I couldn't ride up. For most of the way the trail is a wide dirt and gravel road, steep enough to make me breathe hard at first when walking briskly, but I huffed and puffed until my metabolism got revved up.

For any mountain bikers reading this: Near the start of the trail is a sign where the Double Down mountain bike trail ends, warning hikers not to go up that way because of the chance of meeting fast-moving (out of control) bikers coming down. The foot trail curves around for about a mile and half, until you come to the top of the mountain bike trail, which drops down very suddenly off the main road. Farther up the hill is another mountain bike trail called the Double Black Diamond; I didn't go that way, either.

Bottom of the mountain bike trail

Top of the trail

About halfway up a small landslide has taken out about half the roadway, enough that trail crews couldn't get their trucks past, but it was easy and safe to walk by and continue up to the lake.

Fragrance Lake is really a pond, only about three quarters of a mile around, but it is clear, cool and pretty, with impressive rock formations along side the trail, mostly weathered sandstone that can be crumbled with the fingers. In a few places there are small footbridges over dry creeks that must have been gully-washers feeding the lake during the rainy season.

A few couples sat here and there at the water's edge but I enjoyed quiet and solitude, listening to birds and wind, and once to some sort of purring or growling and chuffing from back in the brush beside the trail - a mountain lion maybe? We gave each other our space. It began to rain lightly as I walked around the lake, but the leaf cover overhead was still dense enough to keep the rain off.

Fragrance Lake

As I walked around the lake at the top of the trail, several times I heard jet airplanes crossing over the bay, and once a helicopter passed by behind a hilltop ridge, probably from the air force base at Whidbey Island. I had a passing thought that maybe they were scrambling for Iran or Ukraine, but some more deep breathing and listening cleared my mind.

dry waterfall by the trail

Another River Ride

Some photos from another weekend ride on the Nooksack River Trail, past Slater Road. It was a pretty ride with dappled sun and shade, pleasant temperatures and a light sprinkle of rain.

The trail is pretty over-grown with bushes and blackberry vines that will grab your sleeves and scratch your legs. Someone should get out there with a weed-whacker. Also there are some patches of fine sand, not very big but deep enough to grab your front wheel and throw you off the saddle.

At one place where the trail usually washes out during the winter floods, a detour was set up for trail work beyond that point as far as Marine Drive. I had to lift my bike over the sand bags and down about a foot to get to a section of double-track grass and dirt, which was pleasant and easy to ride on my gravel-and-touring bike, but would have been tricky on my Cannondale Synapse. In fact the whole trail would have been hard work on a skinnier-tire bike. Along the way I met a group of older riders - about my age, actually, come to think of it - on fat-tire e-bikes who seemed to find the ride a little rougher than they expected. I guess they thought the electric assist would make things easy, but the heavy bikes must have been hard to manage getting through the sand on the narrow tracks. But we all need to get out there are challenge ourselves!

At a Y-fork in the trail I took the left branch, which looked like it had been recently mowed for the first time that summer and was covered with thick thatch and deep stubble. But it was only a short side-trip, ending at a small pond or puddle in a very fertile wet-land. The reeds and rushes here are impressive, almost two inches in diameter or width. This wet-land area is open for hunting in duck-season, and maybe wouldn't be the best place to ride when people are out with fire-arms.

The rough trail ended here and I turned back and followed the dirt road through the woods to the car-parking lot at Marine Drive, then turned back again toward home.

The bridge at Marine Drive

More Rambling

Now that I've given up my weekday commuting rides, I'm finding that longer rides of 30-35 miles tire me out so I can't do much afterwards. I'm feeling some pain and strain in my tendons and bursa, not muscles or joints. I'm not sure if I'm just out of shape, or if this is arthritis or what is vaguely described as "fibromyalgia." Anyway, it seems better to just take shorter one-to-two hour rides of 15-20 miles three or four times a week, instead of pushing to increase my distances. But it is nice to get going fast enough to get my heart rate up and huff-and-puff a bit. Feels good to get my lungs full of oxygen.

It rained a little on this Sunday ride, and I was forced to take about three detours from the route I meant to ride. First was for a bad car wreck at the railway crossing on Slater Road. No train was involved, but the road was blocked by aid cars and police directing traffic to turn off to LaBounty Drive, which has been blocked off for construction projects most of the summer. I hoped I could squeak through on a bicycle, but no luck, I had to ride across the Slater Road freeway overpass, the one with the dangerous roundabouts where I crashed and tore up my elbow a few summers back. Rather than ride through with vehicle traffic, I crossed the overpass on the wrong side of the road, facing on-coming cars. This turned out to be even more risky, because the white paint stripes marking the bike lane have worn off and cars were cutting very close to the edge of the road. Then out of nervousness I turned off too soon and ended up riding on the north-bound freeway entrance for a couple hundred feet, before realizing my mistake, pulling a U-turn across the lane and going on to the roundabout at the Pacific Hwy. crossing. The pavement here is still cracked, pot-holed and thick with gravel and debris but I made it through and got home safe and with no fresh scars.

So it was an invigorating little jaunt that got my heart beating fast. I am looking forward to riding more in the cooler September weather.

