A birthday party, a decent day for the PNW, good riding partner and a newish route with some varied terrain. Sounds like a good day for a ride. I had a nice warm up ride into Edmonds to pick up my FIL. It was supposed to be close to freezing but without a lot of rain.
The first part of the ride followed that forecast and while I wasn't moving fast I did ok. Going back up to Lake Stevens there is some climbing to get into Everett but the brutal hill comes going into Lake Stevens. 20th Ave is about 3/4 of a mile with an average grade of 15% and an upper grade of over 18%. That combined with a sketchy cross of through traffic moving at 50mph or more made it fun.
The ride back was wet. It never really rained, but the roads were wet and leaving Lake Stevens is a lot of high speed downhill. My feet were soaked through before Everett. Good thing for wool socks.
I had to stop for food before we got back to Edmonds. With a breakfast of about 300 calories and 150 calories in my bottle I was running a huge deficit and was probably on the edge of stellar bonk, but Starbucks came to the rescue with a rice krispie bar. The return trip included a good climb from the Snohomish valley to Everett and then again over 164th.
All told for the day I covered 62 miles and close to 4500 feet of climbing. Speed wasn't really high but considering amount of additional clothing gear, weather and the fact that I"m very out of "bike-shape" I count it as a win. I wasn't even sore the next day. One of things I need to do beside clean my bike is check my seat height; my left knee was twitchy on the front which generally means that my seat is too low.
Of course the ride wouldn't have been possible without the continued support of my wonderful wife, who made sure I had the time to ride and my FIL for keeping me company.
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