RAPSody

Quick Stats
Distance: 168 miles
Elevation Gain: 7872 feet
Average Moving Speed: 15.38 mph

It took us a little over 12 hours to do this ride! Our overall average speed (including rest stops, stop lights, 'natural' breaks, etc.) ended up at 13.72 mph. For the first half of the ride it was actually holding steady at 15 mph! I was amazed about this at the time. It came down because we decided to take a little more of a break on the final 3 rest stops since we were doing so well on overall time. There were only 5 organized rest stop, so roughly 1 every 30 miles.

The first quarter of the ride was simply wonderful with all of the quality scenery of the bays and ports and whatnot. The final quarter (basically from Olympia to Tacoma) was not-so-wonderful with a lot of traffic and that bit of headwind we knew would hit us. Thankfully the headwind wasn't so bad, but the traffic was no fun *at all*.

We survived though, and ended up being the 13th and 14th riders to finish -- Amy was the first woman to finish! There were about 400 total riders, of which only about 40 opted to do the ride in one day. We never saw more than a few since we started as soon as possible in the morning.

All in all, we are very happy we did it. We learned that centuries are more enjoyable than 168-mile rides. :) We learned that there is some beautiful scenery on the Puget Sound.

We are not sure if we would do this ride again. Probably not as the negatives are just too negative, even though the first portion of the ride was awesome.