Several months ago my friends Kat and Jay talked me into participating in the Red-Bell 100. This is a roughly 100 mile (104 to be exact) bike ride from Redmond, WA north to Bellingham, WA. The purpose is to raise money for the World Bicycle Relief charity which provides bikes to impoverished women and children in Africa that need some form of transportation for things like getting to school. Some of you donated to this... thank you!!! Some of you did not... you know who you are. Why do you hate the women and children of Africa?
Anyway, the first problem I saw was that it was a fully supported, one-way bike ride. Anyone who knows me probably knows how much I loathe the idea of using a car to do a bike ride. The beauty of bikes is that they are quiet, efficient, human powered, and self sufficient. If you need support vehicles, chase vehicles, and a shuttle back home, what's the point??? Just ride in the flippin' car. You'll get there a lot faster. The whole point of bikes is to NOT need a car. Stupid. Something had to be done about this.
The obvious solution was, ride home again the next day. And I would carry all of my gear on my bike, nothing would go on the luggage transport truck. (Yes, they had a luggage transport truck. Can I just leave my bike at home and check myself as my own luggage?) I started pitching this brilliant idea to my friends. Kat looked at me like I had three heads. Jay said he "would love to join me on the return trip" but conveniently had to work the next day. I guess it would be just me then. Time to start training.
Since I had never ridden a bike more than 36 miles in one day before, I figured some sort of "training" was in order. Also, I had just installed a brand new leather Brooks seat on my bike, which needed to be broken in. After looking at various training plans full of things like "intervals", "base miles", "V02 Max" and other such roadie crap, I decided the obvious thing to do was to ride to various pubs in the Seattle area. So Jay and I started doing weekly adventure rides to various destinations. About half of these rides were to bars. The other half were to Recycled Cycles to get various parts that my bike probably "needed" if it was going to make a 200 mile trek with 20 or so pounds of gear attached to it. Fenders, chainrings and derailleur for the front, an extra water bottle cage, etc.
At some point I discovered that walking around in bike shoes is both uncomfortable and stupid looking. It also quadrupled my chances of slipping on metal or slick concrete, making me look like even more of an idiot. Not to mention that having to put on special shoes and carry real shoes with me lowered the usefulness of the bike for things like going to the gym. Obviously these stupid pedals and bike shoes had to go. I replaced them with a cheap pair of flat pedals, and my stylish Converse All-Stars. Ahhh... confortable, classy... but with a sole about as stiff as a cooked lasagna noodle, would they work for pedalling? Several trips to various bars soon put my fears to rest.
As the training progressed and Jay and I got more and more into the whole idea, he decided that he needed to get the day off for the return ride and join me. So he did, and we booked a hotel to stay at in Bellingham. I told as many people as I could that I was doing the return ride so that the public humiliation would keep me from backing out. As the big weekend approached, the one nagging issue remaining for me was that my longest ride to date was still only 45 miles. Unfortunately the weather and other scheduling issues prevented me from doing any longer rides. Wait a minute... weather! I missed several training days because of rain... what if it rains during the ride??? So I purchased some waterproof, breathable, bicycle rain gear. I nice high-viz yellow jacket, some really cool pants that zip off to become knickers (I always wanted knickers), and some waterproof shoe covers. I was even able to test them in some rain, and they seemed to work well. Good thing cause the forecast was for rain all weekend.
The ride starts at 7:30 am in Redmond, which is about 9 miles south of me. I certainly wasn't going to drive there. The night before I packed all my stuff. Rain gear... check. Blinkey lights? Check. Jersey for the return trip? Check. Extra socks? Check. Tools, chain lube, tube, patch kit, tire levers, leatherman... check. Giant socket wrench cause I have weird crank bolts that tend to loosen... check. Swimsuit (Days Inn said they had a heated outdoor pool!) check. Waterproof hat in case I have to stand around in the rain? Check. Map/route sheet? Check. Water bottles, check. Toothbrush, contact stuff, glasses, etc, check. Ok, should be all set...
Saturday morning, I woke up at 5am. Time to eat something, get ready, make sure I wasnt missing anything, and then head out the door. Man, this bike is HEAVY. My trusty Surly Karate Monkey is not light to start with, being all steel (like all real bikes are), but adding all this gear has made it a lot heavier. Well, I can still lift it and carry it down the stairs, so its probably OK. And I'm off! Ah, the brisk morning air, the Sammamish River Trail to Redmond is deserted at this hour, the start of a great adventure! Life doesn't get much better than this!
