91 miles

Got in a nice long ride today. I wanted to shoot for at least 70 and maybe up to 80... added on a few more because the last little bit was slightly longer than I thought. It was a great ride though.

I started heading north of Wenatchee but took 97A instead of 97. 97A leads straight up towards Lake Chelan (which is amazing by the way) and starts with fairly flat roads that lead to a big climb up and over a pass. This part was not fun. Not fun at all.

After the nice flat ride it starts heading up and over the pass. This picture below is the nice little tunnel you go through before you hit a short valley that leads to Lake Chelan.

The fun part about going through the tunnel is their safety measures. It is nice and short, but come on... a button to turn on flashing lights that tells the motorists that there's a cyclist going through the tunnel... is there nothing better? For instance... make the tunnel wider initially rather than overlooking the details. Anyways, pretty funny. The button is right before the tunnel and it reminds me of a cross walk... except you go through a tunnel.

After I made it up to the Lake Chelan area I stopped at a coffee shop and downed an americano and muffin. I'm a sucker for that combo for some reason. Love having muffins with an americano. It was such a nice day I couldn't pass up the opportunity to hang out by the lake and watch the boats. Seems pretty exciting doesn't it?

After I managed to sit by the lake for an hour I hopped back on the bike with some slightly sore legs already and start pedaling up and over the pass again to town. All said and done, the ride ended up being 91 miles. I was pooped! I really need to plan out my nutrition better on these long rides. All I took along was a bottle of Hammer Perpetuem and a gel. Other than that it was water, coffee and a muffin. I have a feeling I'm going to be sore tomorrow....

Oh, and the best part of this is I get to sit in a car for a few hours to head over to Olympia for a couple meetings. Sitting in a car with sore legs is not fun. Anyone care to drive me?

New Bike

I have been wanting this bike for years and finally made the plunge!

I am super stoked about this bike. Cervelo has to be the greatest bike brand, period. They have been focusing on road and aero designs for years and years. While other companies are off designing mountain bikes and cruisers, Cervelo is redesigning one of their road frames to make it even better. What's actually quite amazing is that they've had some of the same designs for years and haven't changed a thing! And these are pro bikes we're talking about, not just some bike to ride around town.

Enough of the ranting. This is my Cervelo P2. Isn't he gorgeous? I decided it's a he even though it'd be better for a male to be "riding" a she. Anyways, now I just need to come up with a name for the bike....

I've already gotten him out on a few rides this week and it is amazing. I've never ridden this fast in my life. Pretty sweet rig. I tried to take a couple pictures of the ride I normally go on, but only a few really turned out well. This is right along the Columbia River directly north of Wenatchee.

I've been really impressed with some of the roads around here and extremely unimpressed with others. When I first came out here I was riding my bike quite a bit just to figure out town and see what it has to offer. Well, I found a lot of broken glass in certain parts of town and an area that tends to have a lot of thorned bushes that get blown off and find their way to the road. After 4 flats in a couple of rides I just quit going there.

This last shot is a great fruit stand right along the ride. Of course there's about 5 others right along the route. All stuff that's essentially been picked that day, most likely about 100 feet from the stand. Not too shabby living in orchard country!

Labor Day Weekend

I really need to keep up with postings. I have a lot to update and I haven't been getting on it! I need to make a goal of actually getting a few posts on here every month.

First off I managed a backpacking trip with Amy and Maggie up in the Cascades just outside of Leavenworth. We went on Labor Day weekend to get in three days and two nights of goodness. Amy had done all the work for this one figuring out where we were going and camping, so all I had to do was show up. That was a pretty sweet. Well the week of the trip I kept checking the weather to see if it was going to be nice. I really wanted to take my bivy because Amy and Maggie were taking their dogs which would be sleeping in their tents. This means I either need to take a tent up just for me or else I need to check out the ol bivy. Since the weather looked nice I decided on the bivy.

The problem here is that whenever I do a trip, any trip, something goes wrong. As soon as I decided to take the bivy I knew the weather would turn and it would rain. I just knew it would. When we started hiking on Saturday it was great weather, not too hot but sunny. We went about 11 miles in to the campsite right along a lake in the Alpine Lakes Wilderness. It was a pretty amazing spot. Definitely can't complain about the location.

Once the girls set up camp and we start cooking it starts getting a little colder... After dinner we hike up to another lake right in a very tight cirque and it was gorgeous. Quite the setting... After we hike back to camp and sit down for a few minutes I am getting cold. Anyone that knows me knows I am always hot. Always. Once the sun starts setting the girls head for their tents and I start to set out my bivy. As I'm doing this what happens? Yep, it starts raining. This means I'm in a glorified sleeping bag trying not to get claustrophobic while trying to stay dry at the same time. Needless to say I didn't get much sleep. I woke up at one point and the continuous rain was getting louder... and yes it was snow. What backpacking trip with me is complete without snow?

When we woke up it was raining and continued to rain throughout the day. It would quit for a while here and there and slowed up quite a bit, but it was still wet. Well we packed up camp and headed to another lake to make our hike out of this loop only 10 miles. This means it is up and over a pass and down into a huge valley. This was even more gorgeous than the other camp. It was such a great area....

Well, by this point I'm getting cold as everyone is setting up camp so while the girls go on a short hike to get the blood flowing I hop in my sleeping bag knowing I don't have enough calories to keep trying to make me warm and/or hike more (you would think that since I had a strong hunch it was going to be raining I might have packed more food in preparation of being cold and burning more calories). So I sleep the afternoon away and wake up in time to cook dinner with the girls and promptly take off to my bivy for a night of sleep in the rain again.

The next day was pretty nice and we hiked out in pretty nice weather. It seems like we were caught up in the storm at the higher altitude and if we had just hiked a couple more miles we would have been in the clear. Interesting weather....

The hike out was pretty uneventful other than once we got back to the car it did start raining again.

The last bad part of this story is that I don't have any pictures. I managed to lose my camera in the move and I had been looking everywhere for it. I knew I packed it somewhere but just couldn't figure it out before the trip. Low and behold after all this I finally find my camera while I'm looking for my bike tool. So the point is I didn't have it for the hike but I have it now.... Yep......