John’s Ramblings

Today was my second dose of the Sunrise climb, the last being a year and two weeks ago.  The weather was fabulous: a little cool at the start but definitely warming up toward the end.  Unlike last year, I never had to pull out the arm warmers, jacket, or leg warmers for the descent.  I’d refer you to last year’s account of all the gory details of how a clydesdale climbs up Mt. Rainier on a bike.  Different this year was:

• I am stronger, but not much lighter than last year.  Consequently, the “grunt” factor was approximately the same.  I’m still the Lanterne Rouge.
• I no longer mind being the Lanterne Rouge.  I ride how I ride.  Sure, I can improve, but I’ll not be beating riders 10+ years younger and 3 stone lighter up a mountain anytime soon.  So be it.
• Given enough Advil and ice, I think I’m as ready as I’ll ever be to do our ride to Montana.

I rode solo for just about the entire climb, except for this hawk who joined me for the next-to-last switchback leg:

If I have to climb 14 miles on a bicycle, I want to do it here.  If we do end up moving, I shall not miss the rain, but I will miss having the opportunity to ride with a view like this:

Chris Horner is riding for Team Astana this year, and thus wasn’t invited to participate in Le Tour. Instead, the team spent the last weekend competing at the Cascade Cycling Classic. The classic moment of the event came when Horner had finished his team-duty of sheparding Levi Leipheimer over the last climb of the day.

A rider from another team had crashed, and his bike was not rideable. Horner gave his competitor and his bicycle a ride to the finish line. Class act!

The complete article from Velonews.

As reported in “The Everyday Athlete“, the “lift” was 2 kilometers long, and uphill.

Ridden it twice, and told myself last year that I wouldn’t do it again for a while.  Probably a good decision, as we were up pretty late last night after attending a concert by Stevie Wonder.  I would have been hard pressed to be up and rolling at the crack of dawn, given that we didn’t get to bed until 1:30 a.m. or so.  Still, I had to run out this morning at 7 to get coffee (we were out), and dozens of riders were riding down West Valley Hwy. in waves while I got my bucket of black-lightning at the Bigfoot Espresso. I waxed nostalgic to do the ride for about 30 minutes, or the time it took to get home, kick off my clothes and park my coffee-sipping ass in front of the tv to watch Le Tour.

I’m on the hook for doing some smokey ribs for the neighbor’s party tonight, so I slipped out for a quick loop on the bike before I fire up the BBQ.  The Green River Trail is compromised on the west by the levee repair, and the Interurban is cluttered with people and strollers because it’s Kent Conucopia Days.  Go home, people, you are in my way!

I’ll try to get to bed at a decent hour tonight, and maybe head up to Sunrise on Mt. Rainier for a little solo torture.  I’m still fighting a bit of upper respiratory congestion… nothing too malevolent, but I must hack and spit every 50 yards or so, an activity much better performed in solitude.

Last Tuesday, I went on my usual night ride out of Cycle Therapy in Kent.    I wasn’t feeling all that sharp, as I was getting the first twinges of the malaise. I went anyway.  My riding friends made sure I fully utilized the time by having me do the entire ride at a brisk pace.  The crowning touch is where we cranked it up for the home stretch at 27 mph, including my turn pulling.  I was SO on the rivet that once I got my legs going fast enough to exceed 26 mph, I couldn’t keep them from randomly going 27, 28, or 29.   I waved myself off just before the point of nausea.  I’m not sure if this helped or hindered my battle with malaise, but I’m betting on the latter.

Wednesday I was a fully-fledged sick-boy.  I was coughing stuff that wouldn’t, and generally feeling like hammered rat shit.  The weather cooperated, producing thunder and lighting for the next 24 hours that would have made riding foolhardy (in my mind, anyway).  Soon enough the weather improved, but my condition did not.  It wasn’t until last night that I even felt capable of doing some saddle time, and it was only moderate in pace and length.  Between the days spent out-of-the-saddle and the illness, I’m pretty well convinced that my training is in the toilet, and I’ll spend the rest of the summer playing “Lanterne Rouge” on every group ride I partake in.

But last night was beautiful… 80+ degrees and clear skies.  I opted for a rehab ride over the normal bike shop ride.  A friend from my spin class days is rehabbing a knee, which worked out pretty well for the rehab of my upper respiratory system.  It was a nice little social ride, and probably exactly the exertion level I should have been doing… no more.  Still, I’m thinking “I’m really going to suck when I have to cross the continental divide this summer”.  So be it.  It was still a nice ride.

