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RSVP 2004 Trip Report (long, long, long)



 
 
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Old August 10th 04, 04:21 AM
Claire Petersky
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Default RSVP 2004 Trip Report (long, long, long)

I'll post to this thread when I get the webpage up with the pictures later
this week. In the mean time, here's the report:

2004 RSVP trip report

SUMMARY
Left Seattle August 6 6:25 AM
Arrived Bellingham August 6 6:35 PM
Left Bellingham August 7 7:45 AM
Arrived Vancouver BC 5:25 PM
Mileage: 187 miles (includes being lost)
On-bike average speed 13.8 mph
Terrain: Some hills -- road elevation profile may be viewed he
http://www.jimcarson.com/archives/000038.shtml
Weather: Saturday: upper 50s and lower 60s. Morning rain mixed with showers;
afternoon clearing to partly cloudy. Sunday: lower 60s to lower 70s. Early
morning sprinkles with afternoon clearing to sunshine.

Ride details:
This was the first time I had ever tried the Ride Seattle-Vancouver and
Party (RSVP). I had heard for several years now that this ride was better
than STP in many respects: less crowded, better scenery, more fun. I have to
agree with all of these assessments -- this is a superior ride in nearly
every way.

The preparations for the ride began on Thursday, the day before. In
anticipation of my parents coming to care for the kids, and my friend Lynne,
and her husband Fitz, spending the night, there was much housework that had
to be done. Of course, I did the regular bike cleaning, lubing, and
inspection, and packing up for the trip. But I also did as much laundry as
could be managed, cleaned up, vacuumed, and set up the family room for our
overnight guests, did grocery shopping, and madly tidied. I prepared Asian
brown rice salad for Lynne and for us for the trip. My husband David tackled
the cleaning of the bathrooms.

Lynne and her husband arrived at 4:30, which was actually an excellent time
for them to come. We pulled down the mattress and set that up, and got
dinner on the table on time for the kids to be able to attend their 6:00 PM
rehearsal. After the kids were dispatched, my husband did a last minute REI
run for the ride, while we chatted for a while. Finally, it was an early
bedtime for everyone (except possibly the kids) in anticipation of the big
ride.

We got up around 4:30 AM. I had already done some of the breakfast set-up,
so it didn't take long to make the eggs and bacon for David, and for me to
make my traditional pre-ride cheese blintzes and tea. Lynne just had cereal.
(Fitz was snoozing -- he wasn't riding with us, but was going to join some
friends later in the day for golf near the ride course.) By 5:33 we were
completely packed up and backing out of the driveway.

We got to the start at 6:00. It was just starting to rain. Due to the usual
start line confusion, photos, and last minute honey bucket visits, we didn't
actually begin the ride until 6:25 AM.

The first part of the ride is on the Burke-Gilman trail, and at that early
hour, there were only a few bike commuters coming the other way. The steady
rain was discouraging the other usual recreational users.

David and I have done the portion of the ride from Woodinville to Snohomish
together several times, most recently just the weekend before, so this
section was very familiar to us. At the beginning of this section, just out
of Woodinville, is the longest steady elevation gain of the ride, which we
handled without difficulty. At this point David realized we had forgotten
the Asian rice salad at home. We had a brief snack at the top (mile 15), and
went on.

Lynne, having completed a one-day STP ride this year, is in fine physical
shape, and so she took off ahead. It was now beginning to pour quite
heavily, and I could feel the rain streaming off of my face and into my
eyes. I have a lot of experience with commuting in a heavy rain, so it
didn't discourage me much, but I did take it a bit slower than I otherwise
might have.

By the time we made it to Snohomish (mile 27), we were completely soaked
through, and had lost track of Lynne. We pulled into the Buzz Inn and got a
second breakfast. We drank hot tea, and tried to warm up. After about an
hour of this, we put our wet things back on, and returned to the road.

In the steady, heavy rain, David pulled me quite competently down the
Centennial Trail. I'm planning to lead a kids' ride on this trail this
coming weekend, and am looking forward to much better weather! Then we
turned off the trail to begin the ascent to the Lake Stevens area.

At the Lake Stevens rest stop (mile 37) we barely had parked our bikes when
Lynne came running up. Apparently in the downpour she had missed the turn to
Snohomish and had gotten lost. She did have a warm-up break in a coffee
shop, but didn't have the long rest we got at the Buzz Inn.

We rode together, the three of us from Lake Stevens. I think this section
was the lowest point of the ride for me. As we continued up these gradual
uphills in the rain, I started to get colder and colder, and seemed to lack
power. My hands turned yellow and numb. Lynne continued on again ahead of
us. As we dropped into the city of Arlington (mile 54), at about 11:45, I
was really ready for lunch. We pulled up to the Blue Bird diner, and there
was Lynne, just ahead of us. I tested my tires and found that I probably had
no more than 20 pounds of air in the front -- no wonder I didn't have the
usual power!