Hmmmm.... I kinda have to poop....
I arrived at Marymore park in Redmond around 7:00. I checked in, bypassed all the luggage transport trucks and other nonsense, and had a snack. Jay showed up, and announced that he had forgotten his water bottles. Well, this works out well. Since the ride route goes right past my house, we can stop there and I will loan you some water bottles. And I can poop. The line for the Honey Buckets looked long and unappealing. Yay! Soon Kat arrived, and the ride started. Kat decided to hang back and wait for the rest of her Cascade Bicycle team, and Jay and I decided to go on ahead for our pit stop.
After the pit stop, and removing my 40lb u-lock from my pannier, we headed out, officially on our way to Bellingham! Great things awaited us! The first rest stop was only 20 miles away, and was advertised to have breakfast, Jamba Juice, and other things! And it wasn't raining. What a great day! The route sheet showed the ride starting with a bunch of climbing. And so it did. The first 5 miles or so had a good deal of climbing on a very scenic roller coaster type road. Climb to the top of a hill, and then bomb down the other side. Wheeee! Biking is fun!
I noticed as I was riding my bike, and climbing the hills, that I couldn't really tell that my bike was heavy. I've ridden it a lot with and without the pannier, with various amounts of stuff packed onto it. I can't really tell the difference. So, next time someone tells you they NEED to spend $300 on a titanium wheel skewer, or carbon seatpost, cause "it really makes a difference" just go ahead and punch them in their face. And while they are trying to stop the blood, go ahead and take the $300 out of their wallet, cause they clearly don't understand the value of money, and will just waste it on something else. You'll be doing them a favor.
Before too long, we had descended into the valley and were rolling into Snohomish. Past the quaint little airport where I rent power planes, and up through the center of town. Jay and I weren't really sure if we were ahead of Kat and her crew, or behind them, but we had agreed to meet up at the first rest stop. Soon we saw a neat hot-rod hearse with a rockabilly couple driving it. The only problem was that it was ejecting lug nuts from one of its wheels. By the time it stopped it only had 1 lug nut left holding its wheel on! We had managed to recover 2 more. While we were stopped talking to them, some douche in a late 90's subaru outback drives by shouting sarcastically, "Oh, nice ride!" Yeah, I bet that clapped out subaru gets you all kinds of trim... moron.
The first rest stop has an unpleasant surprise... they are out of Jamba Juice! NOOOOOOOOO..... However, Theo's Chocolate is there, giving out samples of their fair trade, organic, shade grown, no-animals-harmed-in-the-making-of, Sea Salt Chocolate. And they said we could have as much as we wanted! Yay! A couple minutes later Kat and the Cascade crew rolled in. However, they were taking too long and it was becoming obvious we were at the tail end of the ride, so Jay and I decided to head out. Plus, I didn't want the next rest stop running out of whatever critical item they had!
As we rolled along, now on a bike path going north from Snohomish, I noticed there were a couple of really cool old road bikes, or handmade bikes on the ride. And tons of generic aluminum and carbon bikes (yawn). By far the coolest though was a guy with a giant beard who was doing the ride on an all black, murdered-out fixie. My Karate Monkey started its glorious life as a fixie, so huge props to anyone who is willing to step up and ride one for 100 miles! Particularly with a bunch of climbing at both ends of the ride!
After awhile, the Cascade crew caught up to us, and we all rolled into the town of Arlington, 12 deep (Or, however many people were actually in that group). We pedalled past the airport where I fly gliders. If this ride had somehow swung past Duthie, it would have been the Tour De Mike. The rest stop in Arlington was at the 45 mile mark. Combined with the 9 miles I ride to get to the ride, this was officially the farthest I had ridden in a day!
People stopped at the bathroom there to apply "chamois butter" and "bag balm" and other such things. I figured that since I had elected to not wear a chamois, that I probably didn't need any of those products. Onward!!!
Soon after, the trail spit us out onto the back roads of Arlington, and we started making our way West. This section was a bit hilly, up and down, but nothing too crazy. Since i had managed to over eat at every opportunity, I now had lots of energy and sprinting up the climbs seemed to be a good idea. Soon we crossed over I-5 and turned north again. After another 5 miles or so, the sky began to look a bit dark and ominous. A few drops started to fall. Remembering that waterproof clothes have the potential to make you sweat quite a bit, I elected to not put on my rain gear, hoping that it remained a gentle sprinkle. As time went on, however, we realized that we were not going to outrun whatever this was. Maybe if I had those titanium spokes I'd have been faster and outrun the rain, but such was not the case.
