Jane and I took a little ride up to Queen Anne on Friday night for a pot luck at a new house that our friends are in. I bought a bottle of La Fin Du Monde and drank it myself. It was not the best of choices for a night before a planned 8 am ride. We had a great time, but didn’t get to bed until 2.

I woke up in a haze on Saturday, Frankie pouncing my chest and NPR screaming in to my ear. The real draw for not kicking the cat off the bed and throwing the alarm across the room was the promise of nice weather. The reports were saying 70 and sunny. I haven’t worn a short sleeve jersey without arm warmers since September. I don’t think I’ve even gone outside with a short sleeve t-shirt but once this year. For once, the weather people were correct. It was astoundingly beautiful outside. One of these days, I’ll have my camera both charged and filled with a proper amount of memory. Until then, you’ll just have to deal with my writing about it.

The big plan for the day was to take a ride out to Tiger Mountain. We set out around 8 to meet up with some other friends at the I-90 overlook. We took the trail out to Issaquah. I had taken mental notes on how to get there thanks to an email from Matt. Chris was pretty sure he knew how to get there. Needless to say, we ended up a bit lost. We found an acceptable substitute in Cougar Mountain. It was a pretty brutal climb, and the first time in a year that I’ve had to stop my bike due to exhaustion. There were a series of switchbacks, including several 20% grade sections. As soon as we reached the “top”, there were a bunch of rollers with even more 15-20% grades. One in our group threw up his breakfast at some point. I am surprised it wasn’t me, actually. At that point I gave up on the idea of trying to find Tiger Mountain.

The great part about that area is seeing families out on cheap and heavy bikes scaling these monster grades. If that 10 year old can do it on his Magna, I sure as hell can do it on my IF.

I later learned that we were riding part of the infamous 100k Mountain (un)Populaire from last year. It was described as one of the hardest rides of the season with SIR despite being one of the shortest.

For as crappy as I felt, it was still a wonderful ride on an amazing day. I couldn’t ask for a nicer weekend.