2008 Bike Ride #4: Eastside Urban Loop
Apr. 26th, 2008 05:04 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
wickedwordsRide Length: 46 miles (approximately)
Elevation: 2000 ft, according to bikely
Where: Eastside Urban Loop
Start Time: About 9:45 am
End Time: 3:00 pm
How long: appx 5 hrs on bike time, 9.6 mph avg speed not including a couple of short stops.
Calorie guesstimate: 3000
This was my first outdoor ride in a month, and let me tell you, I was nervous. I wanted to do 50 miles today (the Tour de Cure is 45), but I didn't want to do just the trails, as I knew I have to do some climbing before the May event. The route I chose is part of the Cascade Training Series, but I did it on my own, rather than in a group of a few hundred other riders. I really liked not being stressed about keeping up.
The loop starts easy enough, with the rolling hills of the West Lake Sammamish, but then after Vasa Park, it's climbing, climbing, climbing up and over Newport Way Hill. It's a 500 ft climb at a pretty gentle grade, and I just ground my way up the thing; it took a lot longer than I thought it would to cross over to the Bellevue side, but the downhill part was a lot of fun. Too short for all the work required, but downhills are like that.
Once on Coal Creek, you have to use a pedestrian crossing to get to a two-way bike path and sidewalk on the other side of the street. There's a ton of construction going on, so it took a long time to navigate through everything to Lake Washington Blvd. And once I got there, I realized that the bike path had split again, and I needed to be on the other side of the street.
This was about 1:45 into the ride, and as I tried to turn my bike around on the sidewalk, I forgot to unclip one of my feet and tumbled onto the sidewalk. I bruised my ego and broke my water bottle cage, but nothing worse than that. I climbed onto my bike and got on the right side of the street and headed back out on the path.
At Entai Beach Park, I stopped for a quick snack as I hadn't had anything other than electrolyte drink since the start of the ride, but I didn't eat more that a couple of crackers and a fig newton as I was still feeling antsy from the fall. Then it was back on the bike and a quick tour through Bellevue, and out toward Medina. My energy had dropped off a lot by this point, and I realized that I needed something to perk me up, so I dragged out a gel.
Note: Gels suck. They taste horrible. And two minutes (maybe five) later, I was all perky and happy for the rest of the ride.
I made it over Clyde Hill--there was bagpipe music coming from some where, so I guess there was some sort of festival going on--and then down along the Kirkland waterfront, which was suffering from Sunny Day Traffic Hell. I stopped at Marina park for a mandatory rest break, and felt a lot better after. (Which was good, as coming out of the park, a woman in an SUV stopped to let me turn left, blocking traffic for me--and a little old lady in a silver Mercedes passed on the left of her, but stopped suddenly when she saw me, giving me a 'what the fuck?' look. As I said, traffic hell.)
Market hill was a lot easier than I remembered, and then it was the slog up and over the 100th street hill and down to the golf course. Crossing the gravel parking lot to get to the trail, I noticed a guy had set up an easel and was painting a landscape of the a couple of the old buildings nearby. It was pretty cool. Then I actually made it to the trail, and Log Boom park, where I took another rest break, ate a bar, and remembered to snap a picture of my bike.
Bike at Logboom Park, Apr 26 2008
Tons of people were out, so the trail was packed. On my way back to Redmond, there was a family who had all rented bikes or something, as Grandma in her sensible high heels was peddling in a skirt. I had to slow down as we were getting to a narrow part of the path, and there was no way I had room enough to pass. She got distracted, and took a tumble, and the whole party stopped; I was lucky I had already slowed down so I didn't get caught in the mess.
After that though, it was good riding until I hit the edge of Redmond; the only thing that marred it was I had a bit of a headwind. Redmond city center had an earth day festival going on at city campus, so there were lots of people on the trail; I had to go slowly around all of that.
Then I had one good sprint before I reached the exit to the Starbucks nearest the trail, where I wolfed down a turkey and swiss sandwich while I waited for Lar to come pick me up. I felt really good about the ride, and making my way up that one big hill made em happy, not to mention the three smaller ones. I'm not quite ready for the TdC yet, but I do feel like I am on my way.