By the time I stopped I was already wet, and getting wetter. I put on my waterproof knickers, because I hate the feeling of wet shorts/pants. The jersey being wet I can tolerate. And my shoes (I had wool socks). Off we went. A mile or so later it was apparent that this was turning into a full on deluge. We stopped again and put on jackets. Too late for my feet. By the time we reached the lunch stop at mile 65, I was pretty happy I had put on my gear. It was raining HARD, and those who had brought rain gear had it on. Those who's rain gear was on the luggage truck to Bellinham were huddled like drowned rats under the Ez-Up tent thingies. Suck it, luggage truck!
The lunch stop was where Kat was scheduled to switch and drive one of the support vehicles the rest of the way, so we said goodbye and hit the road. A couple miles out from the lunch stop, the road surface turned into "chip seal." If you aren't familiar with that, its created by spreading gravel and oil on the road surface, and then letting cars and/or farm trucks pack it down. Its a very rough surface and scrubs about 4mph off your speed just in rolling resistance. Its bumpy and terrible. And it went on for what seemed like 700 miles. At some point in there, it quit raining and we were able to remove the rain gear. Eventually after another rest stop in the middle of chip-seal-hell, we ended up on Chuckanut Drive, around mile 90. Yay, smooth pavement!!!
Chuckanut Drive at this point is right along the coast, so you can look out over the sound. It climbs up and down along the edge of the mountains as the rise up out of the water. It's very picturesque with the road being carved into the side of the mountain, trees everywhere. A series of roller coaster climbs and descents were pretty fun, and by this point we had a lot of energy knowing we only had 15 or so miles to go.
The last advertised rest stop was a lemonade stand at mile 95. I kept looking for this. Mile 95 came and went with no sign of a lemonade stand. Did we miss it? Oh well, at least the scenery was nice! Up this hill, and fly down the next one, complete with switchbacks and blind corners. Fun! A good motorcycle road for sure. Lots of places to stop and look out over the water, but we were too close now to stop and sightsee! Plus, that lemonade stand has GOT to be soon...
After a couple more miles we started seeing signs cheering us on. They were written in pink. Lemonade is pink. Could it be? Sure enough, at the top of the very last hill, there was the lemonade stand! It had been moved from its advertised location. Yay, lemonade and then an easy, downhill 3 mile coast to the finish line!!!! We rolled into Bellingham, and there was the finish line in front of Boundary Bay Brewing Co, complete with Kat and a bunch of other people to cheer us on! We did it! My first ever century, in the bag! My neck was quite sore from the bent over riding position, and my butt was really sore. Other than that, I felt pretty good.
Now, I seem to remember that my registration packet included tickets for free food and beer at Boundary Bay... our work isn't done quite yet!
So, it turns out that when you pound a couple of IPAs after riding your bike all day long, without eating anything first, you can get drunk pretty quickly! And when you are sitting with the president of the Cascase Bicycle Club, that planned the event, and has unlimited access to beer tickets... well, there's nothing to really put the brakes on this trainwreck in the making! Party on, Garth!
After leaving the party, Jay and I biked the 1 mile to our hotel. On the corner near the brewery was a full on come-to-Jesus open air convention, complete with several guys on stage preachin' the good word. The guy with the mic was frothing at the mouth and was working the crowd up into a frenzy. "Do you take the Lord-uh, to be your saviour??? DO YOU WANT JESUS-UH, TO BE IN YOUR HEART-UH????" We put the hammer down and headed for the hotel before any of the rabid followers decided they needed to try and "save" us.
We checked in at the Days Inn, and while unpacking I discovered the flask of whiskey I had brought. Excellent! Jay and I finished that off in short order, not bothering to do the math. In case you're interested, a flask holds 8oz of Pendeltons. That's 4oz each. Time to check out this heated pool! Out we went to the heated outdoor pool. Well, it was outdoors, and it was a pool. I guess two out of three is not bad.... Temperature was chilly. After a couple of minutes I didn't care though (thank you, Pendeltons!). Jay was too cold to swim, so he sat on the sidelines.
