Snohomish via Seattle Hill

I couldn't believe how warm it was today. It started out really foggy when I left Seattle. When we hit the Snohomish valley it was sunny and really warm. When I got back to Seattle it was foggy again but the temperature was 55! It hardly seems like winter.

Snohomish loop via Seattle Hill

http://www.bikely.com/

Tiger Mountain Ride

I finally went up Tiger Mountain today! I had never done the road route before - only the mountain bike route. It was a great day for it. Just a little misty but very warm.

We started our ride with one of the local men's teams since they were headed in the same direction. I was chatting with one of the guys I had met once before and he reminded me of a ride we did about 8 years ago when I gave him a homemade energy bar. I had totally forgotten about it. We haven't made our own energy bars in a long time. When I got home I told Mark and we went to the store to get the ingredients to make them again.

I had heard that Tiger was really steep and hard so I was a bit worried but I really wanted to learn the route. We went to the end of Tiger Mt road and headed back towards the West. The road is great, it goes up and is really long but I didn't think it was too steep at all. It was a good hill for getting into a rhythm and enjoying the climb. It might be that it is steeper if you come up the other side. The road doesn't have much traffic and there are lots of trees. It was a real treat.

Then we stopped in Issaquah at a bread store and got pastries. It was good we did because the ride was about 1-1/2 hours longer than I had planed for. It was actually starting to get dark on our ride home. It was mostly due to heavy clouds but the cars had their lights on already!

Issaquah with Tiger Mt

http://www.bikely.com/

Turkey Day Bike Ride to Benefit NW Harvest

There was a great turnout for the Thanksgiving ride to benefit NW harvest. Mick, from the First Rate Mortgage Team organized it. He started doing it a few years back and it has turned into a cycling community tradition. I haven't heard the totals yet but I think we raised a good amount of donations. Somebody was offering to match whatever we came up with too.

There was a huge group of riders out front of the Starbucks meeting place. Even more arrived after I took the picture above. Inside the Starbucks I heard one of the employees ask "what is going on?" Another worker replied "they are here every Thanksgiving". They must think we are crazy.

It felt great to see everybody out and to ride together. It makes me happy to reconnect with old friends. Burton, the Wednesday night announcer at the track greeted me with "Riders to the Rail" in his Announcer's voice. I laughed, it got the juices flowing in my track muscles! I made some new friends along the way also.

It was fun to ride down the street in a huge group. I noticed the surprised look on the faces of people we passed. Some people actually pulled out their camera and took a picture. They are used to seeing bike racers. Maybe even groups of 20 or so at a time but not the 100+ that we had. The weather was perfect for it too.

Frosty!

Today was cold in the morning. When I left the house at 8:30 there was frost on the grass and some of the roofs were frozen. I went by people scraping the ice off of their cars.

I forgot to wear long tights, just knee warmers and I felt the exposed patch of skin between the ankle and the bottom of the knee warmer go numb. Time for long tights I guess. There didn't seem to be ice on the ground but very close to it. I guess the sky was clear last night and that made everything frost up.

I went for an easy ride with my team. The sun warmed things up and by 10:30 it was really nice. The sun felt good on my face.

Since I haven't ridden the past two weekends I was a little sore after the ride even though we rode easy. I took an ice bath to make the legs feel better even though I had just warmed up. It has an immediate effect. I should have done it yesterday too.

Long easy riding

It's the time of year that I do long easy riding. Today was a fun ride out through Woodinville. We kept it relaxed most of the time. There is a tendency for bike racers to overdo it this time of year and then burn out in the summer. My legs felt really good and I think the indoor roller workouts are helping my pedaling efficiency.

I set up the Computrainer this week to get ready for when the weather gets really bad. So far so good though. Today was cold: 42F but no rain. Hopefully tomorrow will be just as nice.

Velibs à Paris! Paris Velodrome

Riding the free "Velibs" in Paris! You can't use these without a French credit card. Luckily I have a former teammate, Mary, who lives in Paris. She led us around the Bois de Vincennes.

There was a vélodrome in the Bois but they wouldn't let us ride on it with our Velibs.

Nice helmet.

We're back on the bikes.

Mary's got a good Velib sprint.

This car is actually parked on the corner.

We had to watch on the sidelines as a French track rider rode around.

We had fun riding the Velibs!

Later on we were riding along through the bois and one of the French national riders passed us. I rang my bell at him as he passed.

Pictures from Avanti/Blue Rooster Meet the Team Ride

Her are some pictures that Kelly took from the Meet the Team Ride.

Meet the team Ride

Saturday was our meet the team ride. It doesn't make sense to have your meet the team ride in November, after all of the other teams have closed their rosters and people have already made choices. We had three new riders where, in the past we have had as many as 40 new riders. Hopefully the three who came out will want to join us.

It was too bad because our team has a lot to offer this year. We have a really cool new sponsor, Blue Rooster, who is designing our new team kit and a new team website. We are really excited about it. We have some other great sponsors too that are enthusiastic about supporting the team.

It was a good chance for our team to ride together though. There were some faces that I haven't seen in a while. We had a good ride even though the group had three flats! We didn't mind too much because it was really warm. In fact there were some really warm air currents as we came around the southeast side of Lake Washington. It was bizarre for November!

Several people were taking pictures but I forgot my camera. Hopefully I will get some pics to post soon.