2007 Bike Ride #11: Tour de Cure
May. 19th, 2007 04:59 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
wickedwords
Ride Length: 44 miles (more or less)
Elevation: 2300 ft (more or less) (some hills with 9%-10% grade)
Where: 45 Mile Tour Route
Start Time: 9:00 am
How long: 6.48 hrs by watch, 4.33 hrs on-bike time. (Just under 10 mph, not including stops)
Heart Rate: 134 avg, 160 peak
Total Calories: 6015 calories, more or less
This was it! The ride I had been training for since the March. It was raining when I got up, but that cleared up by the time I left the house; we did have a lot of wind though, and I was very glad that I'd gone the windbreaker and tights over the biking shorts route. I met up with![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
sherrold and her partner at the remote control plane airfield at Marymoor, and then walked over with them to registration. I'm not sure how many people showed--they had five routes that started at different times, and were estimating 600 people yesterday--but I would say there were 100 on the 45 with us. We were just coming out of the rest room when the start was called, so we were at the back of the pack right from 'go'. Sandy's bike was making a weird squeaking noise, too, so we stopped right at the beginning to try and figure it out. Things looked okay, so we went ahead and got going. There were maybe 10 of us at that point, and some of those people we played leapfrog with for the rest of the event.
I played tour guide at first, as we passed through areas that I was familiar with, pointing out thing like 'that's where ev goes to Aikido during the summer' and other fascinating tidbits of information. The first hill wasn't bad, and we passed one couple that had already had a flat. We just missed a large group at the next light, and that was pretty much it for 'large masses' of people. We did hand a copy of the 20 mile route to a couple of women who had found themselves following some of the century riders, and had ended up a little lost.
At Ferrel McWhirter park, I took the entrance that I was familiar with instead of the one we were supposed to take, and we cut across the park to the rest stop. Some animal crackers and a potty break later, we rejoined the route and headed for Maltby. The bad hill was still bad, but funnily enough, even thought we walked part of it, it was not the worst hill we climbed. (We walked short bits of three hills I think. One of them a guy zipped by us and said '10% grade, but not long', which was pretty much the story of all the hills we walked. Steep hills suck.) Sandy also had gearing problems, and lost her chain once, so we decided to stop at the bike repair part of the next rest stop.
(Okay, one of the times it was the sweatshirt she'd just taken off getting caught in the chain, but still)
They fixed her up--her chain was fine, but her saddle kept slipping--and we were the last people out; they were closing up as we were leaving. The winds started picking up about then, so that by the time we got out of Maltby and into the pasture lands of the Samammish Valley, it was blowing at a pretty good clip. We had to be careful when we stopped, as the wind would blow the bikes over. Lots of rolling hills with great downhills, some steep hills, some windy and winding curves eventually leading to where we met up with the 70 and 100 mile riders at the cresent lake boat launch rest stop. A few of the people we'd met in some of the classes we'd take were also there, and I thought it was fun to see a few familiar faces.
After that, it was a couple of windy, cow-scented miles to the long hill. It wasn't steep, but it was 2-3 miles in length it seemed like it took forever to get anywhere. Once we rejoined civilization at the top of the hill, we got a chance for a really good downhill run--only to find another steep hill with a 10% grade on the other side. We battled our way up it, stopping several times as we were running on determination at this point, and made our way to the 'make your own rest stop' location. It's a strip mall with a grocery store and some small restaurants and shops; the McDonald's we'd spotted wasn't yet open, and we had to make due with using the rest room at Quiznos.
When we left, there were only 8 miles left, and the worst of the hills was over. There was still some steep and winding downhill bits we had to go through, but going down a 9% grade sure beat going up one. We were probably the last riders in from the 45, but I spotted a couple of other riders that we had played leapfrog with on the route, so I felt pretty good about that; they probably weren't more than 10 minutes ahead of us, giving that they still had that wind-blown 'glow'. And it was seriously fun to get the cowbells and the whooping and the clapping from all the volunteers, along with my red plastic finishers medal. Despite the wind, it was a great day for the ride.
