Last weekend as part of our Whistler Gran Fondo training we planned to ride from Enumclaw to Sunrise, “the highest point that can be reached by vehicle at Mount Rainier National Park.” Except once we got to the park gate on the road up to Sunrise we found the road in the process of getting re-sealed so we turned around and hit up Chinook Pass instead. At 91 miles and ~6000 feet of climbing it was still a leg busting ride :).
The ride starts off pretty mellow out of Enumclaw up highway 410. We had our first rest stop at Greenwater where there’s a gas station and water. Only hitch was that Donald hit a rock and things got bloody.
Unfortunately Donald had to turn around, while we continued up to Silver Springs campground (just before the Crystal Mountain road turn off) where we filled up with water again. A few miles after leaving the campground is when the pain started and continued all the way to the top. The last three miles before Chinook Pass were TOUGH. But we were all smiles at the top. Up there it was pretty chilly. Fortunately McGarty had the foresight to encourage us all to pick up maps to stuff down our jerseys to stay warm on the way down.
After the ride we raced back to Seattle because Chels and I were racing in the moonlight race on Lake Washington:
As part of our Whistler Gran Fondo training this Saturday we drove two hours to Newhalem up Highway 20 to tackle Rainy Pass and Washington Pass. We road about 86 miles and supposedly almost 10,000 feet of vertical gain!? (I really want a Garmin Edge 500 to track my rides.) Overall, it was a great ride. Lots of scenery, 3-4 foot pretty clean shoulder almost the whole way, steady climbs with some downhill sections to give you relief on the way up (or discourage you…). FWIW, I thought this ride was easier than Chinook Pass and less scenic. Though Rob disagrees with both those statements.
The morning started at Rob’s with pancakes:
Though we couldn’t leave until we got Rob’s rack on my Cruiser which entailed some early morning metal sawing, “good morning neighbors”:
We started at the Newhalem campground and then headed North on Highway 20.
Note that there are no services on Highway 20 except water at Colonial Creek campground 11 miles past Newhalem so bring lots of food and water! Three of us had three water bottles (one in our jersey pockets), but Donald was wise and had just bought a seat post water bottle holder that we were all jealous of.
We had originally planned on going to Mazama and back but with our late start and pace we would have been riding back in the dark :). So after first crossing Rainy Pass at 4855 feet and then reaching Washington Pass at 5477 feet we turned back.
But not before trying to refill our water bottles at the info center at Washington Pass which oddly was closed!?
The way back down started slow:
But quickly cranked up to 40+ mph. But the “severe side winds” put a real damper on things.
Note, there are two tunnels. Both fine up hill, but on the way down the second tunnel is some freaky shit at 40 mph. While pretty short you can’t see a thing so cross your fingers there is nothing on the road!
The night before I was pretty excited and it was hard to sleep so I only got five hours of sleep. Since the race starts at 4:45 am I woke up at 3:45 am, the earliest I have ever woken up, and hit the road starting the Seattle to Portland ride at around 5 am with a bunch of buddies (Robert, Ming, Rob, Rob’s brother-in-law, Ryan, Glenn and Jay. Donald and Joe, where were you?). We skipped the start line (there was 10,000 registered riders!) and hit Lake Washington Boulevard which was gorgeous as the sun came up. Leaving Seattle we tried to all ride together but at the first rest stop Robert, Ming and I keep going while the others stopped. We then rode faster than we’ve ever ridden before to Centralia, the half way point, only stopping once. For the first hundred miles we averaged 19.6 mph, our fastest century yet. We were pumped!
After Centralia we found out that the ride isn’t as flat as everyone lead us on to believe. The next 70 miles proved to be pretty frustrating as all the pace lines that passed us were going much too fast for us to be able to keep up and we had to battle the headwind mostly ourselves. Fortunately the final 30 miles felt almost all downhill except the last 4 miles into Portland :). Once I crossed the finish line I was pretty wiped. I could barely talk, in fact, it kinda felt like I was going to burst into tears. At the finish line we were met by Chelsea and celebrated with beers and bad food. Followed by more food and lots of sleep (we scored the Hilton pretty cheap on Hotwire). The next day we ate a huge brunch at Mother’s, met up with Rob for a bit, tried to get some donuts, then hit the road, and ate some more!
Thanks to Chelsea for being our chauffeur, the volunteers at all the food stops, all the riders I drafted behind, the police for shutting down some intersections and everyone who cheered us on!
On the road home I read all about the three one-day rides hosted by the Redmond Cycling Club – RAMROD (ride around Mount Rainer) Seattle to Spokane, Seattle to Spokane via highway 2. I think I’m up for RAMROD but biking from Seattle to Spokane in one day is just plain nuts (it’s a training ride for the ultimate in ultra-crazy cycling rides Race Across America.)
If I do STP again:
Better start time coordination so we can maximize sleeping in
More sleep during the week leading up to the event (it was a busy week at work…)
Every few months my mom emails me asking to use my blog to raise money for one cause or another thinking I write for an audience measuring in the tens of thousands. I try and tell her that I only have five readers and that my sisters have already had their arms twisted by her and I’m not going to be able to apply any more pressure.
I don’t know how this ride snuck up on me but before I knew it most of the cyclists at work were participating in Lance Armstrong’s LIVESTRONG Challenge, a bike and cycling event to raise money to fight cancer (the Seattle ride has raised $880,000 so far!). Since I missed the previous weekend’s century hosted by Flying Wheels, I couldn’t miss this one too. (For those who aren’t cyclists, a century is a 100 mile ride. A metric century is a 100 km ride.)
Fortunately, it wasn’t too late on Saturday to register and pony up a donation to get to my minimum fundraising requirement.
