Saturday dawned cool and mostly clear.

Certainly a surprise given the recent 90+ weather and the forest fire smoke that had the air quality hovering between “moderate” and “unhealthy” for a few days and generated a number of the red and orange sunsets that are so beloved in science fiction.

I have in the past asserted that a good cyclist should always have their excuses ready ahead of time, lest the urgent need for one catch them off guard, but this year things were very clear.

I simply did not have the legs to do the whole route of Sufferin’ Summits.

Over the past year, ongoing issues with my ischial tuberosities and an unexpected and as of yet unexplained interest in running resulted in an uncharacteristic dearth in riding, and especially, in climbing. During previous years, many weekends would find me hauling my bike and body up any conveniently situated hill and therefore build a decent set of legs, but that did not happen for the aforementioned reasons, and therefore my stated plan was to climb 2 – maybe 3 – hills, and call it a day. Seemed like a reasonable plan given the expected temperature and air quality, but to find it cool and crisp – and probably the best conditions for Sufferin’ Summits ever – was a bit disappointing.

But, as noted Stoic philosopher Marcus Aurelius said, “Crura si infirmus colles diutius”, which roughly translates to “If the legs are not strong, the hills are too long”.

Actually, I’m paraphrasing a bit, what he really said was:

If you are pained by any external thing, it is not this thing that disturbs you, but your own judgment about it. And it is in your power to wipe out this judgment now.

Sage advice indeed, though it might be fair to point out that if you are in charge of the entire Roman Empire, you might perhaps be insulated a bit more from external pain than others.

Anyway, our small group – small presumably because of the forecast for heat and smoke – headed out to climb Grand Ridge. This is one of my favorite climbs, and as usual, it did not disappoint, except that it was still a bit smoky on top and we could see the theoretical view of Bellevue, Mercer Island, Seattle, and the Olympics. And unfortunately all the houses they’ve built have gotten in the way of the views.

On the way down, we lost two group members to a broken spoken on a descent – thankfully without an accident – so we re-crossed Issaquah and started up Squak Mountain. There are two basic ways to get up Squak, and this is the more painful of the two ways, but we eventually finished the lower section, made our way above “house line” on the climb, and then finally topped out in the development in the top. Squak is unique in that it has no view to speak of from the top.  We descended back down, and I decided that I had a third hill in my legs.

We head over to Talus, a development stuck into the eastern flank of Cougar mountain. The main entrance has a nice climb up that we don’t take because there is a far worse way up to the north. It’s painfully steep at the start – 18-20% – and then the main part is 15% and only about a lane wide. Halfway you need to stop, unclip before you fall over, go around a gate, and then try to start and clip in again before you fall over. After you top out on that road, there’s a little paved connector between two parts of the development that’s easily over 20%, and then a steady 10% climb up to the top.

Exactly the sort of climb that I was looking for when I created the route, and it has the nice bonus that nobody knows about it.

After the top there, we work our way south. In previous years, we would climb a short steep section and hit the end of the road, but there’s a new development at that top and that yields another 250’ of up, all of it painful. That makes me happy – Talus was a big of a young brother compared to the bigger climbs next to it, but with that addition at top I think it holds its own.

And… After a quick descent and a nice spin back, I was done for the morning. Which felt really, really weird; it’s strange to start on a course that I know so well and then just stop after three hills. This reminds me a bit of climbing Hurricane Ridge out of Port Angeles; you spend 2 hours climbing, half an hour down, and then you are back at the starting point and it’s only 9:30 AM.

As for stats, I did 2733’ of climbing in 19.26 miles, for an average gradient of 142’ per mile and an average speed of 10.6 mph.

Here’s a fun little profile that I got from VeloViewer.

As I have noted a time or two, 7 hills is probably my favorite ride; it meets my requirements in terms of hilliness, it has great staff, and – being local – I don’t have to travel or get up at an ungodly hour to do it.

I first rode it in 2005, and have ridden it mostly every year since, except when it’s been rainy. I typically do the “metric century” version, air-quoted because it’s only 59 or so miles rather than 62.1371 miles as one might rightly expect.

For good reasons – the 2020 edition was cancelled.

But checking around, I found an alternative…

Planning

This is not a ride that requires a lot of planning, at least if I have normal amounts of training in my legs. I’m a little on the light side for miles and up this year, but close enough. I rode up Seminary a week ago and felt pretty good.

On the day of the ride I woke up at about 5:30 to the birds in the greenbelt behind our house, looked outside, and found the pervasive mist that Seattle is so good at. That’s okay; my expected departure time is fluid.

I’m not sure what distance I’m going to ride today; there’s the classic 40ish miler, the metric century, and the full century. All of the routes are additive; on the short version there’s a point where you can turn off to do the longer versions, and on the metric century, a point where you turn off to do the whole century. That is both an advantage and a curse depending on the state of your goals from minute to minute.

