Chelatchie

QUICK STATS	This Ride	2010 Cumulative
Distance	74.46 miles	703 miles
Elevation Gain	4,702 feet	8.07 miles
Average Moving Speed	14.3 mph	14.3 mph

This was very similar to our Tumtum ride on the 6th, including the long climb up Kelly Road. After our stop at the Chelatchie store we eliminated the big Grantham climb and instead went basically east to west across north Clark County, and then south along our now familiar route through La Center and near Ridgefield.

It was our longest ride so far this season, and even though we eliminated a big climb it still had the most elevation gain. Makes sense though since our return route was the rolling hills of Ridgefield rather than the relatively flat central county route as we have used on previous trips.

My use of Hammer Nutrition's Perpetuem is going well. I am not starving after a 5-hour ride. I think Amy might even be willing to try it on long rides now. We'll see I guess.

I am quite exhausted, and after a ride like this I find it hard to believe we rode any centuries last year, let alone a whole bunch of 'em. I question if it is physically possible to squeeze 25 more miles out of this tired body. But it is early in the season and we are ridiculously ahead of where we were last year at this time, so I am told we will get there in due time.

Gardner Cemetery

QUICK STATS	This Ride	2010 Cumulative
Distance	67.14 miles	579 miles
Elevation Gain	4,807 feet	6.73 miles
Average Moving Speed	14.0 mph	14.2 mph

We decided to take Grandma Frye up on her 'mission' idea to investigate whether the new curb over her cemetery plot in Woodland had be relocated or not yet. We arrived at the Gardner Cemetery without any trouble and took some photos to show that the curb is still in the wrong place.

After leaving the cemetery the road both improved and degraded. We left the horribly rough chip seal road surface behind, but we lost the nice wide shoulders, and the traffic was fairly heavy. The climb at approximately mile 30 wasn't too steep or long, but the lack of shoulder and blind corner for heavy traffic wasn't very pleasant. We talked about bailing on 21st Ave toward Jenny Creek if the situation didn't improve, but it did improve, mostly by turning off of Cedar Creek Road onto Etna Road, which had far less traffic.

From this point on the ride became much more enjoyable due to both reduced traffic and incredibly beautiful scenery. We went along Lewis River for a stretch, and the forested areas were, well, beautiful. Etna consisted of rolling hills with one pretty good climb. But the real climbing started after passing the old water mill through a covered bridge on Grist Mill road. It was a 0.4-mile climb at an average of about 10% with a max slope of 17% at a couple spots.

Two miles later Goodnight Road had a couple nice climbs, the first with an average slope of about 10% for a half mile, with a very short quarter-mile break followed by another 10% climb for a quarter mile. At this point I suggested this must be about the last of the big climbs for the day. Looking at the graph there was actually 6 more climbs of 10% slope, but thankfully they were all relatively short. Needless to say, I will refrain from making such pronouncements in the future.

Other than having to stop a couple times to adjust Amy's seat, she was finally very happy with her new Ruby Comp bike. It now seems to be set up correctly for her. To me it appears that she just floats up hills. Of course she has never had problems with hills, but a lighter bike just makes it even better.

Woodland OB

QUICK STATS	This Ride	2010 Cumulative
Distance	49.94 miles	371 miles
Elevation Gain	4,154 feet	4.19 miles
Average Moving Speed	13.8 mph	14.3 mph

I was contemplating a 70-mile ride, but based on how I felt and how the weather looked behind me I decided to turn around at Woodland and basically head back the same way I came, mostly. Turned out to be a good decision as I experienced a very minor sprinkle upon arriving at home. And was pretty tired.

While riding I realized I might not have even had time to do the full 70 miles anyway, particularly since I don't have a headlight on my bike. Timing would have been close, but throw in any unforeseen delay (e.g. flat tire) and I would have been riding in the dark. So the lessons learned here are twofold: 1) Actually think about the fact that the daylight will end before setting out on an afternoon/evening ride. 2) Put my head lamp flashlight in my bike bag and just keep it there. Then if I ever get caught in the dark at least I have some kind of light. Oh, and if you are wondering, we both have tail lights and use them whenever we ride regardless of the time of day.

Probably the coolest part of this ride was the descent from Pine Grove toward Woodland. Dropped 750 feet in less than two miles, and some of it was very curvy. A car passed me just before heading down and I had to use my brakes a couple times just to avoid overtaking him. It was one of those hills you could almost just let her rip, but not quite, particularly at one rather sharp-ish corner. Very fun though. Looks like about a 40 mph average on that stretch. I was too busy to notice if it would have been safe for climbing in the other direction. That would be one serious climb.

Interesting that this ride is the most elevation gain of any so far. It is very close to two others though, so basically tied. I think the difference is that on the other two rides we returned on a relatively flat route. On this ride I returned the same way I went out: on the rolling hills around Ridgefield.

iBike Data
That reminds me, I am now relying exclusively on my iBike for elevation gain data. I used to use my G1 phone for recording trips (using the My Tracks app) and while it was nice it sometimes gave some fairly whacky elevation data. So I didn't trust it that much and relied more on data from sites like Trimble Outdoors (which is what follows). The only problem with the web sites that provide elevation gain data is that they only use as many points as the route that you punch in has. Which can be limited if you are building the route with the "follow streets" option. And this doesn't even consider whether the topographic information is accurate or not, or to what granularity. Anyway, the iBike grabs a data point every 5 seconds, and the slope information, which I can see while riding, seems reasonable. In other words, since it appears to be consistent if not accurate, and the elevation profile looks reasonable, I'm going to assume the data it gathers is the best information available.

