Ride Around the Sound

Christopher and I successfully completed "Ride Around the Sound!"  Ride Around the Sound was a "century" ride (100-miles in one day) starting in Seattle, traveling in a clockwise direction around the Puget Sound and finishing with a ferry ride from Southworth on the West side of the Sound back to Seattle.  It was also a fund raiser for the American Lung Association.  We've been doing this bike thing for a few years now and while this marked our sixth century ride it definitely had its share of "firsts!"

Here is a quick hit of some of the "firsts" though I'll expand on some of the details, though not necessarily in !

• This was the inaugural year for this ride
• First time riding in the Seattle area
• It was the first time I have ridden up an 18% grade climb
• At $990 it is the most I've raised for a charitable ride
• It was the first time I got chaffed from riding... on my ass
• It was our "longest" century

18% grade.  No, that isn't a typo, 18%.  It doesn't seem reasonable when I think about it.  It seemed even less reasonable at the time.  To back up a moment though.  Ride Around the Sound has a supposed total elevation gain of about 6,700 ft.  That is significant, but spread out over a 100 mile ride isn't necessarily killer.  In our training we had one ride that was 55 miles and had nearly that much climbing.  This ride, however, had countless short & severe climbs.  I've never seen so many strong, experienced riders get off and walk their bikes.  I would have joined them but I seriously thought I would fall over if I tried to stop on those steep inclines.  The elevation & grade profile of the course provided ahead of time was a little bit deceptive as it averaged some of those super steep short pieces out and makes me view the total of 6,700 ft as a tad suspect.  Thanks to the dude next to me with an altimeter in his bike computer (combined with common sense when staring at the slope before me) I know that there were at least three or four climbs (maybe more) that were over 15% grade, and a slew more over 10%.

So it was hard.  I also mention it was long.  Isn't a hundred a hundred?  I mean long as in time.  Being the inaugural ride I think they need to work some of the logistics out a bit better.  There were a lot of stop signs and stop lights.  The first 20+ miles was riddled with them and then big chunks at other points in time.  Then waiting at the end for half an hour for the ferry.  Then the ferry took an hour to load all the cars, stop at Vashon, unload cars, reload cars, get to Seattle, etc.  Then we actually had to load the bikes onto a truck, get on a bus and head a few miles back to the official start.  We could have ridden but I had serious ass chaffing and I don't think my legs could handle another big climb after not moving for 90 minutes.  Our actual ride time was only about half an hour longer than our other centuries (which is still longer thanks to the hills!) but with all the other nonsense it was about 11 hours from the time we drove up to the start until we drove off at the end of the day - many hours longer than any other ride we've done.  

And the ass chaffing...  Feel free to skip this paragraph if you are of a sensitive nature.  I've heard of chamois butter and people having chaffing issues "down there," but never had any hint of any irritation. I've even done 80 mile rides in $10 spandex shorts with zero padding and had no issues.  I don't know if it was the shorts I was wearing are older and fit differently, the extra pounds I have that maybe make me sit differently in the seat or just the sheer amount of time grinding up my ass on those gigantic hills.  Whatever the reason, by the end of the day I had the most astonishing chaffing all up and down my... self.  I couldn't even sit comfortably in the car on the way home.  A nice hot bath with Epsom salts, a slathering of Vit A&D ointment and the day has dawned significantly improved.  Kinda wondering how the bike commute is going to go though.

The alpha

And the omega  

Overall a pretty epic ride.  Pretty challenging, some amazing views, but rather a lot of logistical stuff to handle (including the start being three hours from home) so I'm not racing to sign up for next year.  We'll see how I feel come next spring though when I am always renewed with excitement for our longer distance cycling season.