I find that I need to correct a statement I just made; I know that I’m not going to ride the century. Two years in a row I signed up for century and then found an *extremely* good reason to stay on the metric century route when I came to the turnoff, and I then realized that the century isn’t for me. I’ve ridden the additional 40 miles and I’m apparently just not very excited about it.

Perhaps the biggest decision I need to make is what to wear. A quick glance at the thermostat shows there are only 52 F’s outside, and that’s too few F’s to just go with a jersey and shorts, so it means arm warmers – which I can take off later when there are more F’s – and a light vest – also jerseyable. It’s a little cold to skip the leg warmers but I think I’m going to anyway; my knees may get cranky but the hills will help keep them warm; leg warmers are a pain to take off and my team car is never handy to hand them off.

I stuff some food into my pockets, though I don’t really need to eat that much on rides unless I’m going to push the pace and I don’t plan to, though that will change depending on how my legs feel. Cheez-its, a bit of trail mix, and a somewhat ride-worn honey stinger waffle go into one pocket.

Start

I show up at the start pavilion on the Kirkland waterfront and pick up my packet. There seems to be little organization but that’s okay; I get my number and put it on my jersey:

I know the route pretty well – well, very well – but I take a look at the route guide:

Seems about right…

I head towards the first hill, Market street. Market was quickly dispatched, but on the downhill there was a detour back uphill and I opted to cross the street and ride the sidewalk for a bit until I could get back on the road down into Juanita. Up Juanita, down Holmes point on a really pretty section of the ride, and then to the base of Lord Uppity Upperton, sometimes known as “Seminary Hill”. Legs felt okay and I rode up the hill 2 gears up; I’m trying to ride my granny 34/32 less to build up my legs a bit more, so something like a 34/27.

At the top, I turned left and stopped to take off my vest, and on the descent I hit road construction #4 and #5 of the day. I ran into another guy who I didn’t talk to because reasons, he caught up with me waiting for the annoying light (you know the one), and we started up Norway together. I decided to stretch my legs a bit and targeted 225-250 watts on the climb, finishing at the top by myself after road construction #6.

The descent was still a little moist so I took it slower than usual, and then took my super-secret back way to get to 132nd and then over to the food stop at the Evergreen Health parking lot. It’s always nice to get off the bike for a few minutes and I had part of a honey stinger and some water; I decided to skip the lines for the food and headed back out.

From here the route winds northward until the descent on Brickyard, where I was obstructed by a bus on the descent which turned out to be a good idea as it was still a tiny bit damp. Talked briefly with another cyclist on the next section as I headed towards Hilly McHillFace (aka “Winery”). This is the steepest hill on the route but the pitches are pretty short; I ran it +2 on my gears and stood up a lot. One of the highlights of the ride is the special feature at the top of winery, but in this case it was more of a do-it-yourself version.

Sven Hills top of Winery Climb from Eric Gunnerson on Vimeo.

At the top, it’s a quick run south to the second food stop – which I skipped – then down into the valley onto willows and heading south. At no point did I consider turning left on 116th to do the metric version; my legs were a bit tired and I’ve been having some seat issues that make long rides less than comfortable (always know your excuses up front), but honestly I really just didn’t think about it.

So, up the last hill – on which I passed a total of zero cyclists – a couple of nice descents, and then on to the finish line for the… ceremony?

I did pick up some swag; it wasn’t what I expected but I have made some progress:

All-in-all, not a bad substitute considering…

Traditionally, winter has been the off-season for me. It gets rainy so only about half of the Tuesday/Thursday night rides I schedule actually occur, and we’re skiing on the weekends, so I go from 3 rides a week during the season to 1 ride a week, on average. My fitness slowly decreases and, come March, it takes a lot of effort to get it back.

Last fall I realized – I can be a bit slow at times – that since I was now retired, I had the chance to keep a bit more of my fitness by riding more during the winter on weekdays. And perhaps I could keep my climbing legs as well.

I also realized – well, already knew – that my well-known laziness would be the biggest issue, so I needed a more defined goal. So….

12 Months of Zoo

Was born.

The rules are pretty simple:

• Go up the classic Zoo route from Newport to the antennas, all 1320’ of up. No substitutions routes allowed; no climbs from the west, not even any trips up Montreux and then the top of Zoo.
• Repeat every month for a year.

The first trip was the Sunday of Thanksgiving week,  November 18th at 1:48PM. The climb took me 34:19, which is pretty much average for me. I also climbed the backside of Summit which is sortof on the way back home and features one of my favorite descents to the north.

December weather is always really hit and miss and we are generally skiing the whole month, but the snow was late so I did a quick ride on Saturday, December 15th in the early morning. 35:52. I added in Pinnacles at the top and a really painful climb off of 164th on the way back.

