Thursday, August 11, 2005

RSVP 2005: Ride from Seattle to Vancouver, BC and Party

With RSVP, I've now done three club rides, the others being Flying Wheels and STP. That would also make three fumbled attempts at eating well the morning of an event and three utterly failed attempts at getting to bed early the week before. At least there were three finishes. :)

True to form, I couldn't shake my schedule of going to bed at 2 AM, and awoke in a daze at six. I showered, got dressed, finished packing, downed a small bowl of Kashi and took off on my bike for the start line. I live on Capitol Hill, so it was an easy few miles (8?) to Sand Point, even if I did look ridiculous with my North Face day pack with a sleeping bag tethered on. I arrived at 7:35, just after the official close, and it was pretty desolate. So I threw my bag onto the truck and got going.

I'm not a big fan of the Burke-Gilman, but as we neared Snohomish fond memories of Flying Wheels set in and I found myself enjoying the rural roads. I'd told myself I'd eat something more than Clif bars this ride, and I happily pursued this objective at the Snohomish Pie Company. Umm, pecan. While tooling around Snohomish I ran into this really cute girl I'd passed on a hill earlier. She's finishing college at Western, and was doing RSVP with her family. We took off from Snohomish together, and I rode with her for an hour or so, discussing everything from English lit to corporate America, with, of course, a little cycling talk thrown in for good measure.

Emily and her folks stopped at Lake Stevens to regroup, and after exchanging contact info we parted. I upped my speed and rode to Arlington, where after pacing up and down a couple of blocks I settled on lunch at Little Italy. There's something about cycling that makes un panino mozzarella e pomodoro taste out of this world. By the time I got my sandwich a lot of the riders had already left, so I downed it and followed suit.

There was a pretty stretch around Lake McMurray, and I remember catching a few glimpses of the mountains, including Mt. Baker. At some point I ended up riding with a couple from St. Paul. James, a racer, and Heather, his triathlete wife, easily gave me the best workout of the weekend. James and I rode at a moderate pace and chatted, while Heather pulled off into the distance. When James decided to catch up, for some reason I decided to do the same. I ended up about a block behind after a little bit, and then sprinted to catch up. James looked back as I rode up to his rear wheel, cracked a grin, and said "nice work." Of course, I was getting my butt kicked, and they were cruising along.

A while later James, Heather and I hit a long stretch of rough pavement, and they peeled away as I did everything I could to spare my body the vibrations my thick-tubed aluminum bike happily transmitted. Oh God I want a steel frame. In any event, I mostly rode solo the rest of the day. The obvious highlight was Chuckanut Drive. The dropoff and water on the left was beautiful; the hills were a serious tease. 1. Climb. 2. Descend! 3. Uh, climb. 4. Descend! 5. Uh, another climb?... :)

At the end of one hill, I don't entirely recall where, we encountered Micaiah (sp?), the "Lemonade Girl", and her mother. The signs leading up to it were great. "Thirsty?" "Tired? Hungry? THIRSTY?" "GO GO GO!" Then, of course, you get to the top of this hill and they've got lemonade. She's in eighth grade and already doing things to save money for college. Way to go.

Anyhow, I continued and rolled into Bellingham HS around 5 PM. High school showers have never felt that good before. I stowed my bike, and was a little amused by the folks asking about the security of the bike storage. After all, these are the same folks who left their Pinarellos and Cervelos unattended while having hour-long meals in Arlington. It always amazes me to see some of the expensive racing bikes on these rides - if I had that much cash, I'd buy a second bike specifically for touring, but that's just me. I downed some okay pasta, had a couple of cookies, threw my sleeping back onto the field, and passed out. At some point during the night I woke up to the sound of some kids walking by and talking - they were debating whether or not we had any actual reason to be camping out, vs. our simply being weird or insane. As I stirred one of them asked me, and I responded, which I think confirmed both of their hypotheses.

The next morning I awoke at a quarter to six, got ready and set off. Taking Jim Carson's advice I just grabbed a croissant at the high school, and had brunch at Dutch Mother's in Lynden. The apple-cinnamon Dutch baby pancake was spectacular, though I only ate two-thirds of it before realizing I needed to stop or risk sitting on my butt for the remainder of the day. In Lynden I also I ran into Tom, a gentleman from Seattle I know from my local coffee shop, Victrola. We chatted for a few minutes while I was waiting for a perch at the restaurant. I also ran into James and Heather again.

Not much of interest to the border, and the crossing was quick. Somewhere there was a steep hill for a couple of blocks. It felt like the highest grade of the ride, but it was short enough to be climbed fairly quickly. Later I learned that this hill is affectionately referred to as "The Wall." But that's definitely hyperbole.

Somewhere here I also ran across a fake orange lizard on the road that was being inched along, presumably by a kid with a string hidden off the side of the road. The rider in front of me totally thought it was real. Cracked me up for a few minutes.

When I got to the foot stop in Ft. Langley, I wasn't particularly hungry, but knew enough to eat something, so I had half a bagel with peanut butter and a cup of blueberries. The blueberries were AMAZING.

Continuing, the Albion Ferry was interesting. Waves of riders embarked on one ferry after another. I had a conversation with the couple in front of me, and it turned out that the lady had broken her derailleur during the climb to Woodinville and someone had circled back around to help out. I already knew about this, because that someone had told me about it the previous day - James!

Some time later, I think in Port Coquitlam, I rode through a little park, and some folks were selling lemonade at the end. It was about 25 miles to the end, and I was tempted to gun it, but I stopped and took a break. A couple of girls from Seattle stopped a few minutes later, we got to talking, and the three of us headed off for the finish. We rode together almost to Vancouver city limits, at which point Angela and Wina took a break and I continued. I think the only really tiring part of the ride was here, the highway into the city, with a modest grade but a steady, beating sun overhead.

Once in Vancouver, things slowed down a bit. Adanac Street was a lot of fun, possibly the most fun stretch of the entire ride. It's a roller coaster - I'd pound up a hill, descend a block at 20+ mph, coast halfway up the next one, climb, and repeat. The entry into downtown was spectacular. The city springs up quickly, with the water and mountains in full view, much more rewarding than, say, rolling into Portland. But the finish line was disappointing - it was, well, like riding up to a hotel.

After the ride I checked into my room at the Coast Plaza, and meet up with Angela, her boyfriend Gerhardt, Wina, and some other friends of theirs who'd driven and taken the train up. We went out for food, and I managed to down two small tavern-style pizzas in one sitting. Then we caught some of the fireworks from a distance, and one of the friends' recent acquaintances (from her train) joined us - she was from Italy, and I enjoyed getting to use some of my Italian again. By the time midnight rolled around, we'd all parted ways and headed to our hotels to crash for the night.

The next day, on the bus back, I sat next to a gentleman in his seventies who just completed his third RSVP. Our bus driver was, well, a total ham, cracked jokes the whole time, and put on a cassette of Irish stand-up. The border guard was entertaining too. All in all, it was a pleasant trip home.

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