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RSVP 2004 Trip Report (long, long, long)
I'll post to this thread when I get the webpage up with the pictures later
this week. In the mean time, here's the report: 2004 RSVP trip report SUMMARY Left Seattle August 6 6:25 AM Arrived Bellingham August 6 6:35 PM Left Bellingham August 7 7:45 AM Arrived Vancouver BC 5:25 PM Mileage: 187 miles (includes being lost) On-bike average speed 13.8 mph Terrain: Some hills -- road elevation profile may be viewed he http://www.jimcarson.com/archives/000038.shtml Weather: Saturday: upper 50s and lower 60s. Morning rain mixed with showers; afternoon clearing to partly cloudy. Sunday: lower 60s to lower 70s. Early morning sprinkles with afternoon clearing to sunshine. Ride details: This was the first time I had ever tried the Ride Seattle-Vancouver and Party (RSVP). I had heard for several years now that this ride was better than STP in many respects: less crowded, better scenery, more fun. I have to agree with all of these assessments -- this is a superior ride in nearly every way. The preparations for the ride began on Thursday, the day before. In anticipation of my parents coming to care for the kids, and my friend Lynne, and her husband Fitz, spending the night, there was much housework that had to be done. Of course, I did the regular bike cleaning, lubing, and inspection, and packing up for the trip. But I also did as much laundry as could be managed, cleaned up, vacuumed, and set up the family room for our overnight guests, did grocery shopping, and madly tidied. I prepared Asian brown rice salad for Lynne and for us for the trip. My husband David tackled the cleaning of the bathrooms. Lynne and her husband arrived at 4:30, which was actually an excellent time for them to come. We pulled down the mattress and set that up, and got dinner on the table on time for the kids to be able to attend their 6:00 PM rehearsal. After the kids were dispatched, my husband did a last minute REI run for the ride, while we chatted for a while. Finally, it was an early bedtime for everyone (except possibly the kids) in anticipation of the big ride. We got up around 4:30 AM. I had already done some of the breakfast set-up, so it didn't take long to make the eggs and bacon for David, and for me to make my traditional pre-ride cheese blintzes and tea. Lynne just had cereal. (Fitz was snoozing -- he wasn't riding with us, but was going to join some friends later in the day for golf near the ride course.) By 5:33 we were completely packed up and backing out of the driveway. We got to the start at 6:00. It was just starting to rain. Due to the usual start line confusion, photos, and last minute honey bucket visits, we didn't actually begin the ride until 6:25 AM. The first part of the ride is on the Burke-Gilman trail, and at that early hour, there were only a few bike commuters coming the other way. The steady rain was discouraging the other usual recreational users. David and I have done the portion of the ride from Woodinville to Snohomish together several times, most recently just the weekend before, so this section was very familiar to us. At the beginning of this section, just out of Woodinville, is the longest steady elevation gain of the ride, which we handled without difficulty. At this point David realized we had forgotten the Asian rice salad at home. We had a brief snack at the top (mile 15), and went on. Lynne, having completed a one-day STP ride this year, is in fine physical shape, and so she took off ahead. It was now beginning to pour quite heavily, and I could feel the rain streaming off of my face and into my eyes. I have a lot of experience with commuting in a heavy rain, so it didn't discourage me much, but I did take it a bit slower than I otherwise might have. By the time we made it to Snohomish (mile 27), we were completely soaked through, and had lost track of Lynne. We pulled into the Buzz Inn and got a second breakfast. We drank hot tea, and tried to warm up. After about an hour of this, we put our wet things back on, and returned to the road. In the steady, heavy rain, David pulled me quite competently down the Centennial Trail. I'm planning to lead a kids' ride on this trail this coming weekend, and am looking forward to much better weather! Then we turned off the trail to begin the ascent to the Lake Stevens area. At the Lake Stevens rest stop (mile 37) we barely had parked our bikes when Lynne came running up. Apparently in the downpour she had missed the turn to Snohomish and had gotten lost. She did have a warm-up break in a coffee shop, but didn't have the long rest we got at the Buzz Inn. We rode together, the three of us from Lake Stevens. I think this section was the lowest point of the ride for me. As we continued up these gradual uphills in the rain, I started to get colder and colder, and seemed to lack power. My hands turned yellow and numb. Lynne continued on again ahead of us. As we dropped into the city of Arlington (mile 54), at about 11:45, I was really ready for lunch. We pulled up to the Blue Bird diner, and there was Lynne, just ahead of us. I tested my tires and found that I probably