January, the weather, skiing, and seasonal ennui conspired against me, and it wasn’t until 11:02 AM on January 28th that I made the “JanuZoo” ride, completing it in 35:34.

February 2019 was the snowiest month in Seattle in 50 years. Snowy at my house at 300’ means a lot more snowy at 1300’. Eastside Tours rode a total of zero times for the month, the first shutout I can remember in the 15 years that I’ve been on the ride. It froze overnight and then barely got warm enough during the day.

But between storms on February 21st at 1:01PM, I bundled up and headed out into the mid-40s weather, heartened by the a bit of sun. West Lake Sammamish was cold but not icy, at least none that I saw. I hit Newport and started the climb, with remnants of the last storm still piled up to the side of the road. The road was dry-ish, however, so I kept climbing. Pretty much none of the climb had seen any sun and it all had snow on the side, which pushed the temp down into the mid 30s, but it really wasn’t that bad as I climbed at a lackluster 167 watts. I finished the middle part, and turned onto the top – which sees less traffic – and the snow got higher. A few minutes later, I reached the false summit, descended, and got ready for that last little push to the top.

The road was plowed because there’s a reservoir and antennas up there, but not really very well – there were some clear tracks that were not dry and some snow/ice on the road, and 16-18” on the sides. Hmm. 18-20%, check. Air temp just above freezing, check. Areas of dubious traction, check. And I decided that I wasn’t willing to risk the rest of my ski season and the spring biking season just to ride up a short piece of road. So, I got of my bike and hiked up the damn thing, pushing my bike along with me, for the couple of minutes it took to walk to the top and a 36:41 completion time. And the road was fine, at the top, I clipped back in and slowly and carefully rode down, and quickly found out the real problem. Even unzipping, I get sweaty on the climb and the descents are a field experiment in wind-chill factors. The rest of the ride was the minimal one, just to get home.

With all the issues in February, I decided to hit March early, and on March 13th I headed out at noon and rode both Squak Mountain and Zoo. My ancient Garmin Edge 705 crapped out the week before, so I have no riding data to support this ascent, though I will note that there was about 15” of snow at the top of Squak and I have evidentiary pictures of the top of the Zoo. This is mostly the leftovers from the February storms.

April 7th brought “A Grand Squaky Zoo”, climbing 3 of the 4 big climbs from Sufferin’ Summits – though not the hardest climbs. The Zoo climb was done in 36:03 and 179 watts on my new Garmin 520 Plus (or is that “+”?).

Sunday, May 5th was Day 1 of minicamp where I rode 5 days straight in a quest to jump-start my fitness. It featured Squak, the extremely painful Telus North climb up James Bush Road, and Zoo in 35:21 at 184 watts.

Sunday, June 9th brought the “3 Biggies” – up Grand Ridge, Squak, and Zoo again. Zoo was dispatched at 32:25 at 208 watts, a nice improvement. And June 29th brought “The Reservoir Rendezvous”, with Grand Ridge, Squak, Telus, Zoo, and Summit. It also brought my slowest trip up at 39:55 and 183 watts, because I was chatting with Douglas Migden from Freemont who is training for the Transcontinental race in Europe doing Zoo. He does Pinnacles at the top rather than the classic top, which doesn’t meet my strict definition of a Zoo climb, but I decided to cut him some slack because he was doing it 6 times that day, plus riding from Freemont and back. My slowness was also attributed to a bout of kidney stones on the 19th, which knocked back my training for a 10 days or so.

Two climbs in June made July pretty obvious, with three climbs as the goal. I did them all in one day in the ZooZooZooSummit ride on July 20th. 38:32 @ 169 watts, 37:30 @ 171 watts, and 34:15 at 191 watts. Disappointingly slower than my early June climb, despite having a group to rabbit after on the third trip up. But 5100’ in 36 miles is pretty good.

There’s something a little embarrassing at this point. I did the triple on the assumption that I had started the year of Zoo in August of 2018 to put an emphatic completion on the year. Then I went back and looked at my data and realized that while I had done serious climbing in both September and October, there were no zoo climbs. Sigh.

August 17th was Sufferin’ Summits 2019. I had managed to squeeze in an abscessed tooth in early August for another week off the bike, and then I pulled a hammie playing soccer on the 11th. My zoo climb was 33:16 @ 193 watts, which was somewhat surprisingly my second fastest ascent of the year despite my time off and my goal to ride slowly on this ride. Hill #5 – which includes “the widowmaker” – was the last one I completed on Sufferin’ Summits (not for the first time).

September 7 brought a “Minimal Zoo”, with 20.3 miles and the flattest route up the zoo and back home. 35:03 @ 180 watts and not feeling very good at all despite starting in the afternoon.

