Author:
Mike Hassur
Every year, these “early season” rides fool me. These are not the more attention grabbing
rides that come later in the summer.
They are not very long (~70 miles), they are not very demanding
(<5000’ of climbing), they are not up on some mountain pass (or passes), and
we do them every year so they are not new or creative – and yet – almost invariably,
after the ride, I feel exhilarated and think “man, I really enjoyed that”!!! Yesterday’s “Alder Lake Loop and The Climb
Ride” was a good example.
When I got up at 4:50 AM, the first thing that
I did was check to see if our deck was wet – it was!! Bummer!! I had known that there was a 40% chance of
rain, and I was hoping for a little luck.
I told myself that there was still 90 minutes before our scheduled start
time of 6:30 AM which was plenty of time for the roads to dry out if the rain
stopped. I took a quick shower, threw on
my cycling gear, drank my chocolate milk, took Winston (our chocolate lab) out
for a pee and poop (him not me), and was heading out of our driveway by 5:30
AM.
I monitored my van’s windshield on the way to
Orting. There had been a few, small
drops of rain scattered on the windshield as I left our driveway; but I was
relieved to see that more drops didn’t accumulate on the drive to Orting. I didn’t even have to use my wipers. The roads were still wet; but, at this rate,
they would dry before long. Because of
the questionable weather, I was wondering how many guys would show up for the
ride. I shouldn’t have worried.
I arrived at Orting at about 5:50 AM. Not long thereafter, other folks started
arriving. By 6:30 AM, we had about
twelve riders (Les, Dwaine, Kurt, Adam, Chuck (his first ride with our group),
Leon, Lanny, Aaron, Erik, Martin, Scott W., and me). When we headed out of Orting, the roads were
still wet; but it wasn’t raining. As
usual, everyone had paired up and were talking as we rode. We turned onto Orville Road with Kurt and me
leading the group. We were travelling at
about 16 mph. Not long after we left the
lead of the slightly disorganized paceline, the speed gradually started to pick
up. By the time we were passing Camp 1
Road (The Climb), we were going 20-21 mph (and the roads had pretty much dried
out).
On the section from Lake Kapowsin to Lake Ohop; Martin and I were visiting, cruising along at a nice pace, and not really
paying attention to our surroundings.
Finally, we realized that the rest of the group was out of sight. Geez, they must have done most of that section at
over 20 mph.
 |
| Dwaine, Aaron, Chuck, Adam, Les, Lanny, Martin, Erik, Scott, and Kurt... |
We regrouped at the Lake Ohop boat launch. From there, we passed through the Ohop Valley
(a beautiful area if you haven’t seen it) and on to highway 7 which took us on
a gradual climb up to the Alder Lake Dam.
There, we regrouped at a scenic viewpoint overlooking the dam.
From there, we made our way back to Eatonville
via the Alder Lake Cutoff Road. By this
time, the pacelines were getting more organized, and the trip to Eatonville
went by quickly. There seemed to be more
traffic on the road than usual which was probably attributable to the fact that
this was Memorial Day Weekend.
After Eatonville, we retraced our path past
Lake Ohop and back to Lake Kapowsin. At
Lake Kapowsin, most of our group opted to head up The Climb to add approximately
10 miles and 1000’ of climbing to our trip.
A few of the guys had to get home and skipped this portion of the
ride. The Climb, as usual, was beautiful
and quiet (I think we encountered one car).
We took our time riding up, so it was pretty easy, and the ride down is
always fun.
After The Climb, it was pacelines all the way
back to Orting. Aaron and Adam got way
out ahead of the rest of us, and I didn’t think that we would see them until we
finished. That was before Chuck got to
the front of our paceline. He took a
really long and fast pull (almost the entire last half of the trip back to
Orting) which had us pulling into Orting alongside of Aaron and Adam. That was really fun.
I thought about this ride for most of the rest
of the day – how much fun it had been to see and visit with the guys, to ride
with them up climbs and in fast pacelines, and to see the weather surprise us
with a dry roads and pleasantly cool temperatures. It was awesome (IMHO)!!
Can’t wait for our next ride.
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