had no more than 20 pounds of air in the front -- no wonder I didn't have the usual power! So, we were reunited for lunch. We did our best to warm up, but the Blue Bird had their A/C going (trying, probably, to ventilate the place with all these sweaty and wet bicyclists inside) and Lynne and I were shivering. We told Lynne to go on without us -- she's so much faster than we were, and I had a flat to fix. David thought it took a huge amount of chutzpah, but I wheeled my bike into the Arlington City Hall. I parked it on the tile floor in the entrance, and let it drip there. Then I removed the front wheel, and took it up the stairs where I could sit on the carpet, tucked out of the way, and fix the flat. I admit I did it in a sort of meditative way, not trying to be particularly speedy. I greeted various city personnel while sitting on the steps, and every one was cordial to me. David, meanwhile, on my suggestion, took off to the Arlington Volunteers of America Thrift Store to do shopping. He said the place was jammed with RSVP riders searching for outerwear. David got himself a thick Shetland wool sweater. It was a size too small, and cut Very Oddly, the sort of thing you might find in a thrift store, but it was only $3. My sweater, a nice grey lambswool v-neck pullover, not Very Odd, but normal, was $6, and fit me perfectly. Newly clad in our woolens, and with the bike fixed, we took off from Arlington at 1:15. Although it was still raining, and I was still shivering and had my teeth chattering for the first mile or two, soon I began to feel toasty warm, for the first time since the top of the hill out of Woodinville. We made it to the Lake McMurray Sanican stop (mile 65) and sat under the shelter for a snack. It started to brighten; the rain began to slack. As we rode along scenic Big Lake, it continued clearing and the pavement started to dry. David had a flat just before Mt. Vernon rest stop (mile 77). Because he missed the sharp piece of gravel piercing the tire, he had to fix it again shortly thereafter. Although the rest stop was supposed to be closed by 3:00, it was now approaching 4:00, and there were still volunteers and food available when we left the stop. We rode through Burlington, and then David did another nice pull for me across the flat agricultural lands until we reached Bow (mile 90). We stood at the main intersection of Bow, in the bright sunlight and sucked down a goo. At this point I had shed my jacket and arm warmers, but was still wearing the leg warmers and the sweater. We then did the upsy-downsies of Chuckanut Drive. This is considered to be one of the most scenic roads in the state. One of the advantages to being relative slow-pokes on this ride, and taking many and leisurely stops is that we got to bicycle this section of the ride under the best conditions of the day. The water sparkled and gleamed around the San Juan Islands. Twisted trees clung to the cliffs; further in, lush ferns grew under thick firs. Whilst riding one of the many upsies of Chuckanut, we passed a young lady who looked like someone might after riding 95 miles or so -- a very weary look on her face. We offered some goo to her, but she said no. David said that we should have made a greater effort to help, but she was now quite a ways behind us. We stopped at the view point and chatted for a while with people there, admiring the drop-dead gorgeous scenery, and then took off again. We soon overtook the weary-faced girl again. We re-offered goo. She said she couldn't stop, she was far behind her friends who were waiting for her. We insisted that she stop, that she couldn't catch up unless she had something like this miracle substance, and thus she should take it from us. We all stopped. She took the goo, and asked what it was. We explained that it would do her good, that she should suck it down with a lot of water, and she would feel much better. After this act of good samaritanship, we did a few more upsie-downsies, and finally came in to Bellingham pretty close to 6:30 PM. At this point our bodies and brains were fried, and we missed the turn to get to the Ramada, where our luggage and hotel room reservations were waiting for us. We did a little tour of Bellingham, having to consult with locals on the street and a map several times, until David saw a neon "...Inn" and even though it was the Coachman Inn, the Ramada Inn was across the street. We took hot showers, and then toddled off to a Greek restaurant, where I had lamb and potatoes and a Greek salad and a side of feta and olives (salt replacement =:-o!) and a glass of Greek red wine. We staggered back to our hotel room and promptly collapsed into bed. The next morning we loaded up, but decided to eschew the hotel-provided continental breakfast. When we asked other cyclists for a breakfast location, in a chorus they yelled, "Dutch Mother's!" but that was 15 miles down the pavement in Lynden, and I don't ride far on an empty stomach. Instead, we rode a couple blocks in the light rain to an IHOP. The place was going like a house afire, completely packed with people in lycra at 6:30 AM, probably not its usual scene. We read the local paper, and found