October found me seriously – rabidly even – uninterested with the project, but I pulled on riding clothes for what might be the last jersey/shorts climbing day of the year and headed out. I finished with a thoroughly demotivated – and demotivating – 37:47 @ 169 watts, but finish I did, capping off 15 ascents in the period of 12 months. Here’s a picture facing north. The lake is Lake Sammamish, and off in the distance you could see the Olympics and Mt. Baker if they were available to be seen.

And thereby completes the cycle of the seasons and the year of the zoo…

Preparation

A few years ago, I got the idea of doing a solo ride along the RAMROD (my 2013 writeup here) route but in the reverse direction, which would obviously be named “DORMAR” (RAMROD backwards). It looked like it was doable from a water perspective, and would have the advantage of putting all of the climbing in the first 75 miles of the ride, rather than putting a huge climb in at 90 miles into the ride. That would be better because it would be cooler. And you could do *all* the climbing, including the last 600’ up to the Paradise visitor’s center which the Park Service no longer lets RAMROD do.

I was excited enough to create a Facebook group and write a Rider’s Guide. Even scheduled a day for it.

And, for two years, I found excellent reasons not to do the ride. Which means that I’m thinking that I really can’t finish the thing comfortably.

This year, my lovely wife offered to drive SAG for me, which means I could ride it solo – which is really my preference – but without having to be wholly self-sufficient for the whole ride. My tentative plan was to meet her in Eatonville (115 miles in, after the majority of the climbing) to have a lunch, and then I would ride the last 40 miles.

That was the working plan, and this time I actually came up with a date – the Monday after RAMROD, July 29th this year.

Further planning commenced. And I realized that while I was really looking forward to the climbing part of the day – and the descents, I love the descents – I was unexcited about 40 miles of mostly flat riding in the heat of the afternoon after all the climbing. 3+ hours in the heat of the day after already doing all the hard work? I knew that I didn’t like the last 30 miles of RAMROD, and that at least was downhill (though with a headwind).

Hmm. What would you call such a ride? It’s a little bit shorter than the DORMAR, so let’s chop a letter off of the name and we’ll call it “DORMA”. It will be 116 miles and over 8000’ of climbing.

So, I spent a few hours creating the following in Inkscape:

I am *exceedingly* happy with how that turned out. It’s supposed to look something like this. For those of you who would prefer English, from left to right, Greenwater, Crystal Mountain Blvd, Cayuse Pass, Grove of the Patriarchs, Backbone Ridge, Inspiration Point, and Paradise (yes, it’s not really a Mont, but from the way climbs are named I think that makes the most sense).

So, there’s a 32 mile climb from Enumclaw to the park entrance at Crystal Mountain, then a climb up Cayuse (1700’ over 6.1 miles), a climb up Backbone ridge (1330’ over 5.6 miles), and a climb up to Paradise (2621’ over 12.5 miles). None of the climbs are particularly steep – last weekend I did 4000’ of climbing at 9% – but there’s certainly a lot of it.

For Kim to be SAG, she needs to have some idea of when I’m going to be at various points along the route. That is a bit of a challenge. For the main climbs, I actually have some data from last summer of the first climb, and it showed that I did that section in 50 minutes, which meant I was climbing at 34 feet per minute (at 195 watts, if you care). For the descents and easier climb at the beginning, I based it off other numbers I had or just a decent guess. That gave me the following timeline:

That’s 9:20 minutes total, 8:50 riding and :30 resting. That’s a little over 13 MPH average, and while my last run of RAMROD came in at an even 15 MPH, that included 50-60 paceline miles which bumps the average up a bit.

I put this all together in a guide for my wife, along with a map of the Eatonville end location (the Visitor’s center that RAMROD uses as the first stop).

T-1

A list of tasks done in preparation for the ride, in random order:

• Headlight to deal with the early start
• Rear blinkie (these are technically required when riding in the park but are spottily enforced)
• Di2 shifters (very happy to remember this)
• MP3 player

• My best Castelli bibs
• A Nike Dryfit underlayer (it’s not going to be very hot)
• My Rails to Trials Jersey (a bit too big, but bright yellow, so good for visibility and not too hot. And really big pockets)

• Mixed nuts
• Trail mix
• Cheez-its (my traditional long-ride fuel)

There are only 5 or so turns on the entire route and I have them in my head, so there’s no need to bring any maps or use my GPS to navigate. If I was doing the whole ride back to Enumclaw, I’d probably have done nav for the last section.

I got a decent but not great night of sleep two nights before, and that is the one that really matters; the night before I typically never sleep well and since I’m getting up at 4AM I’m going to be messing with my REM sleep anyway.

We headed down to Enumclaw, checked in at the Rodeway Inn, and went out for dinner at the Rainier Bar & Grill. I had a decent burger.

From wakefullness to ridefullness

After a malfunctioning AC and a hot crappy night of sleep, I woke up at 4AM for my 5AM departure. I don’t need that much time to get ready, but my eyes are much happier with contacts if I’m up for a bit.

