khuon

Last Saturday, Xythen and I attempted to do a metric century around the northern loop of Lake Washington. I neglected to bring along my digicam so unfortunately this post will be pictureless.

I was rather discouraged by the weather reports. It seemed like anything was bound to happen weatherwise so I left the house wearing both thermal long-sleeve jersey and tights as well as rainpants and jacket. Xythen had on TWO JACKETS as well as long-sleeve thermal jersey, tights and rainpants. We were certainly heavily dressed. I almost hoped the sky would stay dismal and rain actually happened to justify all our clothing. However, bits of sunshine were showing in random places. Also, I had forgotten my digital camera so no pictures for this ride.

We did a ride around the northern loop of Lake Washington. We started on Mercer Island at the Park&Ride and went into Bellevue. Then we continued on to Kirkland. There were plenty of hills along the way. But halfway up one hill just before downtown Kirkland, Xythen flatted on some glass or something.

I had waited up ahead and when I didn't see her in the expected time, I turned around to find her attempting to yank the tube out of the rear wheel. The problem was that whomever installed the tube never bothered with some talc powder and the tube had fused itself to the inside of the tyre casing. We had to tug and rip the two apart. Xythen installed a new tube but accidently put the tyre on backwards. Why road tyres are direction specific is beyond me as they don't really have to be. Mine aren't. At anyrate, we decided to not bother fixing it and Xythen said she didn't notice a difference in the ride.

The only other problem was that neither she nor I could get enough pressure into the tyre from the minipump so we decided to find a shop in town. Luckily it was a Saturday morning in Kirkland and not a Sunday afternoon in Oak Harbor (sorry... inside joke - ask ngateguy).

We found a shop and as Xythen was pumping up her tyre to the right pressure, I did a little shopping. I grabbed a couple of Clif Bars (they're not as bad as I originally remembered then to be anymore), a cuff strap (my rainpants were rubbing up against my chainrings) and a really neat compact retractable Kryptonite lock (Xythen bought one too.. along with some speed-levers). They're really very cool. I mentioned it in a recent post.

Afterwards, we grabbed some breakfast at a local restaurant called Hectors. The food was good, the portions large and the price fairly reasonable.

Then we continued out of Kirkland with the intent of intercepting Burke-Gilman in Kenwood. We took plenty of hills. I did spare us from some of the really tough ones (7% and higher). Xythen is improving her hill-climbing quite nicely.

After hopping onto the B-G and heading back down the west end of the lake, Xythen encountered another flat. It seemed like a slow-to-medium leak and so she pumped it up enough to get her a couple of hundred yards to a bike shop. Unfortunately, the bike shop was still closed and wouldn't be open for another half-hour. We pulled the tube and inspected it but neither of us could find the puncture. We decided to use my spare. The problem is that my tubes are short-stemmed which works fine in my rims but her rims are fairly deep. The result is that there's not a lot of exposed shaft for which to get a pump on. We ended up bending the valve screw much like what happened with your tube last Sunday. It was however capable of holding air. By this time, the shop we were standing in front of should have opened up (according to their sign) but it didn't. Frustrated, we decided to carry on to U-Village and hit TiCycles.

We got to TiCycles and Xythen just had them replace the entire tube and bought me a replacement for the one I gave her. Afterwards, we decided to drop down into U-Village and eat a late-lunch/early-dinner at Delfino's. They make the best (not many to compete with though) stuffed pizzas outside of the Chicago area. Xythen and I split a baby stuffed spinache pizza (6"). It sounds small but a single slice of stuffed pizza from a large or medium pan is usually sufficient for lunch. Two slices and we would have been too stuffed (pun intended) to ride on.

I decided that instead of returning the way we came (we were at 30 miles already) to make it a 60-miler, we would cut the ride short and just continue south towards UW where we could pick up the route to Seward Park in order to intercept the I-90 Trail and the bridge.

The way through the U-District towards Seward Park was much more convoluted than what we normally take during the initial part of the STP. Eventually we found the turnoff towards Lake Washington Blvd. but I decided to keep us on Martin Luther King so we wouldn't have to climb a long steep hill back up to the entry point for the bridge trail. As it was, we encountered quite a few long and some steep hills. Also, MLK was a rather busy street but we did gain a bikelane after a bit. Then we hit the tunnel at Smith (?) Park and got onto the I-90 Trail. I had never used that route before. I always did things the hard way by climbing the intervening hill. This was much easier and a lot more fun to ride through the tunnel.

The bridge was very windy and we were getting blown about a bit. However, I always enjoy crossing the bridge and I think Xythen had fun too. I'm not sure if it was her first time or not. I did apologise for the big climb at the end of the bridge however. Afterwards, it was an uneventful couple of miles back to the P&R. Total distance was an honest 40-miles but since we included a bunch of hills, I figured we got a pretty good workout even though we didn't hit the metric century.

I asked Xythen if we had to do a ride from Marymoor to Bothell and back (20 miles) right then and there if she could handle it. She said she thought she could. I think she could do a flat metric century no problem.