our ride on the front page of the Bellingham Herald's sport's section. We had a substantial breakfast after a long wait, and then finally high-tailed it out of there by 7:45. We zipped along the relatively flat farm land to Lynden. The rain stopped. We had a bad scare when David ran over a piece of wood that came so quick I had no chance to call it out. He started to slide out, and would have fallen into a nasty ditch had he not been able to regain control over the bike. We stopped for a snack in Lynden (day 2 mile 15), saw a mess of bikes parked out front of Dutch Mother's, and then continued on to the border about five miles away. It was odd, riding along an American road and seeing Canada six feet/two metres away, with its paralleling road, and its Canadian-style signs, and just a ditch between the two. I wondered what would happen if you had a flat tire, and sat on the edge of the ditch to change your tire. What would happen if you moved to the other side of the ditch...would Border Patrol immediately pop out of the bushes? I think we crossed the border at 9:30. David sang a bad rendition of "O Canada" that I'm sure wasn't appreciated by the customs folks, but they saw fit not to detain us, and we were on our way. We should have stopped there at the border for a pit stop, but didn't. Now we were in a rural area, and no convenience store or similar for a potty break. We were approaching "the Wall", a short but steep (10% grade) hill on the route. I spotted a small park to the right, and asked the folks working outside the church on the other side of the street if the park had a public toilet. This generated the offer to use the toilet at the church. I had a long sojourn in this pleasant environment, while David made friends with one of the church volunteers. He was the sort that often is the pillar of the church, you could tell -- the puttering retired sort that will fix things and maintain things, and keep out of his wife's hair. He told David about growing up in Britain, and then serving in the RAF in the 14th Army in Burma during World War II. By the time I came out, he was telling David and then the both of us about a bicycle tour he did -- 150 miles through the BC interior in a day. He told us about the bike shop he used to run. He told us about getting flattened while on his bike in a mountain tunnel, and God watching over him and making sure he would get up and out of the way before another vehicle ran over him. I'm sure he would have kept on telling us stories, but it was time for us to leave, and we bade him good-bye. We ground up the Wall, which sure was short for its reputation, and then finally got into Fort Langley (mile 39). We skipped the official food stop, and instead had an early lunch in an outdoor cafe in town. There's a little ferry you then take over the Fraiser River. The ferry personnel informed us that a bridge will be built eventually (I forgot the year -- 2007? 2012?) but in the mean time, the ferry continues to run. After the ferry, I ended up shedding the last bits of my outerwear -- it was now sufficiently sunny that I could do the rest of the ride in my sleeveless jersey. After the ferry, we found ourselves in the exurbs of greater Vancouver. The US does not have the monopoly on ugly sprawl. The ride alternated between country road, nasty highway, and suburban street. At one point, along the country road portion of the ride, David developed a pit stop need. There was nothing but farms though, for quite a ways. Finally, we stopped at a farm stand advertising garlic (mile 50?). The farmer had a vague European-like accent -- David guessed Dutch. After ascertaining that all David needed to do was pee, he allowed him to pee in the irrigation ditch, while I sat in a plastic chair and ate a banana. Three ladies rode past my husband while he was standing at the ditch. He reports that he heard one of them giggle in mid-sentence and then say to the other, "Did you see that guy...?" The farmer tried to persuade us to purchase garlic to take on our rides, but was unsuccessful. We re-entered suburbs. There was a cool, if crowded little footbridge in Port Coquitlam, and then we were back on suburban streets. I'll note that the Dan Henrys, the little painted icons that let you know you're on the right route and where to turn, were often missing. Apparently in BC you can't paint anything permanent on the street, and the previous day's heavy rain caused many of the markers to fade or completely disappear. David made a brief stop to check on his wheel at a major turn on to Glen in Coquitlam, and I directed bicycle traffic. "Turn left here! Turn left here!" I yelled, and waved. Some looked pathetically grateful. And indeed, I do know people who failed to make this turn and got lost. At Fort Moody Rocky Point Park (mile 61) we had our final rest stop. The brochure said food, but apparently Cascade didn't inform the bike club responsible for the stop. No problem, we had our own pretzels and bananas, and the ice cream stand was doing a land office business, but it's possible others were disappointed. We sucked down some goo packets in anticipation of a large-ish hill climb ahead. We