As part of getting ready, I took a look at the current weather. I had planned my gear based on mid-50s and then warming up as the morning went on – which for me would mean a vest and maybe arm warmers. Even though I’m wearing my “Rails to Trails” jersey which has giant pockets, I have a lot of stuff and clothes take up a lot of space, so I don’t want to take too much.

51 degrees.

Yikes. The logical thing to do would be to add my leg warmers, but leg warmers are really bulky and not easy to carry when you take them off (you can stuff them inside your bibs but they will keep you warmer than you like. So, it’s vest & arm warmers and hope that it warms up quickly.

I drink 3 servings of SuperStarch mixed in water. SuperStarch is modified cornstarch, so go to your kitchen, take about 1/3 of a cup of cornstarch and add it to a glass of water, and drink it down. I’ll wait.

Nasty, wasn’t it? But I’ve had good luck with it as a time-release glucose source.

I glance at my watch as I ride out of the hotel parking lot, and it says 5:01. Perfect

Enumclaw => Park Entrance

32 miles, 2146’ of up

As I head out on highway 410 – with front and back lights as it’s still *dark* – it’s a nice and still night and 51 degrees doesn’t feel as cold as I expected. I’m cold, but not that bad. Bodes well.

The moon is out as a waning crescent; just the smallest slice bright and the rest slightly illuminated from earthshine. Pretty.

The first 3 miles climbs about 500’, and I warm up pretty well during this section. There’s pretty much nobody at all out on the road; a few trucks heading to the gravel plant for the first mile and then it’s almost empty. I’m listening to Radiolab podcasts on this ride to keep me occupied (yes, I can still hear cars & trucks approaching), and after the first hill section I’m spinning along at about 170 watts. I want to keep a decent pace but I don’t want to use too much energy or legginess (legity), so I’m trying to stay in the sweet spot in between.

After about an hour, I zip my vest back up because my hands are getting a bit cold. I flip over to another screen on my GPS to see the temperature…

41.7

Damn. I can tolerate the cold pretty well and my core temp is okay so far, but my knees do not like being this cold. Nothing to do but press on.

The rest of this section passes slowly and it does warm up *slightly* as I keep going; the base of Crystal Mountain Blvd – where the National Park starts – is all the way up to 44 degrees.

Cayuse Pass

6.1 miles, 1700’ of up

This section is a big misleading; the first two miles after you enter the park are the same gradient so you think it’s going to be easy, and then the pass begins.

I haven’t been able to find out who designed Cayuse Pass, but he was pretty bull-headed. Starting at the top point, the route wraps around the hill contours but barely wavers from a constant 6%. That means it’s easy to find a groove and stick to it, but there’s pretty much no variety to be had. I’ve been eating a bit to keep my reserves up; a bit of trail mix and some Cheez-Its. And drinking, despite me not sweating much, as they last thing you want in the mountains is to get behind on hydration. There’s a nice view of the southeast side of the mountain at one point, but I keep climbing. The sun is up but I’m on the west side of the hills and therefore still in shadow.

Eventually, I finally top out at the top into the sun and 47 degrees. My timeline estimate was that this would take me 3:20 and it actually took me 3:40, which I’ll note is pretty much exactly 10% slow. I was a little lower on wattage than I had expected, but it’s a long day and this is not the part of the ride to try to push.

Cayuse Pass Descent

11 miles, 2584’ of down

The Cayuse descent is a bit like the climb I just finished; 8 miles of 6% and then a flatter 3 mile section. I really like mountain descents, the road is good, and the constant 6% gradient means that I can cruise along at around 31-32 MPH at about 150 watts. I rarely coast on downhills as spinning keeps my legs warm. There are two sections at the top that head eastish and are therefore in the sun, and I warm up a bit, but most of the route is once again on the west-facing side and are pretty cool. My next climbs are going to be on hills facing east, so I’ll have plenty of chance to warm up soon. A glorious 14 minutes of fast descending takes me to the runout section, and I get to the park entrance at 4:04 into the ride, or 24 minutes behind my estimate.

A young park ranger takes my $15 – she does not offer the “Just go ahead” discount that I got when I climbed Sunrise last year – and I head to the Grove of the Patriarchs stop.

If you are in the area, this is a great stop; the trees are truly massive and the short loop hike is worth the effort. I’m only here to use the bathroom and to refill my water bottles. My hydration state seems okay so I mix a bottle of BioSteel to replace the one I had just finished and fill my second bottle as much as possible – which is only about 50% given the water fountain stream. I drink a bit extra, refill it as much as possible, and head out after a quick 10 minute stop. 5 minutes of time made up on the stop.