Just about this time last year, I saw the website for the Mt. Adams Country Bike Tour in Trout Lake, Washington.  It was too late to plan a trip there in naught-seven, so this was the year to go.

Several of the other Green River Riders also put this ride on their to-do list, and opted to camp/RV in White Salmon, Washington.  Terri was willing to do another 4 hour drive to one of my bike rides, but as compensation we would not rough it as far as accomodations go.  I’d call that a fair enough trade, with the bonus that I wouldn’t be camped on a small patch of grass nestled between Hwy 14 and the Burlington-Northern/Santa Fe Railroad.  We stayed across the Columbia in Hood River, Oregon.  I picked a Bed and Breakfast called Villa Columbia, solely from their website.  Great choice.  The house is beautiful, and the hosts are very nice.  After checking in to our room, we refueled at the Full Sail Brewery and Pub.  Hood River isn’t the cheapest city to eat and lodge in, but we loved the small-town feel with big-town amenities like 3 brewpubs, several wineries, and great dining options.  I would strongly consider a return trip to spend more time exploring the town, and the road cycling possibilities.

Saturday’s forecast for Trout Lake was for 98 degrees Farenheit, so I wanted to make an early start to the day.  Since we were staying 35 miles away, this meant leaving the B&B before 6:30 a.m.  Breakfast (the second “B” in “B&B”) isn’t until 8 a.m., Boba (the owner) made us a breakfast to go, and stashed it in the fridge for us.  We made it to Trout Lake shortly after 7.  We were told that the second of the two 50 mile loops, the “Forest Loop“, was closed due to heavy snow on the road.  You could still ride the route, but it would be 15 miles up, then back.  They were also recommending that riders do the “Valley Loop” first to avoid the heat at the lower elevations later in the day.  Not having heard from my Green River Rider compatriots, I opted to start the Valley Loop with Terri, thinking that they would eventually catch up to us.  Terri and I assumed that at some point we would split up due to our different pace and mileage goals, and that I would end the day riding with the faster group after a more leisurely pace in the morning.

The morning was beautiful, and we enjoyed our leisurely spin through farm and ranch land.  Temperature at the start was somewhere in the low 60’s and the sky was crystal-clear.  It was more than one occasion during this stretch where you would have a view of Mt. Adams on your left (like the one above), and a view of Mt. Hood on your right (like the one below).

After five miles or so, we turned left onto Hwy 141 for a long descent to BZ Corner. From there we turned left and began to pay for all that descent. The first climb was about 3 miles long, where it flattened out for a mile before kicking up again for 2 or so more miles. Terri completely bonked on the climb, and ended up walking to the rest stop at the top. Knowing that the situation would only get worse as the day heated up, we called her riding day complete. The problem was that the SAG support on the ride was practically non-existent. In order to get her from back to the start, I rode back down to BZ Corner, then back up that long descent to the car, for about 12 “bonus miles” for the day. I loaded my bike, drove to the rest stop, unloaded my bike, loaded Terri’s bike, and rejoined the route about 2 hours after I had left it.

The rest stop, by the way, had the following:

• 1 porta-pottie
• a plate of cookies
• mini bagels with peanut butter (smooth), no jam
• boiled potato hunks
• 2 thermos jugs of cold water

Hey John, didn’t your muscles tighten up during that whole driving the car thing? Why yes, they did.  And no, I didn’t stretch before or after my “rescue the damsel in distress” moment.  But John, wasn’t it getting pretty dang hot by now? Absolutely.  Hey genius, wouldn’t a rational person decide to just call it a day at this point, knowing it was going to get close to 100 degrees in a short period of time? Yes, a rational person would.  I was obviously already suffering from cloudy thinking at this point as I clicked back in to the pedals with just my two water bottles.  Didn’t you start the day with your bottles AND a Camelbak? Yes, but there would be plenty of water stops along the route, I thought, so I left the Camelbak in the car with Terri.  Bad move.  The next water stop was a mile or so after the top of the next climb, an unmanned stop.  As it turns out, the stop was not only unmanned, it was unwatered as well.

I consumed one entire bottle during that second climb, so I then had to make 1 bottle last for the next 16 or so miles until the next rest stop.  While the scenery was lovely, the temperature continued to climb past 100 degrees.  I saw some riders stopped alongside the road, sitting under a tree.  As it turns out, they were waiting for a SAG wagon to pick them up, which never arrived.  In fact, I only saw a SAG wagon (unmarked) once, and that was on the last hill of the day.  This couple ended up getting rescued by the personal support vehicle of my friends the Green River Riders!

