“Alright guys. I need you all to brainstorm some clever ways to say ‘We got rained on’.”

I’m pretty sure there were one or two suggestions that weren’t fit for print… Ignore the title of this post.

Farmland in the Snoqualmie Valley

On our way to making a rainbow

A massive tree

Greasy fingers all up on some grub

Saturday’s 200K to and from Queen Anne was the most rain I can ever remember getting on a ride of any distance. You need to keep in mind that my brain is a little hazy from all of this idiotic torture I put myself through, so I could be wrong.

The day before, the plan was to come home straight from work and make a lasagna for dinner. We would be able to lounge around and I could theoretically get to bed early. I hadn’t gotten much sleep the couple of nights leading up to this, so I knew that I needed to sneak it in somewhere.

Jane sent me a text message while I was at work. “I won Sunny Day Real Estate tickets for tonight!” So Friday night we went out to what turned out to be a great show at the Paramount. The emo highschool kid in me was pretty excited to see them, and they sounded amazing.

I got about 5 1/2 hours of sleep before waking up to ride. There had been a steady rain all night and the streets were really pooling up with water. Chris and I left at 6 to ride to the 7am start on Queen Anne (one of the many hilltop neighborhoods in Seattle). I managed to get a flat 4 miles in to our ride. It was a nail-gun spike about half an inch long. I hate flatting, but it gives me a little bit of relief to know that it probably couldn’t have been avoided. This put us in trouble of keeping others waiting at the start for us to show up, so we stepped up the pace a little bit.

The ride through downtown was pretty amazing at 6:30 on a Saturday morning. There were a few people out, but it felt like we had the town to ourselves. We ran a light or two or three to keep pace. Every single light down 3rd was red and we got sick of waiting for the traffic that wasn’t there.

Once at the bottom of Queen Anne, we had a decision to make about how to get up it. With 15 minutes to spare, we figured that going up the Counterbalance was the only way to assure that we would make it on time. It was tiring to say the least. We had a tough time keeping our back wheels from spinning on the slick 18 some odd percent grade up the hill. Still, the move worked and we got to the “start” with 3 minutes to spare.

The riders were Andy Speier, Noel Howes, John Whitenack, Jeff Loomis, Chris Gay and myself. From the very first descent, we all knew this was going to be a crazy ride. Every descent was steep and waterlogged and every climb seemed to be filled with soggy leaves waiting to mess with your traction. I had on my full ninja suit and was still completely soaked in the first 30 miles. We were all wearing plenty of wool (and manly facial hair), so we were warm, but wet none the less.

My legs felt like lead for the first part of the ride. I was scared that it would only get worse as the day went on, but amazingly I felt better and better. The good company really made this ride easier all around. We stuck together despite a number of mechanical issues and differing strengths. These guys are all really representative of why I love SIR so much. I’ve never felt like I was being a nuisance or holding someone up, no matter how slow I’ve been at times.

We took an extended stop at Kidd Valley in Renton despite being 20 miles from the finish line. Hot food was just too tempting to pass up. I somehow managed to stick to my new ‘no soda’ policy for the day, despite it sounding delicious. Chris asked me to photograph his hands eating his sandwich. Andy figured it would be a good submission for Joe Platzner’s “That’s Rando” theme. Poor sanitation doesn’t stop the hot food from being stuffed down your throat after a few miles in the saddle.

Between the mechanicals, the extended food stops, the sketchy and brake filled descents, the six million jacket changes, and the Jay-Z concert attempting to block our path back to Queen Anne, we somehow finished with only 20 minutes to spare. That makes this ride my longest 200K ever. I am kind of proud of that.

Jane was nice enough to pick us up in Queen Anne once the ride was over. We were outside the Safeway drinking beer already. Thanks honey.

Up next: attempting to clean my bike.