20 minutes later I was at Peets, having some coffee (may I have a receipt please?) and watching a couple of fellows playing Cribbage across the room. I've been a cribbage player for many years, and was entertained by their running discussion of the game.
Pete showed 15 minutes later, and we rolled out at 7:40, 25 minutes past the scheduled 7:15 start time.
The route we selected "Eastside loops" goes across the I-90 bridge and then heads north, hugging the Lake Washington shoreline to downtown. This necessitates a few short steep climbs and gets you warmed up. From downtown, it heads north to Medina, east a little way, and then north again to Kirkland. Most of that run is fairly flat.
Then it gets interesting, as you encounter two of the hills made famous by the Memorial day "7 Hills of Kirkland" ride. The first hill isn't so bad, but the second one "Seminary hill" goes on and on, topping out over 400 feet. Your hard work is rewarded by a screaming run downhill to Kenmore -- on newly laid asphalt even.
Once in Kenmore, we were done with hills for a while as we hit the Burke Gilman trail - the same trail we were on the last time we did 100k. I was feeling pretty good so far. I had been dropping behind Pete on the hills but staying with him on the flats. We cruised to Woodville, then down the Sammamish River trail to Redmond, through Marymoor park, and then onto East Lake Sammamish Boulevard. Now we were two hours in, and all my extra energy was gone. I couldn't keep on Pete's wheel any more, and wound up just riding along at 14 mph instead of the 16-17 we had been doing.
West Lake Sammamish isn't flat - there are slight grades here and there, with one "hill" 2/3 of the way to Issaquah. Pete waited for me at the top, and then we rode to Issaquah together.
We stopped at the only "receipt control" on the ride at the Starbucks attached to Safeway and he generously bought me a hot chocolate while I attended to some urgent business in the Mens room. We didn't stay long, not wanting to get too cooled down.
From there we climbed another seemingly endless hill up Newport Way, heading east. Once again, he led far ahead while I slugged it out, getting what felt like slower and slower.
We joined up at the top of the hill and rode together through Eastgate and Factoria, across the I-90 bridge again.
Ran into a traffic jam of bikes at the light on the west side of the bridge: a group of 5 women cyclists was heading west, 4 or 5 men were heading across going east, and we were in the mix wanting to go south. Once that was sorted, we were on our own again, doing a partial clockwise Mercer Island loop.
Pete led the way, and I followed - the theme for the day - and when I got to the Info Control at Clarke Beach I saw he was 50 yards ahead and hollered at him to come back, which he did. We got our last info control written down and he let me lead for a bit, then begged off to ride ahead because he had to get home to make a time commitment to his wife to leave for an annual party they were attending. I bid him farewell and just ambled along at a comfortable pace for the remaining few miles.
I've ridden this route dozens of times, but saw something that I had never seen before: A dragon! I was impressed.
By this time I was getting actually hungry, and decided a hamburger would be perfect, so I stopped at the McDonalds for my last control, and got two burgers to go, figuring to eat them in the car on the way home.
When I got to the Park-n-Ride, who did I meet but Pete! He had ridden ahead and stopped at Peets for his final control, which apparently was busier than McDonalds. We said our "good ride" and "see ya laters" and headed out, each with another 100k permanent in the bag. My P-5 ride, his P-2.
This is the fourth time I've ridden with other people and been the laggard. I think it's time to bite the bullet and start some actual training to build strength. Sadly, just riding around isn't going to build strength.