After a late night celebrating Ming’s birthday (the Grey Goose shots seemed like a bad idea, but in fact, did not slow me down) I joined the crew at 6:45 a.m. at the start line for the 100 mile ride (check out the map):
Here’s a video of us starting. We show up around the 13 second mark:
This was the largest ride I’ve participated in. My number was 1166 so there must have been a good 1200 riders on the line!
The highlight of the ride was definitely the start charging through the empty streets of downtown Seattle and then taking the I-90 express lane out to Mercer Island. At one point I looked back and was pulling what looked like 100 people in a single line (and no, I didn’t pull the whole way across). Thanks to the police and state patrol for doing a good job at closing off streets and intersections for us. I wish we had that every ride.
The lowlight of the ride was either the torrential downpour we experienced leaving Renton (seriously, cats & dogs were coming down) or the Montreux climb (750 feet, high grade, short distance). RiderX has a great description in his course preview of the climb which I’m glad I didn’t read before registering:
Montreux is, to put it simply, a beast. If you have a climbing cassette for your bike, bring it. If you have a small electric assist-motor, bring it. If you have a supply of EPO, use it. If you are like me, you will be spending about 20 minutes of time on this hill. On the upside, the pavement is excellent, and there’s also a view, if you have the oxygen to turn around and see it.
Right from the start, it’s at about 10% for the first little bit, then it will turn a bit to the left and ease down to around 7%. Then it will kick up to about 14% for a bit, taper down to 10%, up to 14%, and then there’s a nice section that’s even steeper. I was climbing at about 3.9 MPH on that section.
The worst part was that 2/3rds of the way up there was a guy dressed like a devil saying there was only 25 meters to go so I stood up and started to really pound it only to get around the corner and see that I wasn’t yet at the top! Glenn tells me this is a Tour De France thing:
The emotional part was seeing so many people riding in memory or in honor of someone. Not surprisingly, I too have had friends and family fight cancer. Fortunately, there were many supporters along the way cheering us on. It was very energizing to not just pound the pavement on another weekend ride but to actually get out and ride for something.
We made it! Here’s the Redfin boys (Dave, Rob, myself and Robert):
I’ll definitely do it again next year as the event was extremely well organized. The only fault I could find is that the beer garden was too far away from the food and in my exhausted state I was too lazy to find the stairs to get up there.
As part of gearing up for doing the STP, a 202 mile race from Seattle to Portland that I’m going to do one day, I went to Cycle U for a bike fitting (I ride a Specialized Allez Elite Triple).
Lang was my fitter and he spent an hour and a half with me measuring this and that.
When it was all said and done this is what he did:
Moved cleats back 1.0 cm and saddle back 1.4 cm, dropped handle bar 2.0 cm for slightly more aggressive position. Cleat and saddle changes should give more power and efficiency while handlebar change should give more speed. Also added 2 shims to left show and 1 shim to right shoe to correct knee alignment.
Turns out my seat height was good. Wondering if I had the best seat, he said my stock Specialized seat was actually pretty good.
We also weighed my bike and it clocked in at 20 lbs 14 oz with saddle bag but without water bottles.
I’m looking forward to trying out the new fit on Wednesday morning before work assuming the rain lets up :).
I’d like to pick up a pair of gloves but I can’t figure out what a good pair would be. Also, my cycling glasses are all banged up and I could use a new pair of those too. One thing at a time though…
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This weekend we rode Suntop (click for photos, maps and stats). Or more accurately, down Suntop. Overall we descended over 4000 vertical feet. Fortunately we were able to ride up 3250 of that in a car (though we did end up climbing around 1800 feet overall).
Last weekend we went on our first epic ride. We thought we’d take it easy and do a 2 hour ride, 1400 feet of elevation at Taneum Ridge. Unfortunately we were misinformed and the ride was in fact 6 hours with 4300 feet of elevation. Berhnard has photos and maps of it online to prove it. It turned out there were many signs this was going to be the ride from hell. For instance, three people ran out of both water and food, we didn’t see any other mountain bikers, only motocross riders, like an Escher drawing there was no downhill, the entire ride was up, etc.
Last night I took my new toy, an Ellsworth Moment, out for its first ride on Tiger Mountain (1100 vertical feet climb over 3 miles, then 8 miles of riding down and back around), the most popular local biking spot, and boy did I have fun. I can’t actually remember when I had so much fun on a bike before. The Moment had no problems climbing (and it of course helped that I’m in great shape) and rolled over everything in it’s way without a hiccup (as compared to a ride I did a week weeks ago on the Blizzard where I got pretty frustrated with my lack of performance).
It was just an absolute pleasure to ride, I couldn’t stop smiling all throughout the ride yesterday. In fact, I was so excited I organized another ride to Tiger tonight. Though of course, now that it’s the next day, I’m feeling pretty tired.
But of course, it’s sad to hang up my old 1999 Blizzard.
It’s too soon to part with it so I’ll hang it on the wall and maybe consider selling it next spring.
And a big thanks to my friend JF at Gords for recommending and selling me such a sweet ride!
Update: I forgot to note that if you check out their 2006 Catalog you’ll see they hand build the bikes here in Washingston State at an environmentally friendly facility featuring solar panels, non-forest building materials and geothermal heating. Very cool.
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I'm Matt Goyer, a yuppie Canadian living in Seattle working at Redfin as Director of Online Marketing (Linkedin). In a previous life I attended the University of Waterloo, and founded two companies, Fairtunes and Transpose, and used to work at Microsoft. For fun I drink, shop, wakeboard, sail, ski, hike and play hockey.
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