| Course: | Leschi, Seward, Renton, McDonalds Hill, May Valley, Tiger, Squak, Newport, home |
| Results: | |
| Comments: | What a great day! And accordingly everyone except for Greg K and Alex T were on their A rides. Made me feel a bit insecure on my winter rig I must say; nothing but carbon as far as the eye could see.
We eased down to Seward but then on Rainier the pace hotted up right away complete with a sprint at the 'finish'.
Lyle was having a crap day. He got one flat on the way down to Rainer, his tire blew while standing around at Coulon and then he pinched one tube and snapped the valve stem off of another. :( He ended up calling for a ride home. I felt pretty bad for him. On the other hand he was not well prepared at all… he only had one tube with him and no tire levers or pump and needed to work on his flat fixing technique. Still, no fun that. All this must have accounted for about 20-30 minutes of our total time.
Climbing up McDonalds Hill was mellow and the pace down May Valley very reasonable. When we turned right on Issaquah-Hobart everyone stopped for some reason and I just kept on going; and took my gloves off – it was getting nice out! This gave me a head start climbing Tiger and I needed it. Not even half way up Olivier, Alex and Edgardo came zooming by. A few seconds later there was Aaron S.
From the top of the hill Mt Rainier was HUGE, it was an amazing day out.
Climbing back over Tiger we all stuck together until I surged at the top where it flattened out. That got a few folks moving and we leapfrogged each other on the descent. I love going downhill when the roads are dry and today was the first time this has been the case on a twisty road so it was a real thrill. Yes!
After a quick stop in Issaquah for water and for me to remove one more layer (the long sleeve undershirt) Greg, Olivier, Alex, Edgardo and I went up Squak. The bottom is so steep but it does level off a bit later on and I started to feel better on that less steep section which was a moral boost. From here Alex and Edgardo went their own way and suddenly the group that had been almost 20 to start was down to three.
And what a difference that made! Riding home with Greg and Olivier was a dream. You don't think about it very often but the experience levels on our team are actually very diverse and suddenly when it was just three guys who are used to riding in close quarters we clicked. Exchanges were intuitive, the speed was constant, the flows was great. It was such a marked difference I found myself proclaiming this to these guys when we were stopped at a light. |
| Equipment: | Bianchi Volpe, 38/50, 12-25 |
| Clothing: | knit shoe covers, knee warmers, bib shorts, Craft long sleeve undershirt, Craft wind front short sleeve undershirt, short sleeve jersey, arm warmers, Polypropylene gloves, cap |