At this point, we decided it was time for me to learn how to do a backflip into a pool, something I have never tried. Deep end? Check. Ok, just jump up, tuck, and flip. Not too bad, I got 3/4 rotation and landed way out in the middle of the pool. Someone walked up to the fence to watch what was going on. Jay talked it up a bit. The whiskey was making it a little challenging to balance on the side of the pool without falling in. Ok, up, tuck more. Bam! Nearly full rotation! Not bad!!! Another try, same thing. The spectator was suitably impressed, and wandered off. Ok, one more try. "You have to really jump UP more" Jay said. "You're landing way out in the middle of the pool, you don't need to be that far out!" Good point. I coiled my body like a snake ready to strike. I exploded upwards and unleashed the fury of my warrior ancestors. The only trouble was, I forgot to tuck and rotate. I landed on my back with a smack in the middle of the pool. OWwwwwwwWWWWWW!!!!! Ok, I think I'm done with the backflips for today.
"Where can we get some more whiskey?" Jay asked. I looked around and spotted a Thai place next door. I don't know if they have
whiskey, but they probably have something! So we got changed and headed out. The Thai place was closed. But next to it was a
Mexican place that was open, and I know they have stuff to drink! "Can I interest you in a Margarita?" our waiter asked.
"Why yes, yes you may, good sir!"
"Small, large, or grande?"
"Uhhhh... maybe just a large."
And it was. Large, that is. And, unlike most
lame mexican places I've been, they also put a large amount of tequila in it! Of course, I didn't know this at the time.
Can you tell where this is going?
After getting back to the room and going to bed, I didn't feel so great. I figured maybe I should try and throw up, that might make me feel better. It did. For 20 minutes or so. Then I threw up again. Hmmmm.... not good. I went back to bed, and managed to sleep the rest of the night.
My alarm went off at 5am sunday morning. I felt terrible. I had a bad headache and I felt like I could barf at any moment. I took some excedrine and went back to bed.
I woke up again at 7am or so. I still felt lousy. Oh well, we gave it a good run, guess its time to call Mary to come get us. Jay woke up and we discussed this option and agreed it was a good one. The only trouble is, Mary is not up at 7am. So we decided to go crash the continental breakfast, and then re-evaluate. The breakfast room was filled with the poorly behaved children of several Canadian families that were on a group vacation. Fan-friggin-tastic. I ate a couple pices of white toast as that's about all my stomach would handle. Riding 100 miles burns a lot of calories, which you sorta need to replenish by eating, but if I can't eat without puking, how is that going to work? Who knows. Jay saved one of the idiot mothers from putting her hand into the conveyer belt toaster because she didn't think her toast was moving along fast enough. Its been my theory for awhile now that our cushy modern existence breeds stupidity. These are not the hardcore people who would ride their bike 200 miles in a weekend, like me. Wait a minute, speaking of cushy modern existence, I probably should not have Mary come pick me up. I should at least attempt this trip. Yes, I will. I should eat some oatmeal first. In a blaze of forward-thinking genius, Jay stole as much food as he could carry from the continental breakfast to eat along the ride.
Bikes packed up, gear on and ready to go! Since my butt was pretty sore from the day before, I opted for the padded bike shorts this
time. I turned in the room keys, and we were outside getting ready to roll. Jay noticed that the
flags were blowing briskly in the wind. Wind from the south-east. Wait, which way is home? South? And east??? Oh geez...
A handful of the
other Red-Bell participants had stayed in the hotel, and were waiting for their ride/shuttle/wuss-truck. They looked at us and said,
"Didn't get enough riding yesterday?"
"Nah, gotta get home somehow!"
"Are you guys riding back?"
"Yeah."
"Hahaha, wait... really???"
"Yep."
"Seriously?!?!??"
I mean, you rode your carbon and titanium poser bike 100 miles to get here, why is it so hard to believe that someone would do the same
thing to get home the next day?
Secure in the knowledge that we were the two most hardcore people in Bellingham, despite the fact that I couldn't keep any meaningful food down, we headed out. Straight into the first climb. Bla. Not too bad really, and very scenic! We were on the dropoff side of the road this time, so we had a better view, and we stopped to take a lot of pictures. Well, Jay took a lot of pictures. I usually don't have the patience for such things.
