STP July 14-15 2007

so someone asked about Chilly Hilly. It's a beautiful ride. but in some ways it's worse than the STP because a million people ride it and it's a lot smaller place (an island!). It's also the "first" ride of the season and we saw many people out on their new bikes for the first time.
We rode our tandem and came very close to running other bicyclists over because of their erratic actions. (Lady stopping in the middle of the street on a hill, for example, right in front of us) we saw bikes that were obviously just purchased worn by people in shiny new clothes. And they didn't know how to shift their gears yet. . The route for Chilly Hilly is so beautiful, i want to do THAT again, but if we do it with the rest of the gang, we'll be on the early ferry so we miss the mob. There were also people who had no idea about riding any distance, and came out in the sneakers and shorts and were in serious pain at the end of the day. Hilly = really means hills!
The natives are incredibly patient and friendly!

I have been in one Chilly Hilly (2003) and yes, Mimitabby is correct when she says Hilly means HILLY and the year I did the ride chilly really meant CHILLY! We took the ferry over with a thousand others and it was crowded. On your left meant nothing as people were riding 4 - 5 abreast! My husband was upset about this. He said he would never ride another Chilly Hilly. I actually enjoyed the ride and especially the Mexican food afterwards! Oh I just have to say this, I made it up the "Big Hill" is it Baker? My husband did not! LOL :D

Yeah - the trick to the Chilly Hilly is to either leave early and ride the first hill fast to get away from most of the crowd or to just chill (hee, hee) and go with the flow. I've done it several times and I've found that the crowd thins out after the first couple of miles and bunches up again a bit on the longer hills.

I can't remember which was the big hill, but we had to walk up one since that woman stopped us in our tracks and it was too steep and crowded to try and get going again. Good for you that you got up that hill.

I have a coworker who does chilly hilly two times each year, back to back the same day!

I'm another one agreeing w/mimitabby about Chilly Hilly. It's the opening ride (for Seattle's Cascade Bicycle Club) event for the cycling season each year and has become hugely popular aka - crowded. I rode it on the actual event day for about 5 yrs and since then have opted to volunteer and help with registration etc over in Winslow, on Bainbridge Island at the start. I always have my bike along in my car so that, if I feel like riding it well after the hordes of people have already gotten out on the route, and after I finish volunteering...I can enjoy the route by myself or with some friends. This is a VERY popular route for cyclists in the Puget Sound region, so it's a regular on the training calendar year-round and the Dan Henry markings are visible for long after the last Sunday in February. I've also had fun riding the usual Chilly Hilly route backwards (clockwise around Bainbridge Island), just to mix it up. fyi - my P.T. who is a RAAM veteran, has ridden the STP in sub-10 hrs (so would she be considered a 1/2 day STP rider??!), etc., etc. does NOT recommend riding this on the last Sunday in February when it is traditionally held, as it's too early in the year and it's too hilly for so early in the year, so consider what kind of shape you are in - especially your knees as well as whether you want to take your chances with your bike bunched with thousands of others on the ferry ride (all it takes is one person stumbling while stepping thru and between all the bikes lying down on the ferry deck and putting their foot through your spokes) and negotiating around all of the first-time riders, kids, families on tandems w/trailers on the hills. They do tend to wobble and stray out into the middle/left side of the road and it makes it difficult to keep your tempo and ride around them while not obstructing oncoming car traffic on the winding roads of the island. Not wanting to sound negative - just realistic and sharing from my own multiple experiences and observations of the ride. One year, while I was rehab-ing from knee surgery, I arranged a "chilly, non-hilly" ride for the same day on the bike trail and was met by an almost crowd at my designated starting point! Just my $.02, as usual...have fun, whatever you do!
Mary

MM_QFC... I just got your username. I love it!!! :p

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Originally Posted by jobob

I was thinking about STP until I saw how many riders were involved. I'm completely with you TsP, I really dislike large group rides nowadays.

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I'm in the exact same situation. I can handle 2000 riders, but not nearly 10000.

Same for RAGBRAI.

That's too bad. But I'd rather be safe than nervous and tense for two days.