were now on the Burnett Hwy. There was a large shoulder, but it had lots of debris in it, and there were 50 zillion cars whizzing by as we rode along. The climb, once we got there, was steady but not impossible -- I could see how, on a hot day, this shadeless stretch could be more trying. Then we were riding on official bike routes through Burnaby and Vancouver. We were more or less riding with a loose pack of other bikes at this point. David found this portion of the ride tiring because there was constant starting and stopping at various intersections, and consultations with the map and tick sheet, because the Dan Henrys were generally not there. We managed to navigate successfully all the way to Chinatown, and then we missed a turn. In our efforts to get ourselves back to the route, we found ourselves in the middle of some festival. The street was closed. Vendors were crowded on the sidewalk. Children were bouncing up and down on a moon walk contraption. Live music was blaring. And there were millions of cars jammed together, trying to get somewhere, god knows, and we were suddenly in the middle of it. When there's urban chaos, probably there's no better means of getting around than a bike. Amidst yells of "ped up!" as yet another little old lady tried to trot through with a white plastic bag of vegetables, we threaded our way through the mess and finally returned to the official route. We then had to work our way through downtown, consulting the map and tick sheet repeatedly, and suddenly, we were at the event hotel. "Put your bike on the 3rd floor of the parking garage" someone yelled, and we rolled down to the garage and dumped the bikes. Then it was up to the party. We got to our luggage to at least change out of bike shoes and dump the helmet and hydration pack. We each had a coupon, which could be used for either a beer or a hamburger. We did I think the smartest thing -- we picked up our complementary souvenir beer glasses, and used coupon #1 to split a beer in each glass, and then coupon #2 to split a hamburger. Lynne called to say she was at her cousin's house, and we wished each other mutual congratulations. It was at this point that I ran into my friend Steve (who had also done the ride, but at a pace twice as fast as us) and gave him a big hug. Two more friends were going to have Japanese food at 8:30 that evening -- did we want to join? It turned out perfectly -- we took a cab from the event hotel to our cheaper but very nice Quality Inn about 3/4 of a mile away. We got showered and cleaned up. We had a leisurely stroll along the main shopping street of Robson, and then Denman. Then we got to the restaurant. Now, normally I'm suspicious of all-you-can-eat, because I don't like places that emphasize quantity over qu ality. But after just completing this strenuous ride, quantity sounded pretty good. And Steve assured us that the quality would be very reasonable. There ended up being six of us: my friends Nona, Carol, and Steve; another Steve that Nona and Carol had met along the ride, and my husband and I. All of us were completely and thoroughly ravenously hungry after the two long days of cycling. I am sorely tempted to make a list of all that we ate: platter after platter of potstickers, sushi, tempura, sashimi, yakitori, teriyaki, rumaki, Korean short ribs, the pitcher of beer, the sake -- on and on it went, BC roll, spicy tuna hand roll, crunchy roll -- and finally, I confess, ice cream for me and David for dessert. $21.95 Canadian per person (not counting alcohol). I can't imagine they made money off of us. While we were eating, the most spectacular firework show started. We could see most of it through the restaurant window. As it was coming to an end, we pushed ourselves away from the table and walked back to our hotel. The rest of the trip was pretty uneventful. The only notable thing was running into my old friend Mark Weiss, who I knew was also supposed to be on the ride, only just before it was time to board the buses home. All the people I knew were doing the ride I then had finally met and knew that they didn't bail, despite the rain and cold for the first part of the ride. We were all champions. -- Warm Regards, Claire Petersky please substitute yahoo for mousepotato to reply Home of the meditative cyclist: http://home.earthlink.net/~cpetersky/Welcome.htm Personal page: http://www.geocities.com/cpetersky/ See the books I've set free at: http://bookcrossing.com/referral/Cpetersky |
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RSVP 2004 Trip Report (long, long, long)
yum spicy tuna roll! thanks for writing all that...
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RSVP 2004 Trip Report (long, long, long)
On Tue, 10 Aug 2004 03:21:32 GMT, "Claire Petersky"
wrote: probably not its usual scene. We read the local paper, and found our ride on the front page of the Bellingham Herald's sport's section. We had a substantial breakfast after a long wait, and then finally high-tailed it out of there by 7:45. googled on Bellingham Herald Rsvp: http://news.bellinghamherald.com/sto...s/201832.shtml Thanks for writing |
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