5 posts tagged “cascade”

I received an email request to leaders to help out with the Cascade Training Series, sponsored by CycleU.

The ride was from Marymoor Park to Issaquah, about 65 miles and plenty of hills.

I was assigned to help with the "Blue" group which averages 16-18 miles per hour. (There is a slightly faster Purple and fast Orange group as well, but Blue was the largest.) Until the first stop, I basically hung out in the middle. I didn't know the route. Later on around mile 30, I got ahead with a number of riders and was asked to lead the faster riders of the Blue.

I had no "sweep" (someone in the rear to monitor) so I couldn't really keep track of people who were hanging on with me. Plus I wasn't aware of any regroup points or rest stops and I didn't see any reason to stop to wait. But there were people without cue sheets (directions) and people stuck behind traffic signals in Sammamish or slow climbing hills, as I found out later, who got dropped. (I had assumed Pat, the real leader, would pick them up, but Pat had been a lot slower, so those dropped had a long time to wait or went off on their own. I wouldn't even see Pat after waiting about half an hour back in Marymoor.)

Good news was more than a few riders thanked me for helping with the ride. A few who somehow made it back on their own were unhappy with me.

Since I got my bicycle(s) last year, I've done dozens of Free Daily Rides with the Cascade Bicycle Club (CBC.)

Most of my bicycle mileage so far has been on these rides. More so in 2008 since I haven't been back to California with my bicycle since the end of 2007. And I haven't done a whole lot of event rides like I did last year.

With all the CBC daily rides that are out there -- some 1,200 a year -- there's usually some ride I'm interested in joining. But not always. And the ride leaders out on the weekday rides have been saying they're tired of leading or want a break. And the popular rides often have so many people that extra leaders always help, especially for those wanting a faster or slower pace.

Becoming a ride leader is quite easy. Ride three times with CBC. Then go to a 2-1/2 hour orientation. Then co-lead 2 rides.

So what does a leader do? Aside from filling out paperwork so we can call somebody in case of emergency, track and help with accidents and problems; mostly it's group cohesion and safety issues you worry about. Seattle Bike Club pretty much treats every rider as a leader, but with the 10,000 or so CBC members they are after a bit more organization.

Interesting things: CBC wants to have more ride leaders lead beginning riders, kids, and slower riders. They want more weekend rides. (I'm apparently not that necessary.) Biggest complaints are from ride leaders not following the posted pace of the ride. Serious accidents are quite rare. (Most accidents are due to people riding too closely; when a front tire touches a rear tire an accident usually results.) It takes six months to "earn" a bicycle jersey. Ride leaders often call participants after the ride if they had problems.

Once I co-lead a couple of rides I get to schedule my own rides through the website. I'll mention what those are on the blog. Maybe this fall I'll do night rides with my singlespeed?

Most other people there had very specific scenario questions and I think most of the responses from the teachers came down to either "use your judgment" or "this isn't adult daycare". Most concerns were about those riders who can't take care of themselves on a ride. CBC ride leaders don't have any responsibility to resolve mechanical issues or rescue sick riders. In an emergency, a ride leader is expected to stay with the cyclist but mostly we were told to delegate, if possible these tasks, since very often there's a lot of things going on at once: make that 911 call, call their emergency contact, deal with the person's bicycle, keep the ride going or turn it around, fill out reports, deal with traffic, get first aid, etc.

One other thing to note: Practically anybody can lead a ride. We had fat people in that "didn't like hills" and wanted to lead 10-12 mph rides. There's a lot of newbie fatties interested in rides as well.

I've been finding on my Tuesday rides with the Cascade Bicycle Club, despite having been in Seattle twenty years, I still haven't explored very many streets and routes.

Largely, it's been the result of where I have needed to go in the past. Growing up, it was always a mile or two from my home in Greenlake. When I was older, I used to ride to my high school, Garfield, and the U.W. My friends have all been mostly a few miles to the east. I only started riding in often Ballard once I got a home there. I went down Leschi many times, mostly to cross over to I-90 to my old job at Starwave, and along Burke-Gilman from the U.W. countless times. I've ridden some roads around Northgate where my friend Mike Bloch used to be.