Backbone Ridge

5.6 miles, 1330’

This is the baby climb of the ride, but at 1330’ of up, it’s still quite a bit of vertical. I’m still trying to climb at a reasonable pace, and it seems that my pace today is a bit slow; it takes me 50 minutes to do this climb and I’m only climbing at 441 meters per hour; my usual rate is closer to 600 so this doesn’t bode particularly well. The climb isn’t very steep – only about 4% – and the temp is in the 50s and there are sections of sun. I feel decent, I’m just not riding very fast. Sometimes it happens.

And my butt is hurting. I’ve had a saddle sore for a while, and it’s flaring up. That means I need to stand up every few minutes, which I do fairly often anyway to stretch my legs but not this much. Both of those are having an effect on my speed.

On the way up there is a cycling group with matching jerseys that pass me going down. There are few cars.

The descent is a fun one, and there’s a bit of flat. A miscalculation means that I’m done with RadioLab, so I switch over to music.

My data says that I’m 22 minutes behind my timeline at this point, but other than a general sense of where I was at the top of Cayuse, I don’t know it at the time. It’s only relevant for Kim driving SAG, and there’s little I could do about it even if I knew.

Paradise

12.5 miles, 2621’

This climb is 300’ shorter than the climb up to Sunrise that I’ve done a few times, and it’s dwarfed by the 5000’ Hurricane Ridge climb on the Olympic peninsula, but that’s still quite a bit of climbing.

Nothing to do but HTFU and climb it. I feel decent but not strong, so I settle into a constant pace, which later data shows is a disappointing 170 watts.

I climb, climb, and then I climb some more as I work my way up the ridge. After 46 minutes I take a quick stop to eat some jerky (on this climb I think trying to eat it on the bike will end up using it to decorate the roadway, providing an unexpected protein windfall to the local fauna). This is *not* my jerky – which I did manage to leave in the fridge at home – but a decidedly inferior substitute purchased at a gas station.

Then it’s back on the bike to ride the rest of the way to the top. During the climb I stand up 19 times to rest my butt.

• My World – Avril Lavigne
• Any Way You Want It – Journey
• Be My Girl – The Police
• Holiday – Scorpions
• Silicon World – Eiffel 65
• Roll the Bones – Rush
• Time  – Pink Floyd
• Sister – Creed
• When I Come Around – Green Day
• You Give Me All I Need – Scorpions
• Analog Kid – Rush
• Bastille Day – Rush
• Crystal Baller – Third Eye Blind
• A Praise Chorus – Jimmy Eat World
• Tie Your Mother Down – Queen
• I’ll Be Over You – Toto
• Doug’s First Job – Uncle Bonsai
• Out of the Vein – Third Eye Blind
• Stranger in Town – Toto
• God of Whine – Third Eye Blind
• Questioned Apocalypse – One Fell Swoop
• Always Somewhere – Scorpions
• Wake Me Up When This Climb Ends – Green Day
• Warning – Green Day
• Summer Song – Joe Satriani
• Cult of Personality – Living Colour
• Sing Child – Heart
• Suite Madame Blue – Styx
• Trees – Tripod
• It’s Easy (taking it pitch by pitch) – Boston
• Going To California – Led Zeppelin

Normally, I start a ride report with a description of the ride, how much I like it, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera.

In this case, I’ve done 7 hills so often that it hardly seems worth the effort. If you want that information, there are plenty of examples here…

I *will* note that this is the 12th time that I’ve done 7 hills, if you ignore the fact that I skipped a year or two when it was wet.

My typical approach for a ride like 7 hills is what I can the “make sure I finish” approach; start slowly and ride conservatively, and you can be confident that you are going to make it back for your serving of finish line strawberry shortcake, delta any mechanical issues with the bike or the rider.

This year I said, “the hell with that!”

I’ve been playing around with my training this year; I’ve been riding more hills earlier in the season than I have in the past and I’ve been feeling pretty good both aerobically and on climbs. So, the plan is to push a lot harder than I have in the past and see what happens.

That should provide more opportunity for humor and perhaps some pathos as well.

My big preparation for the ride was doing a one-hour recovery ride two days earlier that turned into a 25 minute recovery ride when it started 5% chance of precipationing on me and I headed for home.

Woke up at 5:30 due to my old dude internal clock, got my stuff together, and had a couple servings of SuperStarch. I’m put BioSteel hydration mix in my water bottle (no need for 2 on this ride), and headed for Kirkland about 6:50.

You may ask yourself why I drive to this ride when the route passes within about 3 miles of my house. I’ve ridden to the route and done the ride that way, riding the last few miles at the start of my day and skipping it later. I found it messed with my aesthetic appreciation of the route, so now I drive.

Parked on the waterfront, got out the bike, stuffed my pockets with stuff, and headed to the start. Joyously absent was any thought at all about what I would wear; it was already about 60 degrees and was forecast to get into the low 70s, so no arm warmers, no leg warmers, no jacket, no hat; just the usual minimal stuff.

