mattm

DNFd a 600k (for a multitude of reasons) at the ~300k (189 mi) mark on saturday.. even though we didn't complete the ride it was still a lot of fun, so i thought i'd share.

we did the first two of these passes (the Paradise climb at mt. rainier, and the Windy Ridge climb at Mt. St. Helens):


my friend and i decided to call it a day 17 hours into the ride, since his ankle was hurting, and my motivation was gone (htfu, yeah yeah). it was night (9 PM) and we still had a pass and 60 miles to do for the day, which just didn't sound fun in the dark. of course i regret the decision, but oh well..

anyway, on to the photos. (apologies for the blurry pictures, there was condensation inside the lens or something.. also threw in a few photos from others)

the start at 4 AM in Eatonville, WA:


my friend riding up to Paradise, on the base of Mt. Rainier:


that's me on the left, working my way up to 'paradise':


now on the way down from paradise; one of the tunnels we got to zip through at 30-40 mph:


riding up to Windy Ridge, in the Mt. St. Helens blast zone:


the road was closed to cars; we had to walk around the washouts:


a washout on the Forest-Service Road (26) we were riding on. note the rider on the right, walking his bike around the obstruction. There were 5-6 of these along the way! this road was pretty steep (i'd guess 7-10% for about eight miles or so)


one of many cracks in the road near the Windy Ridge view of mt. st. helens:


a few more photos are on flickr (and here)

i'm sad that winter is coming, and many of these roads will be closed soon!! if anyone gets a chance to ride out in seattle during the spring/summer, these climbs are highly recommended.

Raerfani

Nice fenders....noob! Just kidding. Sorry you had to DNF. Cool pics.

mattm

hopefully next year i'll get a chance to do this route again.. thx for lookin!

SKYLAB

Man I'd hate to meet one of those cracks on a descent.

mattm

(bumping - we need more photo-threads!)

BananaTugger

I need mountains.

Treespeed

Beauty, I miss Washington mountains.

mattm

a few more shots from the ride, stolen from a friend's blog:

making our way up to 'paradise': (me on the right, with too much crap in my pockets!)



view of mt. rainier up close:



your truly, at the top of windy ridge (that would be the st. helens crater behind me)


and had i not DNFd, this would have been the 4th pass, chinook:


next year i'll conquer this damn route!

MONGO!

Great pics

bdcheung

600k? That's a lot of riding. What level of intensity do you do this at?

mattm

indeed, it is. for the record, we (my friend & i) only did half of the 600k, then quit (forgot my htfu pills at home...) but with lots of other brevets in the 200-400k range, this distance is the next logical step, and well within anyone's grasp (who has done at least a 400k).

at a medium pace (for me), meaning my usual pace; i'm not sprinting for anything, but not necesarily "taking it easy" either. i took stops for pictures and whatnot, and tried to enjoy the scenery. on the flats i'd say we rolled in the 19-24 mph range, uphill was more like 5-12 mph.

0km - 69 km (top of first pass) took 3:53 or so (4 AM to 7:53 AM)
69k - 125k took ~2.5 hours
125k-200k (top of 2nd pass) took ~5 hours
200k-289k took another 4 hours or so

(~17 hous total, pretty slow for a ~300k, even for me)

so as you can see, certainly not setting any records! i don't ride with an HRM, GPS, Powertap, so i don't have any data for the ride. didn't even use a cyclocomputer for this one.

most riders finished in the 36-38 hour time-range (40 was the limit), with one speedy guy finishing in ~27 hours (official results here)

Rob P

Those are some great shots. The views are breath taking.