Elevation: 2000 ft, according to bikely
Where: Eastside Urban Loop
Start Time: About 9:45 am
End Time: 3:00 pm
How long: appx 5 hrs on bike time, 9.6 mph avg speed not including a couple of short stops.
Calorie guesstimate: 3000
This was my first outdoor ride in a month, and let me tell you, I was nervous. I wanted to do 50 miles today (the Tour de Cure is 45), but I didn't want to do just the trails, as I knew I have to do some climbing before the May event. The route I chose is part of the Cascade Training Series, but I did it on my own, rather than in a group of a few hundred other riders. I really liked not being stressed about keeping up.
The loop starts easy enough, with the rolling hills of the West Lake Sammamish, but then after Vasa Park, it's climbing, climbing, climbing up and over Newport Way Hill. It's a 500 ft climb at a pretty gentle grade, and I just ground my way up the thing; it took a lot longer than I thought it would to cross over to the Bellevue side, but the downhill part was a lot of fun. Too short for all the work required, but downhills are like that.
Once on Coal Creek, you have to use a pedestrian crossing to get to a two-way bike path and sidewalk on the other side of the street. There's a ton of construction going on, so it took a long time to navigate through everything to Lake Washington Blvd. And once I got there, I realized that the bike path had split again, and I needed to be on the other side of the street.
This was about 1:45 into the ride, and as I tried to turn my bike around on the sidewalk, I forgot to unclip one of my feet and tumbled onto the sidewalk. I bruised my ego and broke my water bottle cage, but nothing worse than that. I climbed onto my bike and got on the right side of the street and headed back out on the path.
At Entai Beach Park, I stopped for a quick snack as I hadn't had anything other than electrolyte drink since the start of the ride, but I didn't eat more that a couple of crackers and a fig newton as I was still feeling antsy from the fall. Then it was back on the bike and a quick tour through Bellevue, and out toward Medina. My energy had dropped off a lot by this point, and I realized that I needed something to perk me up, so I dragged out a gel.
Note: Gels suck. They taste horrible. And two minutes (maybe five) later, I was all perky and happy for the rest of the ride.
I made it over Clyde Hill--there was bagpipe music coming from some where, so I guess there was some sort of festival going on--and then down along the Kirkland waterfront, which was suffering from Sunny Day Traffic Hell. I stopped at Marina park for a mandatory rest break, and felt a lot better after. (Which was good, as coming out of the park, a woman in an SUV stopped to let me turn left, blocking traffic for me--and a little old lady in a silver Mercedes passed on the left of her, but stopped suddenly when she saw me, giving me a 'what the fuck?' look. As I said, traffic hell.)
Market hill was a lot easier than I remembered, and then it was the slog up and over the 100th street hill and down to the golf course. Crossing the gravel parking lot to get to the trail, I noticed a guy had set up an easel and was painting a landscape of the a couple of the old buildings nearby. It was pretty cool. Then I actually made it to the trail, and Log Boom park, where I took another rest break, ate a bar, and remembered to snap a picture of my bike.
Tons of people were out, so the trail was packed. On my way back to Redmond, there was a family who had all rented bikes or something, as Grandma in her sensible high heels was peddling in a skirt. I had to slow down as we were getting to a narrow part of the path, and there was no way I had room enough to pass. She got distracted, and took a tumble, and the whole party stopped; I was lucky I had already slowed down so I didn't get caught in the mess.
After that though, it was good riding until I hit the edge of Redmond; the only thing that marred it was I had a bit of a headwind. Redmond city center had an earth day festival going on at city campus, so there were lots of people on the trail; I had to go slowly around all of that.
Then I had one good sprint before I reached the exit to the Starbucks nearest the trail, where I wolfed down a turkey and swiss sandwich while I waited for Lar to come pick me up. I felt really good about the ride, and making my way up that one big hill made em happy, not to mention the three smaller ones. I'm not quite ready for the TdC yet, but I do feel like I am on my way.