As designated navigator, my job was to follow the route sheet in reverse. There wouldn't be any bikes to follow this time, no painted markers on the road indicating where to turn. I discovered that my speedometer had a nifty mileage countdown feature so that we could run the mileage backwards and it would always match up with the mileage markers on the route sheet. Then I just had to reverse all the turn directions, pair the turn direction with the road from the line above, and we were good! We only had one wrong turn that took us a tenth of a mile or so to correct.
Out of the mountains, and back on the chip-seal. Awesome. At least my stomach was feeling a bit better. Hey, maybe we can actually do this! However, we'd only gone about 20 miles, and it had taken us what seemed like 4 hours. Some quick math and we realized we'd make it home around midnight. Guess it's time to up the pace a little.
Endless chip-seal miles droned by into a seemingly relentless 3 or 4 mph headwind. That may not sound like much, but it knocks 3 or 4 mph off of your speed. When you're already only doing 13mph because of the road surface, thats 9 or 10mph. That's 10 hours of riding to get home. Fortunately, Jay did an awesome job plowing forward through the wind, and eventually we found ourselves at a small middle of nowhere cafe/store/gas station we passed on the way out. They served lunch, had microbrews, weird groceries (never seen pickled brussels sprouts before!), and gas pumps that did NOT take cards! They had mechanical numbers, then you went inside to pay! Well, we didn't need gas, and I didn't need any more beer, so we bought some snacks and rolled on.
Some more pedalling brought us past yesterday's lunch stop. No food there today though, just an empty fire hall, with about 57 miles left to go. So we went. On and on, now back on real pavement which was nice. Counting down the miles with Arlington as our "lunch" goal. We reached the backroads before Arlington and rounded a corner with a long-horned cow staring at us as he munched on some grass. Jay found an alligator skin book case on the road, with a Bible inside. He put it on some nearby mailboxes so its rightful owner could find it without it being run over.
We eventually rolled into Arlington. Sweet, more than halfway home! Only about 37 miles left to go. We stopped at a coffee shop, where we got coffee. Annoyed that I had missed out on most of breakfast by not being able to eat, I ordered a ham and egg panini. Then we set off. My neck was pretty sore again, and my butt was getting really sore. On top of that, my right knee and ankle were getting a bit sore as well. I decided I should probbaly take it a little easy.
On we rolled, discovering that the trail from Arlington to Snohomish was very slightly uphill most of the way. No wonder that section seemed so fast the day before! We passed the "We're out of Jamba Juice" stop from the day before, and eventually rolled (slowly) into Snohomish. We stopped for a minute on the side of the trail so Jay could take a picture or something. "How much farther?" he asked. "About 20 miles" I replied. A woman passing by with her dog said, "Wow, 20 miles, thats a long way!" I just laughed inside. I didn't have the energy to actually laugh out loud.
Past the airport, where I called Mary to let her know we were almost home. Then, the part I dreaded.... the climb from the valley floor by the airport up the plateau where Woodinville was. Although this was a "climb" at the beginning of the ride, it was really a series of ups and downs, but with net elevation loss of several hundred feet. Now it would be the opposite. Several hundred feet of elevation gain, with a bunch of downhills so that we could climb every vertical foot several times over. And my neck really hurt, and my butt was sore, and my ankle and knee were more sore now. Did I mention my neck and butt hurt a lot?
Onward we went. Climb climb climb climb descent........ climb climb climb climb descend....... climb climb climb climb, finally, we reached the top. Just 2 more miles now, and all downhill! We flew down the last hill and into Woodinville, where Jay split off to ride to his house via the Sammamish River trail. We did it!!!! I was tired and sore all over, but we had managed to do two back to back centuries. I am not 100% sure, but I think we were the only 2 people to ride the return trip from Bellingham.
If I had the energy, I probably would have listed my bike for sale on craigslist when I got home! Both days I found that the first 60 or 70 miles were pretty enjoyable, and after that it was mostly just painful and a lot of work. From reading up on touring, it seems like 50 - 60 miles is the norm for a day of pedalling a fully loaded bike. This makes sense to me.
I also realized that my three biggest issues (sore butt, sore neck, and hands going numb) could all be solved my switching to a recumbent bicycle. Plus, it would irritate my close-minded snobby hater bike friends to no end, which is enough of a reason to buy one all by itself! Maybe its time to trade in... too bad Surly doesn't make a recumbent! :(
Overall, it was a good experience, and I can see some things that can be changed to make bike touring much more enjoyable. Hopefully this will be the first of many tours. Maybe the rest will be on a recumbent!