MapMyRide

When I first started this blog back in 2010 I had hoped to use Google maps to create and share maps of some nice, not-too-hard scenic routes. But I found Google didn't work well on loop routes, it insisted on sticking to there-and-back rides along the shortest distance between points. Which is not the way I roll.

Twelve years later, and now there is MapMyRide. I downloaded it to my phone last month and have been having great fun re-visiting some favorite rides. It uses GPS to track your movement from point to point, and measures distance, average speed and total time. The distance measure doesn't match up exactly with my bike odometer, but I've already discovered that tire tread and inflation have a noticeable effect there. The "pause" button turns off the GPS, but the clock continues running while you stop for a coffee break or passing train, so your speeds will be lower, and total time will be higher than those measured on a bike computer. But I don't really care that much about performance stats, it's the mapping functions I wanted. My favorite feature is the elevation profile, which compares up- and down-grades to your speed, and provides validation that certain hills really are as hard as they feel on the way up.

I have noticed that using MapMyRide makes a difference in my riding habits, beyond just giving me a new incentive to ride. I used to ride out to a destination town like Lynden, Everson, Birch Bay or Blaine, where I would stop at a cafe for a snack and coffee before heading back home. Now I'm tending to ride in a continuous loop, stopping near home for a break if I want one. I even skip bathroom breaks or stops to take photos or window-shop along the way. This may change once the novelty wears off, though.

The dreaded two-roundabout Northwest Drive hillclimb

A rambling ride to Birch Bay State Park

Hot Tip for Staying Cool

Find your bliss.

Finally, summer weather has arrived. Last winter when my furnace broke down I had no heat during the holiday storms, until my landlord finally installed a new high-tech, programmable thing that also has AC, or some sort of cooling function. I haven't really figured out how to set it, though. So far I've been making do by keeping the blinds closed and my apartment shut up while I'm out during the day, then opening up the door and windows and turning on fans to get a cross-draft when it's cooler in the evening. Most mornings I wake up at about 5am and open the door wide to let in some cool air. Since last week day-time temperatures have been in the mid-to-high 80's, though, and that isn't enough any more. I've figured out how to turn on the fan and cooling function on the new furnace (or whatever it is) but it hasn't been very effective. Sometimes it resets itself, and when I check it, I'll find the indoor temperature is set at 82F. I've had trouble sleeping a few nights. Last night I gave up and went out for a late-night stroll at about one in the morning. The night walk was a refreshing change, and it's nice being up early, but then I have to take an afternoon nap.

My best solution for over-heating is an old-fashioned red rubber hot-water bottle, which I fill up with cool water and leave in the refrigerator. Normally I use it for neck and back pain, or for any other sore, swollen joint, but it's perfect for a fast cool-down too. This morning I went for a 30-mile bike ride in the cool part of the morning, but my apartment was pretty warm when I got home around noon, and I was red-hot and dripping with sweat. After a cool shower and a nap, I woke up with a stiff neck and mild headache developing, which can be symptoms of dehydration or heat stress. A cool drink and the cold pack on my head, neck and shoulders cleared that up immediately.

Eco Adaptations

We may soon see the end of drive-through fast-food as we know it around here - which is fine with me, I hate drive-through lines - but I don't know how Starbucks can go on without super-sized grande plastic drink cups. Seriously, fast food places are going to have to change their business model, and the whole atmosphere of their stores. In the past few years, single-use plastic shopping bags have been outlawed, and non-biodegradable food containers and utensils are going soon - plastic knives, forks, spoons and beverage straws, and plastic drink cups, styrofoam cups, bowls and take-out dishes.

I carry a bamboo spork and knife in my purse, and I guess soon I'll have to bring along a re-usable cup, too. I keep shopping bags in my car, and bought some re-usable mesh produce bags, which I usually forget to carry with me (along with my grocery list, which I leave behind on the kitchen counter).

The plastic bag-ban has been inconvenient because I've always used plastic grocery store bags for my kitchen garbage, rather than buying disposable plastic bags to fill up with garbage then throw away. It takes about a week for me to fill one, mostly with coffee grounds and fruit and vegetable scraps, which are too wet to put in a paper bag. Now I'm using plastic bread or produce bags, but I'll have to find a better solution soon.

In my old job we sold large, decorative re-usable shopping bags for $1.99 or $2.99 or so, and we charged $.08 for big brown paper shopping bags at the cash registers - a state-mandated fee. Many customers argued about the bag-fee, and sometimes when I asked a customer at check-out if they wanted a shopping bag for eight cents, they would say no. Then they would watch the register display as I totaled their sale and ran their card. At the moment the charge went through, they'd say "oh wait, you know, I do need a bag . . ." I once heard a manager ask a customer "do you have eight cents?" but usually I just gave them the bag for free. In fact, I got so tired of the hassles that I stopped asking and charging for bags at all. Over time I single-handedly messed up the store's inventory and re-ordering, and we ran out of shopping bags just in time for the holiday shopping season, except for the expensive decorative gift bags. I'd like to think this made customers regret giving me trouble, but I doubt it.

I'm glad I don't work retail anymore. But I suppose next they'll outlaw bubble wrap.