So, we were reunited for lunch. We did our best to warm up, but the Blue
Bird had their A/C going (trying, probably, to ventilate the place with all
these sweaty and wet bicyclists inside) and Lynne and I were shivering. We
told Lynne to go on without us -- she's so much faster than we were, and I
had a flat to fix.

David thought it took a huge amount of chutzpah, but I wheeled my bike into
the Arlington City Hall. I parked it on the tile floor in the entrance, and
let it drip there. Then I removed the front wheel, and took it up the stairs
where I could sit on the carpet, tucked out of the way, and fix the flat. I
admit I did it in a sort of meditative way, not trying to be particularly
speedy. I greeted various city personnel while sitting on the steps, and
every one was cordial to me.

David, meanwhile, on my suggestion, took off to the Arlington Volunteers of
America Thrift Store to do shopping. He said the place was jammed with RSVP
riders searching for outerwear. David got himself a thick Shetland wool
sweater. It was a size too small, and cut Very Oddly, the sort of thing you
might find in a thrift store, but it was only $3. My sweater, a nice grey
lambswool v-neck pullover, not Very Odd, but normal, was $6, and fit me
perfectly.

Newly clad in our woolens, and with the bike fixed, we took off from
Arlington at 1:15. Although it was still raining, and I was still shivering
and had my teeth chattering for the first mile or two, soon I began to feel
toasty warm, for the first time since the top of the hill out of
Woodinville.

We made it to the Lake McMurray Sanican stop (mile 65) and sat under the
shelter for a snack. It started to brighten; the rain began to slack. As we
rode along scenic Big Lake, it continued clearing and the pavement started
to dry.

David had a flat just before Mt. Vernon rest stop (mile 77). Because he
missed the sharp piece of gravel piercing the tire, he had to fix it again
shortly thereafter. Although the rest stop was supposed to be closed by
3:00, it was now approaching 4:00, and there were still volunteers and food
available when we left the stop.

We rode through Burlington, and then David did another nice pull for me
across the flat agricultural lands until we reached Bow (mile 90). We stood
at the main intersection of Bow, in the bright sunlight and sucked down a
goo. At this point I had shed my jacket and arm warmers, but was still
wearing the leg warmers and the sweater.

We then did the upsy-downsies of Chuckanut Drive. This is considered to be
one of the most scenic roads in the state. One of the advantages to being
relative slow-pokes on this ride, and taking many and leisurely stops is
that we got to bicycle this section of the ride under the best conditions of
the day. The water sparkled and gleamed around the San Juan Islands. Twisted
trees clung to the cliffs; further in, lush ferns grew under thick firs.

Whilst riding one of the many upsies of Chuckanut, we passed a young lady
who looked like someone might after riding 95 miles or so -- a very weary
look on her face. We offered some goo to her, but she said no. David said
that we should have made a greater effort to help, but she was now quite a
ways behind us. We stopped at the view point and chatted for a while with
people there, admiring the drop-dead gorgeous scenery, and then took off
again. We soon overtook the weary-faced girl again. We re-offered goo. She
said she couldn't stop, she was far behind her friends who were waiting for
her. We insisted that she stop, that she couldn't catch up unless she had
something like this miracle substance, and thus she should take it from us.
We all stopped. She took the goo, and asked what it was. We explained that
it would do her good, that she should suck it down with a lot of water, and
she would feel much better.

After this act of good samaritanship, we did a few more upsie-downsies, and
finally came in to Bellingham pretty close to 6:30 PM. At this point our
bodies and brains were fried, and we missed the turn to get to the Ramada,
where our luggage and hotel room reservations were waiting for us. We did a
little tour of Bellingham, having to consult with locals on the street and a
map several times, until David saw a neon "...Inn" and even though it was
the Coachman Inn, the Ramada Inn was across the street.

We took hot showers, and then toddled off to a Greek restaurant, where I had
lamb and potatoes and a Greek salad and a side of feta and olives (salt
replacement =:-o!) and a glass of Greek red wine. We staggered back to our
hotel room and promptly collapsed into bed.

The next morning we loaded up, but decided to eschew the hotel-provided
continental breakfast. When we asked other cyclists for a breakfast
location, in a chorus they yelled, "Dutch Mother's!" but that was 15 miles
down the pavement in Lynden, and I don't ride far on an empty stomach.
Instead, we rode a couple blocks in the light rain to an IHOP. The place was
going like a house afire, completely packed with people in lycra at 6:30 AM,
probably not its usual scene. We read the local paper, and found our ride on
the front page of the Bellingham Herald's sport's section. We had a
substantial breakfast after a long wait, and then finally high-tailed it out
of there by 7:45.