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Originally Posted by Dianyla

MM_QFC... I just got your username. I love it!!! :p

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hehehehe...yep, had my nickname handed to me by a riding buddy...she said..."just like the nursery rhyme, only insert your own adverb!" :D

Well, I just found out over the weekend that my niece is having a wedding reception on Saturday, July 14th. She was married this past fall but is having two wedding receptions for family. One reception will be on June 16th in NYC (where she currently works and lives with her new husband) and the second reception will be in her husband's home town of Spokane on Saturday, July 14th. Of course we are going. She is my husband's brother's daughter. Joe's family all live in Montana so it will be like a huge family thing too. Now that I cannot do the STP I am looking for other events to do. Here are my candidates:

The Apple Bike Ride in Wenatchee

the

The Chelan Century Challenge near Lake Chelan

the

The Rapsody Bike Ride and there are a few others.

Has anyone done any of these rides? Did you enjoy them? Good points/Bad?

Well, I guess I paid for an STP that I will not be doing. Sigh. I think it's a sign that a 10,000 person bike ride is not in the stars for me.

I've not done the STP (and probably won't) but I've been under the impression that you can sell/transfer your STP entry. You might not be out any money.

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Originally Posted by colby

They should do a Bicycle Washington tour like Bicycle Idaho and Bicycle Oregon. I suppose you could do your own if you linked STP, RSVP, and this all together ;)

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So, I was reading this whole thread -- this must be the time of year for thinking about bike trips etc for the year, cuz just yesterday I was looking at the SPIN Idaho pages to see if the new calendar of rides is out yet (it's not) and when I got to this message, I thought:

Funny you should mention that

two of the links were for the Bike Idaho and Bicycle Oregon rides and look what I saw when I clicked the link:

http://www.oregonbicycleride.org/

You got your wish this year, Colby!

Karen in Boise

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Originally Posted by Susan126

Well, I just found out over the weekend that my niece is having a wedding reception on Saturday, July 14th. She was married this past fall but is having two wedding receptions for family. One reception will be on June 16th in NYC (where she currently works and lives with her new husband) and the second reception will be in her husband's home town of Spokane on Saturday, July 14th. Of course we are going. She is my husband's brother's daughter. Joe's family all live in Montana so it will be like a huge family thing too. Now that I cannot do the STP I am looking for other events to do. Here are my candidates:

The Apple Bike Ride in Wenatchee

the

The Chelan Century Challenge near Lake Chelan

the

The Rapsody Bike Ride and there are a few others.

Has anyone done any of these rides? Did you enjoy them? Good points/Bad?

Well, I guess I paid for an STP that I will not be doing. Sigh. I think it's a sign that a 10,000 person bike ride is not in the stars for me.

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The Wenatchee Apple Century is one of the nicest rides I have ever done. The weather was JUST RIGHT last year. Imagine 72 miles on a road that
3 cars pass you on. Yes, there was the 12 miles on the highway getting there, and then of course, coming home you had to get on that same busy dusty highway to get back to wenatchee, but once we got onto the forest service road, it was like heaven. All you could hear were birds and all you could smell were the trees.
Last years's route was a slight incline all the way to the end of a road,
then a turn around and ride all the way back down gentle hills, coasting.
ah, glorious...

I heard too that you can transfer/sell you stp ticket. I will try at the cascade bulletin board as the ride draws nearer.

And I think I am going to ride the Wenatchee Century Apple Ride. It looks like a beautiful ride. And with a great recommendation from you mimitabby . . . it's a definite yes! :p

cool, we're going to do it again this year too. the downside: if it's hot, it's very very hot. We lucked out on the temp last year... crossing my fingers.

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Originally Posted by Kano

So, I was reading this whole thread -- this must be the time of year for thinking about bike trips etc for the year, cuz just yesterday I was looking at the SPIN Idaho pages to see if the new calendar of rides is out yet (it's not) and when I got to this message, I thought:

Funny you should mention that

two of the links were for the Bike Idaho and Bicycle Oregon rides and look what I saw when I clicked the link:

http://www.oregonbicycleride.org/

You got your wish this year, Colby!

Karen in Boise

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Hey!! Thanks for sending the link, Karen! I'm going to check the calendar and see if I can go. It sounds awesome.

The Bicycle Idaho Ride this year is in Washington, but it's already full! They opened the regisitration right at the end of December. It's a great ride. Sandy Greene says that they are taking a wait list. I highly recommend this ride. I'm going again.

A great place to look for rides in the Pacific NWest is www.bicyclepaper.com

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Originally Posted by Susan126

I heard too that you can transfer/sell you stp ticket. I will try at the cascade bulletin board as the ride draws nearer.

