6/10/07 bike

Well if we weren't certain if i were crazy or not, i think after saturay the answer is an unequivicable 'yes'. we had a 3 hour dress rehearsal in the morning so it was about 2 by the time we actually were in the saddle. We drove down to marymoore and parked the truck, thinking we'd do the "65 mile flying wheels route" that we're participating in next saturday. Well we took the overview map with us, not the triptik, and let me say the map sucked! we never saw 'the fork in the road' to keep left and ended up heading north on the road we were supposed to be returning south on as a result. we end up cycling through this valley and past the nestle's farm/plant. next thing we know we're in carnation! we stopped and had a mocha and checked in 'with a local' to get directions to someplace on our map; hopefully on the FW route. And we did, but then we missed a turn, and then we missed another street - and it ain't as if we weren't looking! so we end up asking a guy who was out to collect his mail, and he said we were too far south and gave us directions up onto the sammamish plateau to a place we knew. he said it was a lovely ride but it was a hill. he was not exaggerating! that thing went on for miles! well ok, maybe not miles. but more than 1, and at a 9-10% grade, too! that's a pretty darn steep hill to be biking up! total miles were in the low 50s. as for wildlife it was a great day. several eagles, what we're going to call a heron (more on that soon), cows, horses, and a deer. if anyone recognizes this description and knows what kind of bird this is, please let us know. we think it was a heron. it's overall shape was a heron, only it seemed much larger than any i've seen. but then again it did fly out from between the 'forest' trees about 20 feet from us. it was black - or so dark it looked black. there was no color variance on the underside we noticed at all, and it had it's wings outstretched - just sailed right past us! other than that it had the same kind of feet, and beak, only it's beak was very vibrant color orangy-yellow, not muted like all the other herons i've seen around here. a google search by both of us and we came up will nill photos of anything close.

now you might be wondering why i've said i must be bonkers. yesterday was maybe a high of 60 degrees. There was no sun. none. nada. not even a cloud fault up there. and it rained. oh how it rained! matt's shoes got so wet they were still wet when he put them on today at 5 for our ride! he definitely got the worst of it, being in front as part of that. since i tend to get cold pretty fast i wore a goretek jacket under my raincoat, hood up under my helmet, full gloves, and rain pants and shoe covers (raincoats for shoes). when we got back to the truck i was at least able to peel off my outer layer of clothing and was dry (and warm). i'll bet before our next rainy ride matt goes to the store and gets some raingear!

i've included a few pics with this post. the 1st is the overall mapview of the flying wheels, and the 2nd is the route we took. i've also included a pic of the elevation graph from yesterday's ride.

we ordered one of those teeny light-weight digital cameras for the STP, and will hopefully have it before FW. I thought it'd be great to take some pics on the ride. And since we've been seeing so many eagles, herons and now deer, it'll be fun to take pics along our weekly rides, too.

so matt's been looking at new tandems for us for a bit now. ours is an aluminum frame from 1998. yes, it used to be a rental, ok? we got it cheap. there are several materials, lots of different accessories... i won't bore you with all the details. ok, it's probably more accurate (and honest) to say i can't remember all the stuff matt's told me about all the bikes. what i do know is that he decided to get one of the top tandem that's made. here's the link to the company. our tandem will actually look very similar to the picture on their page. our seats and handlebars will be different, but the shape and color is right. http://paketa.com/tandems.htm

today was very windy. i was up at 4.30 for a couple hours this morning. but there was quite a lot of blue up there. i had decided if i was still awake at 6 i was going to wake matt so we could get out on the bike early. who knows what wildlife we'd see at that time. well i did manage to go back to sleep, so we had to wait until tonight to ride. i am thankful the weather actually held. we saw a couple eagles soaring way up high on thermals both directions around the lake tonight. on the way back we rode past 3 deer not 50 feet away from hte side of the road. they are so beautiful. these were young deer and they were large. today we went 31.31 miles in 2:00:28.


pictures:
FW = this is the official route map. the top-most loop is for the 100 mile riders which matt and i are not doing.
FW2 = this is the elevation graph for that route. remove a bit from the middle for that top loop...
ourFW = this is what we did on sat
ourFW2 = this is our graph