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.
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