And I think I am going to ride the Wenatchee Century Apple Ride. It looks like a beautiful ride. And with a great recommendation from you mimitabby . . . it's a definite yes! :p

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Hey Susan - yes, you're right in that you shouldn't have any problem transferring your registration. The STP usually doesn't max out on riders, but many people wait until the last minute and find it easier to see if anyone wants to sell their registration and or hotel/lodging packaged together. The Cascade message board will be active in the 'for sale' area closer in to July and be aware that Cascade usually charges a $10 transfer fee now (so that the new rider can ride under their own name and not get mistaken for you, in case they have a mishap, etc) but it's all pretty easy to do.

And re: the Apple Century ride - yes, I've done the ride about 5 times and it's well-supported and a nice route. Pretty much an out n' back up to either the Fish Hatchery for the 50 mile route and further up that same route to the turnaround for the century route at Silver Falls. Both the initial leg out and return are on the trail along the Wenatchee river and also on hwy 97, which has a good shoulder and can get pretty windy, but most of the ride is on a low traffic road up the Entiat River valley...it's a pull on the outbound with a steady grade but has, as a previous post noted, some great fun on the downhills in return and nothing gnarly at all.
Have fun!
Tailwinds!
Mary

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Originally Posted by Kano

two of the links were for the Bike Idaho and Bicycle Oregon rides and look what I saw when I clicked the link:

http://www.oregonbicycleride.org/

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Jeff & I are signed up for the Oregon Bicycle Ride. The Idaho/Washington ride looked good too, but the timing of OBR worked out better for us. I got an email this morning saying that there are only 60 spots left open on OBR, so if anyone is on the fence, you might not want to wait too much longer!

Susan

Thanks for the input MM_QFC, I will definitely put my ticket up on the board around June. I'm sure I will have no trouble finding someone. Hopefully next year will be my year for riding in the STP . . . AND . . . MAYBE . . . doing it in one day?! Dare I try?

And mimitabby . . . are you really going to ride in this year's Century Apple in Wenatchee? I will look for you!!!!!!! I believe you when you say, "When it's hot . . . it's HOT!" Joe and I went to Leavenworth one Memorial Day weekend and brought along our road and mountain bikes. We did a 60 mile road ride and it was in the 90s! We were beat at the end of the ride! We crashed in our hotel room after the ride and slept for about 4 hours straight. The heat really took it's toll on us. Then the next day we did a mountain bike ride with friends up Devil's Gulch and around Mission Ridge I thought I would pass out from heat exhaustion about 3/4 of the way up. Luckily for us a man in a huge truck took pity on us and gave us a lift the rest of the climb. We only had 2 miles to go of the 14 mile climb but I don't think I would have made it. We have done the ride many times before no trouble but the heat that May really was horrible and we were not used to it. Plus we started late. When we do the ride we normally start around 7 AM but that day we weren't on the trail until almost 10:30 so we hit the hardest part of the ride, the climb, during mid day heat!

Thank God for kind strangers! :D

Hey it's supposed to be sunny and upper 40s today! When I get home from work (I get off at 2:30) I am going to take my road bike out and go for a spin around my area. Get my sunglasses out! :cool: He he

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Originally Posted by MM_QFC!

And re: the Apple Century ride - yes, I've done the ride about 5 times and it's well-supported and a nice route. Pretty much an out n' back up to either the Fish Hatchery for the 50 mile route and further up that same route to the turnaround for the century route at Silver Falls. Both the initial leg out and return are on the trail along the Wenatchee river and also on hwy 97, which has a good shoulder and can get pretty windy, but most of the ride is on a low traffic road up the Entiat River valley...it's a pull on the outbound with a steady grade but has, as a previous post noted, some great fun on the downhills in return and nothing gnarly at all.
Mary

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The trails and forest roads...are they all paved? This is a good ride for road bikes, right? Thanks!

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Originally Posted by Starfish

The trails and forest roads...are they all paved? This is a good ride for road bikes, right? Thanks!

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Starfish, it's all paved, it's a road bike ride the Apple Century, yes. The roads are chipseal, but in great condition (at least they were last year)

I just heard from my DH that we are NOT doing the apple century, I am sagging for Mazama instead. :(

Mimitabby, I don't remember a ride called Mazama? I do know that Mazama is just up the road from Winthrop because Joe and I have done rides there. We usually go to Winthrop in October for MVSTA's annual Fall Bike Festival. Beautiful area, great road riding and mountain biking. We usually stay in town at the River's Edge Resort right on the Chewuch River. I love the homemade ice cream served at the little outdoor ice cream place with the coffee stand right there! You will always see me there first thing in the morning! :D