Market street is the first hill; I climbed it in a little over 4 minutes at 211 watts. It’s just a warmup, as is hill 2, Juanita drive. Hit the light, turned down Holmes point, headed towards Seminary hill.

Seminary is one of the two hardest hills; Winery is steeper but gives you chances to rest, while Seminary is more of a constant annoyance. I rode easy on the first little blip, and then rode hard. The top came 8:42 later, more than a minute faster than last year’s effort and 16 seconds slower than my PR from 2016. But… averaging a fairly significant 270 watts for that time, which is pretty decent for me.

The usual descent and trip over to Norway hill, a nice 426’ hill that I’ve ridden up a lot and I backed off a little at climbed at 234 watts, which was pretty much my target.

Which brings us to Winery. I like to have some rabbits to chase up winery so I was okay when I got passed on the flat part before the climb, I was less okay when the blocked the whole lane on the little bump over the railroad track. I got around them and took off up the steepest first pitch, riding at about 420 watts. It’s a short pitch and I kept that power over it, and then slowed down to recover for the upcoming pitches. 5:26 later I was turning off at the top of the climb and listening to bagpipe music, a heartbreaking 4 seconds from my PR. I’m going to call this one a “virtual PR” because I lost more than that getting by the group at the bottom. 287 watts average was a great effort, but when I went back and looked at last year’s data, I did it in 5:22 but only averaged 250 watts. Not sure what is going on there, though I am in need of some drivetrain maintenance, and it would be good to do that on the bike as well. 

We then headed east and climbed a few more hills, then we came to Novelty Hill.

It would be fair to say that it’s not my favorite part of the ride; too much traffic and not really a very fun hill. This is compounded by the use of the lower part of the climb as an “out and back” route; as you are climbing up the hill there are riders who are ahead of you descending back down at a high rate of speed, not really the most motivating thing to see. Strava somewhat strangely didn’t match the whole climb for me, but I got PRs on various sections so I’m going to call a PR on that section.

After some flat roads, you end up coming back back over to Novelty for the descent, completing the circle of life. We learned about the circle of life from Disney’s “The Lion King” during the scene where Simba and Nala protected themselves from roving hyenas by building a impregnable perimeter from family-sized boxes of cereal.

Anyway, a couple climbs after that I hit the last rest stop and after a thoroughly pedestrian sandwich (turkey/cheese/green pepper slices on pita bread), headed out for the last climb. My intention was to spin up old redmond road at take it easy, but there was a guy right in front of me so I ended up pushing a bit and coming within my PR by about 10%. Then a couple of fun descents and a mostly-flat trip back to the starting line in which I missed every single traffic light.

Overall, a pretty good effort; I felt strong the whole day which has been an issue for me this spring; I’m not sure if it was the BioSteel or the SuperStarch or my smoked almonds or maybe that small oatmeal gluten free cookie I ate at the first food stop (it was *not* the cookie; that was a mistake).

I was about 15 minutes faster than 2018, averaging 14.7 mph rather than last year’s 14.1, finishing in 4:04:28 and burning 2538 calories for the effort.

My wife and I have done a few cycling vacations. The ones we’ve done don’t feature particularly long days – maybe 50 miles over the whole day – but they do involve riding for a bunch of days in a row. I’ve noticed that doing something like that helps my fitness; I just feel better overall.

And therefore I decided to conduct an experiment; I would ride 5 days in a row and see what happened. I wanted every ride to be at least 3 hours, but I wasn’t going for century lengths. And I would ride however I felt like that day.

I expected that I’d start out feeling okay and gradually get more tired as the days went by.

Day 1 was a big hills day; I rode a few of the Issaquah Alps. My speed on the first 3 (Squak, Talus, Zoo) was a conservative speed, but after Zoo I took a trip up Pinnacles and decided that I wasn’t up for Belvedeere, much less the trip up The Widowmaker. I crawled up the back side of Summit and headed for home.

Day 2 was supposed to be a ride all the way around Lake Washington, but after doing the south end I opted to take the 520 bridge back across for home. Felt okay but not great.

Day 3 was an evening ride that I lead. I chose the route to be a little hilly but not too hilly. On the ride down to the starting point, that seemed like a really good decision as my legs were hurting, but despite the hurting, they seemed to perform okay when I needed them. I have a 275’ hill on the way home from the ride with a couple of short 13-15% kickers, and those were not fun *at all*.

Day 4 was a ride in the country, specifically a ride out to Fall City. The intent was for it to be moderately hilly. My legs were tired from the night and I wanted to let the day warm up a bit, so I delayed my start until 11 AM. Legs were pretty sore but warmed up quickly. I had planned to ride up Sahalee (0.9 miles, 404’ of up) but that can be a long slog of a climb, so instead, I decided to head up “The Gate” (0.2 miles, 158’). That’s an average of 15%, with a top gradient of perhaps 21%. I didn’t have a lot of pop on it, but I rode up it okay with just a wee bit of paperboying. Worked my way east, the south, rode down Duthie, and then out to Fall City. Where I stopped at the grocer for a Coke Zero. My plan was to take Fall City –> Issaquah back, and take it I did, via the back way. Despite being on the 4th day and 25 miles into the ride, I was able to climb at about 250 watts pretty easy. Hit the top, finished my Coke Zero, did the bonus, and then worked my way to Issaquah and then back home.

