First a thank you to Joe who snapped these amazing photos while I kept my “camera” tucked away. I wasn’t about to let my phone to drown in this weather. Second, thanks to Dr. Codfish, for the title of this post that I stole from an email. He has a real way with words, that man.

Chris and I drove out to the start in Issaquah around 8am after grabbing some needed coffee. We were early enough to chat with our fellow randonneurs and everyone had plenty of nice comments for my new Boxer bicycle. The group was noticeably smaller than most populaires thanks to the threat of major rains throughout the area.

By the time we got rolling, I was glad that I had packed every single stitch of clothing that I did. It wasn’t as especially cold day, but the rain never really let up. It seemed to be either a light sprinkle or a torrential downpour, often leaning towards the latter.

Within a mile and a half, the route put us up one of the nastiest hills in Seattle (if not the toughest) up Cougar Mountain. It was tough without my legs being warm but I felt extremely comfortable on the ascent. Chris and I rode a pretty similar tempo so we were able to hang together for the most part with some other riders. It is a fun climb because you really feel like you are in a National Park somewhere lost from civilization even though you are quite close to very major cities. It looks a lot like the climb in to Paradise, Mount Rainier at times, but much shorter of course.

Joe Platzner caught us somewhere on the descent and we got a chance to talk about tough issues in life like new bikes and design. We are pretty simple creatures really.

After coming down from the mountain, the clouds started to look especially ominous. We decided to pull over and get our real rain gear on for a second. Within a mile, the sky was dumping water on us. It was comical how hard it was raining. We saw a group of 6 or 7 ahead of us turn around and call it a day, maybe 15 miles into the 70 mile ride.

The rain made for some interesting tests on the new bike, including the 70’s Mafac Racer brakes that I was still getting used to. Downhills are a little weird in the rain to begin with, you couple that with unfamiliar gear and it can be kind of scary at points. Everything worked admirably though, I just had a few nerves to shake.

Jan routed us along a beautiful road that lead to a neat little dirt loop on to the Cedar River Trail. There was some confusion with the cue though because the mileage was zeroed out at points. Having helped design the Summer Populaire, I really understand how easy those little errors are and just how tough they can be on riders.

The climb up Tiger Mountain (creative names in this area) was much easier than I thought it would be. I was sure that I had been up it before, but none of it looked especially familiar. A secret control awaited us at the top. By this point, we were near the back of the pack thanks to a few flats on Chris’ tires. He mentioned that he figured he had 70 miles left in them before changing out for new ones on the upcoming 600K. The prediction proved to be incorrect. We weren’t looking to set any records though (I’m sure I’ve said that once or twice before) and were having a good time riding in the rain.

I managed to pull a rear tire flat on the tricky and quick (rainy) descent down Tiger Mountain. It was a slow leak and I didn’t notice it at first. My back wheel felt squirrely and there was traffic trying to get around us. I couldn’t give them the room because I felt like I needed the whole lane to safely take the switchbacks. It wasn’t until we had a slight straight of way that I even noticed it was flat.

After stopping, I couldn’t find the source of the problem. It was very wet and patches weren’t an easy fix, so we were going through our combined supply of spare tubes for the day (I think this was our 3rd or 4th so far). I got it pumped up and it felt pretty good. I was nervous that I couldn’t find the problem though and I was a little frustrated because they were brand new.

Our group had another flat after a few miles and we pulled over underneath a bridge overpass. It kept the rain off of us but the winds were really howling. Joe let Chris use a spare tire he had (though it was a skinny one) for his rear so he hopefully could get through the ride without anymore issues. The Grand Bois that he had on before were on their way out.

We were climbing out of Issaquah and I ended up picking up another slow leaking tire on the rear (again!!!). It was still pissing rain and we were somewhere between laughing and disappointed. Joe handed me his last spare tube (and the final of our group) and I checked the tire again. I was still unable to find the source of the problem. There didn’t seem to be anything in the rubber and the rim looked fine. I rubbed my bare hand across both sides to check for metal shavings or anything really. The spokes weren’t sticking up. It was just not my day I suppose.

I pumped up the new tire and slowly pulled the pump off of the bead. I could tell it wasn’t going to play nice. The head snapped off of the tire stem… our final tube was shot. We were already kicking around riding back into Issaquah by this point. We weren’t sure that we wanted to continue on towards Carnation with no backups. This was the final nail in the coffin though.

I put on the tube with a slow leak and pumped it up as much as possible. We rode downhill as a group back towards Issaquah. The tire felt okay until I had a tricky stop at a light near the bottom of the hill. Everything felt buttery . I put some more air in the tire and got a bit further, but I eventually had to pull over and stop all together. Chris took my car keys and I found a nice spot to sit in the rain.

To put a fine point on the day, Chris’ new skinny back tire blew off right before reaching the car (we were only a mile away when I handed off the keys).  Honestly, it was a hell of a fun time though. I think I have serious mental issues.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, September 8th, 2009 at 7:24 am and is filed under bicycling, brevet, rain, sir. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.