Tumtum Ride

QUICK STATS	This Ride	2010 Cumulative
Distance	62.32 miles	321 miles
Elevation Gain	4,061 feet	3.40 miles
Average Moving Speed	14.5 mph	14.4 mph

You can see there were two nice hills on this ride. Both significantly longer than we have around our house. There was supposed to be another big hill...

We had originally planned to do an 84-mile version of this ride which included a nasty climb called Dobler Hill and a return by way of Ridgefield. After we completed 40 miles and at the top of the second major climb (Grantham Road), with Dobler Hill yet to come, we decided to bail out on Dobler. Upping our ride distance from 52 miles last week to 84 miles this week was probably a stretch as it was, but then also adding one of the county's "worst" climbs was probably too much to bite off. Thankfully it was easy to bail. We simply turned the opposite way after the Grantham Road climb and cut off the Dobler Hill portion. In fact, we were so wiped out that we decided to skip Ridgefield and basically went back the way we came, which was both very direct, and relatively flat. Upon reaching our house it was obvious we made the right decision, as we were both exhausted.

In the end, I think I pushed it too hard. My heart rate was an average of 141.8 bpm, or 90% of my lactate threshold. My heart rate spent 30% of the time in zone 4 (Threshold) and 48% of the time in zone 3 (Tempo). It was basically a Tempo ride but I'm not really ready for one of those yet! Oh well, what's done is done. At least we bailed instead of making it completely nutty.

Another Outdoor February Weekend

The somewhat sunny and semi-dry February weather has been... hard to believe.

Quick Stats (all 3 rides below)
Distance: 105.93 miles
Elevation Gain: 6,328 feet
Average Moving Speed: 14.82 mph

Ridgefield OB
This was a solo ride (Amy had to work) all the way to Ridgefield and back. I pushed it pretty hard for this early in the season and was rewarded with my highest average power (184 watts) and speed (15.6 mph) so far this year.



Ridgefield, La Center and Daybreak Park
We wanted to do a 50-miler and Amy had heard about some good riding in the La Center and Woodland areas from her spin instructor. So I scoured the VBC ride maps and came up with our version of one of them.



Immediately starting out we came across some kind of running event, so I asked one of them if they were using the Salmon Creek Trail (since we were planning on using it to get over to Lakeshore). They said yes, so we opted to avoid the throng and went the long way around (Hazel Dell Ave and 99th Street).



All was going well until we got to Allen Canyon at about mile 21. It was a beautiful little canyon (more of a ravine, to me) but since it was so forested the sun had not yet dried out the road. That combined with a very curvy/bumpy stretch of extremely steep road made for some very careful riding. We kept speed to a minimum going down, but the big surprise came on the way up. Man was it steep. My ibike read 20% much of the way up! And since it was wet we had to be careful not to pedal too strong for fear of losing traction and tipping right over (since our shoes are clipped in). Pedaling too strong ended up not being a big issue cuz it was extremely difficult to move forward at all. In my smallest granny gear my cadence was about half of normal (45 pedals per minute) and speed was 4 mph (but seemed like 1 or 2 mph). Crazy. Not used to hills like that. Particularly a full quarter mile of said hill, or 4-minutes of extremely heavy breathing. I am now well versed in the process of converting human muscle into pliable rubber.

Rubber or not we kept going. The big climb after La Center wasn't all that bad since it was an average slope of only 3 or 4%. Until we got to 389th Street. That was a very intimidating hill. The earlier Allen Canyon climb was mostly hidden from our view on a very windy road, so we didn't know how far we had to climb. It just kept going and going. This hill was completely in view and my rubber legs didn't like it one bit. We decided to tackle it though, and it wasn't nearly as bad as it looked. It did steepen up toward the end, but never quite reached 15%. This quarter mile stretch was only 3-minutes of pain, not 4-minutes of Allen Canyon terror.

That was mostly the end of the climbing, even though we had over 20 miles remaining. Interestingly, we passed Amy's spin instructor alongside the road (Mike, and 2 riders with him). A mile or two later we reached Daybreak Park and took a break to eat a Clif Bar lunch. Not sure which route they came back, but they eventually caught up with us just as we reached 134th St (while on 20th Ave).

All in all a great ride, particularly if we want significant climbing (over 4,000 feet) on a 50-mile route starting from our house.

Frenchman OB
Another ride out to Frenchman's Bar and back. I was pretty wiped out from the prior two days, but Amy still had some energy and wanted to get in a simple ride. So I tagged along and basically drafted most of the way. You can really see it graphically in the middle third of the ride (see the blue wind speed underneath the white bike speed line). You can also see how the power and heart rate are affected during that stretch.