While I was far away from my bikes in July and August, I did fall for the temptation to get a hold of a classic loaner bike and ride a unique century a few weeks ago. It consisted of roughly 35 miles on 3 different islands in the San Juan group of Washington state, with a ferry ride between each. Good attendance and many strong riders made for a fun and fast day, although the total cool-down of the ferry rides was challenging. Maybe I should have thrown a stationary trainer in the sag-wagon!!

In June I rode a 200 miler of a completely different sort which bears mentioning although there was nothing C&V about it: A new breed of MTB races have started to appear in recent times. An organizer researches a route and creates a GPS file, then uploads it on the internet with a starting time/date. No registration needed, no fees, no permits, no support - and most importantly no glory!! Mine was called the Dixie 200 and saw a whopping 6 riders at the starting line. It was full-on adventure of the best kind, by far the cycling highlight of the year so far. For pics see here (sorry about all the URLs in this post..)