For those who don’t live in the Pacific Northwest, we just lived through one of the most crap-tastic winters in recent memory … plenty of cold, snow even at lower altitudes, a ton of rain and gloom. When the thermometer broke 80 degrees only a couple of weeks ago, it hadn’t done so in the city of Seattle in over nine months. Boo.
But the recent positive break in the weather has made it possible to think realistically about summer riding, so that’s what I’ve been doing. I have a medium-sized trip planned for late July, with a couple of warm-up cycling experiences set for the couple of months before then. As usual, I hope to blog while I ride … it seems that my ability to actually write words on the internet is itself pedal-powered.
June/Early July Warmup: Cascade Loop
A good warmup for the summer is a three-day loop from Seattle -> Cle Elum (via IronHorse) -> Leavenworth/Icicle Creek -> Monroe. This will be a pretty strenuous warm-up that will take me over three passes in three days. Come to think of it, I’d better get my ass in shape for this pretty soon.
Late July: Minnesota
I’m planning to start in International Falls, MN and ride down the spine of that great state, through the big north woods and through little places like Orr, Grand Rapids and Walker and thence down to the town of Little Falls (the home of our friends Bob and Linda) and then through St. Cloud and into Minneapolis to visit our dear friends Bethany and Stamatis and their new kid. I plan to mostly camp on this trip, which should be notably buggy, but also flatter than the big ride of two summers ago, and the small one of last summer.
WorkBike: France, Scotland, Canada
This summer my job will take me to some interesting places, so I’m making an effort to use pedal transportation in those places as much as possible. My work team is having a mini-conference outside of Glasgow, I have a conference in France, and our company meet-up is once again in Whistler, BC in September. In all of these cases I’m trying to make it to these places without the aid of a car, using only pedal power — and who knows I might have some adventures along the way 🙂
If anyone is in any of these places this summer and wants to ride along, please let me know!