The second staffed rest stop had water, cookies, bagels, and a hose which I used to spray my head and face with cold water.  They also had sample-sized Larabars which I no longer had the hand-strength to open, apparently.  Some old dude offered to help me by pulling a wire clipper out of his pocket and snipping the package.  As I put the morsel into my mouth, he announced that wire clippers were handy for everything, including clipping his fingernails.  Thanks for the additional info, and no, I don’t want to know what that crunchy-bit was that I just swallowed).

The last 10 miles were brutally hot.  The maximum air temp as measured by my Polar HRM was 107 degrees.  Due to the position of the sun vs. the direction of travel, “our” side of the rode had zero shade, but the opposite side had maybe 30% shade.  Most riders opted to ride on the wrong side of the road, only venturing to the proper side when you heard the occasional vehicle approach in the distance.  I knew that I was approaching my limits to deal with the heat and the hills, so I stopped at least once in the middle of each climb to stand in the shade and let my heart rate come down (which took longer and longer to come down with each hill).  Once again I made it to the finish line, but it was far from pretty.  I finished at 2:30 p.m., 66 miles and 3700′ of hot climbing later.

This is absolutely beautiful country, and the roads are in splendid condition.  There was only one stretch of a mile or so with chip-seal pavement.  If the weather had been a little less extreme, I would probably have come away from the ride with a more favorable view of the event.  I was disappointed that the organizers made no effort to at least post on their website that half the course would be closed due to snow, which sounded like it was going to be the most scenic half.  More disappointing was that the SAG and water support were inadequate.  They have no control over the weather, but they do have control over their communication, and the support that they provide (or not).  As we debriefed that evening over a beer, one of my astute colleagues made the observation that rides organized by bike clubs may have a distinct tactical advantage over bike rides organized by business groups (this ride is put on by the Trout Lake Business Owners Association), by virtue of having a better understanding of the needs of cyclists, especially under extreme conditions.

I’d love to ride this route again, but it would have to be with better support.

A lovely evening for a ride last night.  Seven riders assembled at Cycle Therapy for a 6:30 p.m. spin through the valley.

We zipped north into a headwind at slightly less than warp-speed. When most of us headed for a little hillclimb in Tukwila, my personal pace dropped to impulse-power. We regrouped at the top, but the group took a mystery left turn toward Seattle, a move which, if I had followed suit, would have likely meant:

1. another hillclimb or some such indignity, and
2. missing my 8:30 dinner hour with the Mrs.

Not being one to miss an opportunity eat a meal or a skip a hillclimb, I screamed my goodbyes to the disappearing peloton and rode the tailwinds back to Kent. It was a nice little 25 miler, and my knees are still intact for this coming weekend’s Mt. Adams Country Bike Tour. At 100 miles and 6,600′ of climbing, rest and stretching may be the agenda for the remainder of the week.

On a completely different note, professional cyclist David Zabriskie has begun marketing his own brand of chamois cream, DZ Nuts. He claims he’s out to “protect your junk”. I’m tempted to shell out the $22 for a tube (because the marketing guys have my number), but then I’d be tempted to shell out another $22 for the t-shirt (because the marketing guys have my number on speed-dial).

I’ve been wearing this brain-bucket for 3 full seasons now, and the padding inside is showing it’s age, to say the least.  Thousands of miles and gallons of perspiration have left the pads inside the helmet a bit lacking in the looks and comfort department.

Some searching on the internet revealed some dealers capable of selling me replacement pads, but they all seemed to be located in the UK, which seemed a bit far to ship helmet padding. I then stumbled across an entry in the Road Bike Review message boards, where someone said that you can just call Giro customer service to have them send you the replacements… for free!  This seemed like it would be a far more comfortable price-point for me than either shipping pads across the globe, or buying a new helmet.

For future reference, you call Giro at 800-456-2355.  Don’t be alarmed when the machine answers “Bell-Easton”.  Punch the number for “consumers” (not dealers).  Tell them your helmet model and size.  Give them your address.  Done.  I called last Thursday, and my new pads arrived in the mail today.  Then:

Remove old pads (they are velcro’d in place).

Install new pads.

Admire handiwork.

Put on head, ride bike.

Saving money is a good thing.  Even if the pads would have only cost me $10 bucks, that will buy a couple of malted-barley recovery beverages at my local watering hole after I try out my reupholstered helmet.