On the club ride on Tuesday, it was my first ride up Interlaken Boulevard up from Montlake. It's a very beautiful ride on a (mostly) car-free, forest canopied road. Though hilly, and the road in need of repair, the climb is steady and shaded.

The same day, I found also there's a bike path on the west side of 520, which takes you below the bridge. Though, the blackberry bushes are taking over this path. Thorny vines stick out, ready to capture your Lycra jersey if you aren't paying attention. The path takes you by the Montlake Playfield, which I have never been to, though I've often sat in my kayak and wondered about what it looked like.

To get to downtown, it's a fairly flat, if not steady decent, on 19th or 20th avenue east, until Jackson Street, which has a bike lane that will take you into Chinatown and then into Pioneer Square. The bike lane does disappear, but if you take the right lane after crossing under I-5, it's a long decent and traffic won't give you trouble. King Street would be the better choice if you wanted to stop for some Dim Sum.

Up along the waterfront is pretty good. There isn't much traffic on Alaskan Way going along the waterfront. I suspect drivers want to avoid the sporadic freight train traffic to their east which can box them in. It also dead ends inconveniently at the new sculpture garden. Last Tuesday at 7PM, the waterfront seemed fairly desolate, though it seemed like this would be prime tourist season.

From Myrle Edwards and the Elliot Bay trails, you can get on to the Interbay trail, and if you choose to, there's yet another steady climb up to the bluffs of Magnolia along a bike path. From the top, traffic is light, the views are nice, and the gentle rolling at the top keep the cycling interesting. Our ride leader knew a special way through Discovery Park that was a decent on wide bicycle paths, and took us down to the Ballard Locks.

The Ballard Locks are a better choice than the Ballard Bridge, which has a deserved reputation for being dangerous to cyclists. Though the Locks would add another 10-20 minutes to one's commute from Ballard to Downtown.

There was a bonus climb (for riders in the climbing mood) up 34th Ave NW, which is a residential street, but no stop signs every block. The road takes you to Sunset Park overlooking Shilshole Bay Marina, and if I were going home to my own street back on 75th Street NW would take me to my old home, or 70th NW down to Greenlake, and to my new home. Instead though, I stuck with the group, headed back down to Gasworks, and had yet another climb back up the hill that evening through the U-District.

Hopefully, the details weren't too boring. Although grade factor into picking a route, there's time-of-day and day-of-week traffic level, road quality, view, visibility (important at night), recent weather, who I'm with, my fitness level, etc.

Last night was my second "Tuesday Night Surprise Ride" which is lead by a Cascade Bicycle Club member. The route the leader Mike takes is up to his whim. It's fun, sociable, I learn new routes in Seattle, it's also safe and comfortable in the crowd.

There was a mix of men and women, about 12, mostly older riders. The ride was a 25 mile loop and we averaged around 10-12 mph, including breaks and stopping, which was pretty leisurely. The route we took was from Gasworks park to Ballard, through and north of Carkeek Park, almost to Shoreline, down to the Northgate area, and down to about 90th NE where we hooked up with the Burke-Gilman trail and back. Twenty-five miles actually covers quite a lot of Seattle in a single ride.

This was the first time I had dinner with some of the group. We ate at the Blue Moon Burger joint across from Costas in Fremont. One of the members (I forgot his name) was a 61-year old veteran bicyclists, who said he had done racing and long distance cycling in his youth, and had also completed the remarkably difficult Paris-Brest-Paris (PBP) event. The PBP is a 1200km ride, which you must complete in 90 hours, and you are entirely unsupported. To join requires qualification achieved by completing designated 100km to 600km rides given by sanctioned clubs during the year of the event (and he said also the year before.)

Just to give a scale of the distance of the Washington 600km ride: It is a circumnavigation of the Washington Olympic National Park, which if you have driven, is quite very hilly ride. This ride must be completed within a 48 hour period, and there are various control stations you must cross within a time limit.

I asked our veteran rider about what it was like to complete PBP, and he said during it he started to hallucinate near the end, due to exhaustion and lack of sleep. Instead, he recommend perhaps bicycling in other ways in France, e.g. from cafe to cafe in Paris.

