Bicycle 300 miles in March

3/30: 7.5 on the &%$#@ stationary bike at the hotel here so far. If I manage to put on more, I’ll just edit this entry rather than add a new one.

I saw that there’s a company that does bike tours of DC – too bad it’s forecasted to rain and I have no rain gear with me.

Pathetic number of miles this week, and I probably won’t ride today as I need to prep for my trip to DC and I feel like I’m coming down with something.

If I’m lucky, I’ll be feeling better, will put some miles on the stationary bike at the hotel, and maybe (maybe) get it up to 250 by the end of the month :-(

This is a mileage estimate based on time, since I didn’t trust the mileage meters on the stationary bikes in the cruise ship gym. If I believe those, I did more like 36 miles rather than 25 miles on those infernal machines.

I also did the complete round of weight lifting machines each time I used the bikes. My core and upper body strength was not as bad as I feared. At the same time, they could use more work. And I believe for me, core and upper body strength at this point is at the heart of me doing longer distance (over 200 miles) riding. Since I have a tour coming up mid-July, I should continue to work on these so I do not suffer too terribly then.

So…

At the end of the day yesterday, I was cruising down 2nd Avenue at rush hour, and in the midst of traffic, I make the turn on to Jackson. (here)

In the middle of the intersection, my bike freezes up, I hit the ground, and I hear a loud bang! This all seems to happen instantaneously. The noise was so loud I thought someone had shot at me.

What actually happened is that my rim wore through, and the loud noise was the tube exploding when the tire pulled out from the broken rim. Unlike sharp-eyed and aware Jim Carson, I had no idea that it was in such a bad state. Just as he notes on his blog, winter commuting plays hell on your rims.

Well, so I pick myself up from the middle of the road. The bike is completely unridable – not only is the rim blown, but the resulting force taco’d the wheel. I limp to the International District Transit Station and call my husband.

While on the bus, I call REI, which I use as my LBS for this bike. Instead of someone I know, I talk to Random Bike Shop Dude, and tell him what happened. RBSD dude says, just bring my bike in. I say, you sure you can do it right away? Then he confirms with me, I just need the tube changed, right. “NO! My rim was destroyed! I need a wheel to be rebuilt! LIKE I JUST SAID!” He says, oh, well, just bring it in. I ask RBSD what his name is. He says that he won’t be there when I come in, but Kara will be.

So, David picks me up from the park-and-ride, and we drive directly to REI. David heroically carries my wounded bike into the store, and we talk to Kara. She leafs forlornly through the appointment book, and says that they might be able to get to it April 5. I am peeved, because RBSD said that could be dealt with right away.

Now, I have a very good relationship with the regular guys at the REI shop. I bring them homemade baked goods and six-packs of fine malted beverages. I treat them with deference, gratitude, and high respect; and in return, I get little perks, like discounts on repairs, and I get squeezed into the appointment book when they are booked out for two weeks.

But I don’t know Kara, and she doesn’t know me, and it isn’t like I’m going to pull a Mrs. Stanley Kramer (a story for another time) and say, in an imperious voice, “Do you know WHO I AM?” I do try, “well, Jim often will get around to a job for me when you guys are booked up”, but this goes no where with Kara, and I can’t blame her at all, because she doesn’t know me from Adam’s housecat.

So we call Sammamish Valley Cycle, David’s LBS, and the LBS we use for the tandems, and see what their schedule is, and sure enough, they can get it done by Monday, which is when I’ll be back from the cruise, anyway. David yanks the bike out of REI, we load it back into the back of the car, and motor off to SVC.

At SVC, they say they’ll rebuild the wheel, convince me to get slightly higher class spokes and a ceramic rim; replace the brakes since they need that, too; oh, and replace the front fender (oddly destroyed in this accident – not sure how exactly, maybe in the fall); and I authorize anything else that tickles their fancy, seeing how the spring riding season’s is more or less upon us.

Then David and I go out to dinner at Alborz, because after all that trauma, you could use a truly fine dinner and a date with your sweetiepie, no?

The end result: no riding today and for awhile – I’m really condemned to the stationary bike on the cruise. Dang!

The ride leader never showed, so I led the ride this morning out of Issaquah. We did RACMOD rather than the published ride. I was pathetically slow, and I rode my ass off just trying to vainly keep up with the group. Fortunately, since they had not a clue as to where we were going, they had to wait for me periodically so I could tell them when the next turn was. Now I can barely descend the stairs to the home office – my quads are screaming.

I also realize that the only way I am ever going to make this goal is to ride ride ride in the gym on the cruise, god help me, cruise this coming weekend, and at the hotel the following weekend in DC.

Edited to note: the ride leader actually did show – there was a confusion over in which parking lot we were meeting. Most of the people who signed up went with him; just a few unlucky souls, including a guy named Mark who I rode with on John Calnan’s Brewery Ride last October came with me.

Also edited to include today’s miles, puny as they are.

I had a networking/fund raising breakfast this morning, so I did a little bonk-training and rode in to it on an empty stomach.

The french toast wasn’t all that good, but I ate it all anyway. Plus I drank an extra OJ :-)

Upper 30s in the morning; probably lower 50s for the way home.

We’ll see what the weather’s like this weekend for riding; Sunday I’ll be at bike expo at the Bicycle Alliance booth.

Edited to up the mileage and add: David and I went around the lake today (Saturday AM), with a detour to the top of the plateau and back. I have increased respect for Jim Carson having this as a part of his daily commute – dang!

One of those March mornings where it was below freezing when I left the house, and will be warm and sunny when I come home.

I live on 175th, and our house was blanketed in fog. By the time I climbed to 171st, it was completely clear (but frostier). Downtown was relatively clear when I rode in; now it’s so foggy I can’t see the waterfront from my office window.

Shook it up a little by going downtown via 520 this morning; I’ll be going to an event tonight off of the 520 trail tonight, so that’s where I dumped the car.

Edited to add: the weather was so nice on the way home, I put on a few extra miles, just for fun.