Elevation: 2300 ft (more or less) (some hills with 9%-10% grade)
Where: 45 Mile Tour Route
Start Time: 9:00 am
How long: 6.48 hrs by watch, 4.33 hrs on-bike time. (Just under 10 mph, not including stops)
Heart Rate: 134 avg, 160 peak
Total Calories: 6015 calories, more or less
This was it! The ride I had been training for since the March. It was raining when I got up, but that cleared up by the time I left the house; we did have a lot of wind though, and I was very glad that I'd gone the windbreaker and tights over the biking shorts route. I met up with
sherrold and her partner at the remote control plane airfield at Marymoor, and then walked over with them to registration. I'm not sure how many people showed--they had five routes that started at different times, and were estimating 600 people yesterday--but I would say there were 100 on the 45 with us. We were just coming out of the rest room when the start was called, so we were at the back of the pack right from 'go'. Sandy's bike was making a weird squeaking noise, too, so we stopped right at the beginning to try and figure it out. Things looked okay, so we went ahead and got going. There were maybe 10 of us at that point, and some of those people we played leapfrog with for the rest of the event.I played tour guide at first, as we passed through areas that I was familiar with, pointing out thing like 'that's where ev goes to Aikido during the summer' and other fascinating tidbits of information. The first hill wasn't bad, and we passed one couple that had already had a flat. We just missed a large group at the next light, and that was pretty much it for 'large masses' of people. We did hand a copy of the 20 mile route to a couple of women who had found themselves following some of the century riders, and had ended up a little lost.
At Ferrel McWhirter park, I took the entrance that I was familiar with instead of the one we were supposed to take, and we cut across the park to the rest stop. Some animal crackers and a potty break later, we rejoined the route and headed for Maltby. The bad hill was still bad, but funnily enough, even thought we walked part of it, it was not the worst hill we climbed. (We walked short bits of three hills I think. One of them a guy zipped by us and said '10% grade, but not long', which was pretty much the story of all the hills we walked. Steep hills suck.) Sandy also had gearing problems, and lost her chain once, so we decided to stop at the bike repair part of the next rest stop.
(Okay, one of the times it was the sweatshirt she'd just taken off getting caught in the chain, but still)
They fixed her up--her chain was fine, but her saddle kept slipping--and we were the last people out; they were closing up as we were leaving. The winds started picking up about then, so that by the time we got out of Maltby and into the pasture lands of the Samammish Valley, it was blowing at a pretty good clip. We had to be careful when we stopped, as the wind would blow the bikes over. Lots of rolling hills with great downhills, some steep hills, some windy and winding curves eventually leading to where we met up with the 70 and 100 mile riders at the cresent lake boat launch rest stop. A few of the people we'd met in some of the classes we'd take were also there, and I thought it was fun to see a few familiar faces.
After that, it was a couple of windy, cow-scented miles to the long hill. It wasn't steep, but it was 2-3 miles in length it seemed like it took forever to get anywhere. Once we rejoined civilization at the top of the hill, we got a chance for a really good downhill run--only to find another steep hill with a 10% grade on the other side. We battled our way up it, stopping several times as we were running on determination at this point, and made our way to the 'make your own rest stop' location. It's a strip mall with a grocery store and some small restaurants and shops; the McDonald's we'd spotted wasn't yet open, and we had to make due with using the rest room at Quiznos.
When we left, there were only 8 miles left, and the worst of the hills was over. There was still some steep and winding downhill bits we had to go through, but going down a 9% grade sure beat going up one. We were probably the last riders in from the 45, but I spotted a couple of other riders that we had played leapfrog with on the route, so I felt pretty good about that; they probably weren't more than 10 minutes ahead of us, giving that they still had that wind-blown 'glow'. And it was seriously fun to get the cowbells and the whooping and the clapping from all the volunteers, along with my red plastic finishers medal. Despite the wind, it was a great day for the ride.