The PBP, incidentally, was an event I was looking at earlier in the day. (I've been curious what rides there were in Seattle, and I was lead to the Seattle Randonneurs site, which links to the PBP.) To comprehend the distance and difficulty, I had spent some time doing the math. What it might be like to do 600km over two days? Would that be like riding the one-day STP twice? Two back-to-back RAMRODs? 600km certainly seems ambitious but doable. But I had my concerns, and our dinner group talked about just how physically damaging these events could be.

Our veteran much preferred and recommended some of the multi-day, state-crossing events he has done. I asked about the famous RAGBRAI (Ride across Iowa), since someday I thought it might be cool if my father who is in Iowa could meet me along the way. RAGBRAI seems notorious for participants who emphasize more the drinking and partying than the actual ride. (Take a look at Teamartini, as an example.)

I haven't even done my first STP, but I'm thinking ahead to next year. Already, I'd like to consider training for RAMROD and the one day STP, RSVP (Ride to Vancouver), and maybe RAW - Ride Around Washington depending on my vacation time and Hitomi's interest. I'm sure Hitomi could be convinced to try RSVP (a more scenic and exclusive event) and maybe RAW, assuming there's good food stops. We'll see how things go.

Hitomi and I did a "metric century" ride today. (This is where you ride 100km in a single day.)

She and I joined a faster ride ("moderate pace", 14-16 mph) today, which took us from the town of Snohomish, through Arlington, Granite Falls, and various small towns and lakes. There was about 40-50 people on this ride (I had expected a handful) and pretty much every one of them had more expensive bikes than us and experience to match. Top-of-the line Shimano Dura-Ace and Campy Record component sets all around. Most everyone was around 40+, and most were men. There were women, though quite burly. Surprisingly, there was one 16-year old on the ride. Hitomi and I represented the late-20 and early-30 demographic. It was clear we weren't of the Veteran caliber.

However, Hitomi did keep up with the pack - at least initially - and I did just fine. My bike's so smooth (if the road's smooth) and I was beaming at how well it rides. We went through a lot more scenery than the previous weekend (which mostly sucked from a scenery standpoint) and keeping in with the pack helped shield us from the traffic. It was my first ride with so many in one area, it was like we were in a flock of migratory birds or herd of elk or something.

At around the 40 mile mark (our lunch stop), Hitomi was flagging and last. I was fine (my cold knees finally started warming up) and in some ways I was actually feeling better than at the start. But it was about 3 hours into the long ride and Hitomi couldn't match pace with the rest. The leader (Greg) was concerned - he suggested various short-cuts (to me) if she was tired. Hitomi said she was "fine" and could finish, though now was only going 12-14 mph. Having said that, it seemed likely we'd just finish the route, if only at a shorter velocity.

Our lunch was in front of a supermarket in Granite Falls. Since we got there late, we were leaving after most people left, and Hitomi again was in the back. It seemed unlikely we'd be able to keep up. I got frustrated since we (Hitomi) was getting abandoned (even by the old guy in the back) and I tried to keep Hitomi pedaling. She also popped her chain a few times and had a tough time with the derailer and I told her she doesn't know how to shift properly. (This I think is true, but wasn't nice to say. Having had it adjusted by Larry at "Perfect Wheels" it's probably as good as it might be. The only improvement would be replacing the derailer entirely.)

Despite our frustratingly slower progress, we actually weren't too behind many riders. We passed a group dealing with some mechanical issues (flat tire?) and met up with the aforementioned teenager (Jeff) who was having some of his own bicycle problems. Confused about the route (we mistakenly on the west side not east of Lake Roesiger), we stopped and talked to some older folk. They were planning a taking a well-known short cut. The shortcut would save about 12 miles off of the 75 planned for the trip, though for the distance saved, I found that it went up and down some quite substantial hills.

Hitomi's bicycle isn't as good as it should be. Although when I bought it, it was clearly better than mine, now it's not. It's a bit unfair to have the slower person is stuck with the worst bike. But really her lack of speed is more about her lack of strength, which will take time to build. We're aiming for 100 miles (not kilos) over two days and I want to help her meet her goal of Seattle to Portland.