Category: Cycling

Another great after-work ride

Charlie took the reigns handlebars this week and planned our after work ride. I almost canceled this afternoon thanks to a horrible throat infection, but I decided to try it anyway. (As Craig says: if your cold is from the neck up, it’s probably okay to ride.)

We met at Charlie’s office just off Black Lake Blvd and headed south into the farmland. (Yes, there really is farmland a mile outside of Olympia in every direction.) He was breaking his rule of going on a group ride on roads he’d never driven before. This was especially troubling for Charlie because he decided to take a shortcut off the route that had been recommended to him by his co-worker.

In the end, the ride was a flawless loop. Slightly rolling with a nice big descent about half-way through. We got to ride through both farmland and state forest. By the time we got back to the starting point, my head felt ready to explode and I was feeling a bit feverish. It was all worth it though for the great company and the adventure of riding the unknown.

Click here for the turn-by-turn playbook if you’re interested in riding the loop yourself.

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Tour de Southeast Olympia

It was 90 degrees this afternoon when I got home, but my aching weekend-warrior thighs were calling out for movement to loosen them up. Rather than do the Boston Harbor ride tonight (which I’m on deck to do tomorrow with Charlie) I headed south. It was actually quite a pleasant ride, even if I did take it slowly. Click here for the turn-by-turn directions.

If you found this information helpful and you’d like to show your appreciation, please consider buying me a beer! Thanks for your support and encouragement.

Mima Mounds

Standing on a mound, looking out at the mounds

We had our pick of events yesterday between Tour de Blast and the Capitol Criterium. Instead, we opted for a 55-mile country ride south and west of Olympia. The main attraction, besides solitude and beautiful roads, was the Mima Mounds.

We started from my rental house in Olympia and took the Chehalis Western Trail south. After 15 miles (and a few turns off the trail) we arrived at Millersylvania State Park - a great stopping point for a snack and water bottle refill.

Deep Lake at Millersylvania State Park

We criss-crossed local roads past people’s farms and homes until reaching the booming town of Rochester. Nick has raced here before and pointed out the way to Independence Valley. We turned the opposite direction, though, and soon battled fierce headwinds as we approached the hills. We were rewarded as we turned north by a tail wind and made good time up to the Mounds.

They’re admittedly a little hard to see in the picture, but they’re neat in a Roswell-alien-like way. There are thousands of these over-sized gopher hills (about six feet tall and 40 feet across) in the Mima Prairie. They are made of silt and sand (probably left behind 13,000 years ago when the Vashon glacier retreated) and sit on a bed of gravel. Each mound has a “root” of silt that extends into the gravel below the mound. No one knows for sure how they formed. Theories include formation of polygonal ice wedges in soil near the edge of the glacier, burrowing by colonies of pocket gophers, and erosion or deposition by glacial floods around regularly spaced trees or shrubs of a long-vanished ice age landscape. What do you think?

For a turn-by-turn route description of a 35-mile variation of our ride that starts and finishes at Millersylvania State Park, click the map below.

If you found this information helpful and you’d like to show your appreciation, please consider buying me a beer! Thanks for your support and encouragement.

A tiger tried to eat my husband

Sometimes when Nick volunteers to climb with me, he stops half-way through the day, shakes his head, and says, “You do this for fun?!”

Sometimes when Nick comes home from a bike race with half of his skin missing because of some horrible crash, I ask, “You do this for fun?!”

Fortunately, the damage was minor yesterday - the blackberry bushes and gravel cushioned most of his fall. He says he missed the pavement entirely. His rear wheel didn’t fare so well, however. Anyone got a good deal on a lightweight pair of clinchers for him?

(Side note: Yes, those are turtles on his boxer shorts. Cute, huh?)

A most excellent view

Sometimes, when Nick isn’t making me practice sprints on the tandem, I have the opportunity to look around and take in the view.