Day 5 was the second evening ride for the week. I played with intensity as I spun through Marymoor, and my legs seemed fatigued but okay. The first climb was short but not a lot of fun. And then we hit Sahalee… I started slow, hit the steep spot, and found that my legs felt pretty good, so I rode the rest of ride at a bit more than 300 watts, averaging 280 for the whole climb. That put me close to my PR on the climb, which was a surprise. I did a sprint up a little steep hill on the route and managed somewhere in the mid 900 watts, though my legs *really really really* hurt at the top. I did notice that my aerobic recovery was pretty quick. After playing down the plateau we descended to East Lake Sam and pacelined back and I managed to “win” the fake sprint at the end by pulling out about 30 seconds from the end. My legs felt good, and the climb up to my house was considerably easier than on Tuesday.

Day 6 was designed just to warm up my legs and help them to recover a bit, so a 3.8 mile ride that took less than 20 minutes.

The true test is going to be what my form is like after recovering for a few days, but early indications are that the minicamp did what I was hoping; I felt stronger in places where I hoped to feel stronger and my recovery seemed pretty good. I was mostly able to sleep quite well, and – somewhat surprisingly – my hunger didn’t seem to increase that much.

Yes, “on the Zoo” is a strange wording; the reason for it might become apparent.

This afternoon I went on a bike ride. I go on a lot of bike rides; most of them don’t really warrant mention (got on the bike, rode, went home). This one might have showed up on Facebook as I sometimes do, so that my riding friends can “like” the ride as an indication of their recognition of my awesome cycling prowess (not really), and the rest of my facebook friends can… well, I’m not really sure what they think of those kind of rides, though “what a nutjob” is probably a good start…

You can look at the – which I cleverly named “A Grand Squaky Zoo” after the three hills I climbed (Grand Ridge, Squak Mountain, Zoo hill) – here. 38 miles, 4186’ of up, which is a lot for me in April.

But I digress…

The climb up Squak was a bit more painful than I had hoped, and I planned on skipping the Zoo hill climb, but I had to ride by it on the way home and turned up the hill on the spur of a moment. And immediately thought I’d made a mistake, as the bottom part up to the Zoo is steep. I came around the first turn, and noted a rider up ahead of me.

That’s a good thing; riders up in front of you are rabbits and you can focus on getting closer to them.

As I drew closer, I looked at his bike, because a bike can tell you a lot. Steel frame, fenders, pretty wide tires, and a handlebar bag in the front. That’s a touring setup. But many touring cyclists don’t ride hills, which meant it was most likely a Randonneur. Randonneur is a long-distance cycling discipline with events that are pass/fail based on elapsed time, so a 200 kilometer event (120 miles, or nearly 1000 furlongs) must be completed in 13.5 hours. Which isn’t really that out-of-the-ordinary, except that 200 km is the entry-level distance and the routes tend to be more than a bit hilly.

Where it gets to be a bit nuts is rides of 300, 400, or even 600 km; the local Seattle International Randonneurs 600k route involves nearly 22,000’ of climbing, is 383 miles long, and as a 600k has a time limit of 40 hours. There are also 1200k rides with a time limit of 90 hours; in that time you will climb 38,000’.

I like hills, but that seems a bit excessive…

As I pulled up next to the rider – why am I quite a bit faster than a randonneur rider? – I slow down to talk to him. Any distraction is welcome on a long climb, and this one is going to take me 36 minutes today – so we start talking, and he mentions that this is a training ride for him; he rode over from Freemont and he’s going to ride up this climb 6 times and then go home.

6 times. Well, if I was going to ride it 6 times (for about 7000’ of up total), I guess I’d be riding it fairly slowly as well.

Turns out his name is Doug Migden, and he’s training for the Transcontinental Race, a self-supported race across Europe. In 2015, he rode the 4200 km and climbed 35,000 *meters* in 446.5 hours. There’s a great writeup of his experience here.

I often wondered what you do if a 1200k ride isn’t long enough, and now I know. It’s always nice to run into people that are crazier than you as it lets you feel that you are sane.

We chatted and I learned a lot about long-distance self-supported riders. As we got about 3/4 of the way, I turned left to head to the classic top of the climb. Normally I don’t think you have done the Zoo if you don’t do the top, but a) Doug was going to an alternate top, and b) he was doing it 6 times, so I think I’m going to cut him a little slack.

And damn, was that descent cold.