DH and I played hookey today so we could start labor day weekend with a great ride.
It is sunny and warmish today; the forecast says it's going to hit 80.
He said; we can go to Alki beach (Alki means by and by in an Indian language here) and eat lunch and come back. Piece of cake, i thought; mostly flat, 20 miles. right? yeah, sure.
First of all my nerves were shot because of all the threats i received on a newspaper forum about bicycling in Seattle. I was sure that all the motorists were out to get me.
So we headed down my familiar route to work and found a nifty bike bridge over 1st avenue south and then took a splendid bike trail on west marginal way. (this is all a very industrial area) the bike trail included lots of driveways to places with giant trucks. Almost every single truck driver smiled, waited for us, and two motorists (one being a forklift driver) actually backed up out of our way so we could get across their driveways.
At Alki beach, we ran into some bike buddies who were also playing hooky today and they finally got to see me on my Bianchi.. we continued on and had lunch (not as light as it should have been) and turned back
towards home.
We were almost home when DH got bored with returning on the same route that we began on, so he chose to head south a ways. Mind you the wind was coming from the north, a stiff 14 mph wind.. finally we turned north and had to go 4 miles on Airport way right into that wind. I couldn't figure out why it hit me so hard, but i went from 14 mph to 13 to 12 to 11. When we finally got off Airport way (Boeing field airport on the left, railroad on the right) My head was throbbing and so was my stomach. Right off the road was a tiny little park with trees and bright green grass. My bike and i ran for it,
and we both collapsed onto the cool verdant carpet. I laid there and then sat there until all the pounding stopped.
The rest of the way was legs 2 and 3 of my work commute route, and heading south again and uphill. It was a little harder to do than usual; my legs felt weaker..
but we made it and i am home, logging 30 miles for the day.
pant pant pant. I don't envy you flat landers with all that wind!! man!!
mimi