We zipped along the relatively flat farm land to Lynden. The rain stopped.
We had a bad scare when David ran over a piece of wood that came so quick I
had no chance to call it out. He started to slide out, and would have fallen
into a nasty ditch had he not been able to regain control over the bike. We
stopped for a snack in Lynden (day 2 mile 15), saw a mess of bikes parked
out front of Dutch Mother's, and then continued on to the border about five
miles away.

It was odd, riding along an American road and seeing Canada six feet/two
metres away, with its paralleling road, and its Canadian-style signs, and
just a ditch between the two. I wondered what would happen if you had a flat
tire, and sat on the edge of the ditch to change your tire. What would
happen if you moved to the other side of the ditch...would Border Patrol
immediately pop out of the bushes?

I think we crossed the border at 9:30. David sang a bad rendition of "O
Canada" that I'm sure wasn't appreciated by the customs folks, but they saw
fit not to detain us, and we were on our way.

We should have stopped there at the border for a pit stop, but didn't. Now
we were in a rural area, and no convenience store or similar for a potty
break. We were approaching "the Wall", a short but steep (10% grade) hill on
the route. I spotted a small park to the right, and asked the folks working
outside the church on the other side of the street if the park had a public
toilet. This generated the offer to use the toilet at the church. I had a
long sojourn in this pleasant environment, while David made friends with one
of the church volunteers. He was the sort that often is the pillar of the
church, you could tell -- the puttering retired sort that will fix things
and maintain things, and keep out of his wife's hair.

He told David about growing up in Britain, and then serving in the RAF in
the 14th Army in Burma during World War II. By the time I came out, he was
telling David and then the both of us about a bicycle tour he did -- 150
miles through the BC interior in a day. He told us about the bike shop he
used to run. He told us about getting flattened while on his bike in a
mountain tunnel, and God watching over him and making sure he would get up
and out of the way before another vehicle ran over him. I'm sure he would
have kept on telling us stories, but it was time for us to leave, and we
bade him good-bye.

We ground up the Wall, which sure was short for its reputation, and then
finally got into Fort Langley (mile 39). We skipped the official food stop,
and instead had an early lunch in an outdoor cafe in town.

There's a little ferry you then take over the Fraiser River. The ferry
personnel informed us that a bridge will be built eventually (I forgot the
year -- 2007? 2012?) but in the mean time, the ferry continues to run. After
the ferry, I ended up shedding the last bits of my outerwear -- it was now
sufficiently sunny that I could do the rest of the ride in my sleeveless
jersey.

After the ferry, we found ourselves in the exurbs of greater Vancouver. The
US does not have the monopoly on ugly sprawl. The ride alternated between
country road, nasty highway, and suburban street.

At one point, along the country road portion of the ride, David developed a
pit stop need. There was nothing but farms though, for quite a ways.
Finally, we stopped at a farm stand advertising garlic (mile 50?). The
farmer had a vague European-like accent -- David guessed Dutch. After
ascertaining that all David needed to do was pee, he allowed him to pee in
the irrigation ditch, while I sat in a plastic chair and ate a banana. Three
ladies rode past my husband while he was standing at the ditch. He reports
that he heard one of them giggle in mid-sentence and then say to the other,
"Did you see that guy...?" The farmer tried to persuade us to purchase
garlic to take on our rides, but was unsuccessful.

We re-entered suburbs. There was a cool, if crowded little footbridge in
Port Coquitlam, and then we were back on suburban streets.

I'll note that the Dan Henrys, the little painted icons that let you know
you're on the right route and where to turn, were often missing. Apparently
in BC you can't paint anything permanent on the street, and the previous
day's heavy rain caused many of the markers to fade or completely disappear.
David made a brief stop to check on his wheel at a major turn on to Glen in
Coquitlam, and I directed bicycle traffic. "Turn left here! Turn left here!"
I yelled, and waved. Some looked pathetically grateful. And indeed, I do
know people who failed to make this turn and got lost.

At Fort Moody Rocky Point Park (mile 61) we had our final rest stop. The
brochure said food, but apparently Cascade didn't inform the bike club
responsible for the stop. No problem, we had our own pretzels and bananas,
and the ice cream stand was doing a land office business, but it's possible
others were disappointed. We sucked down some goo packets in anticipation of
a large-ish hill climb ahead.

We were now on the Burnett Hwy. There was a large shoulder, but it had lots
of debris in it, and there were 50 zillion cars whizzing by as we rode
along. The climb, once we got there, was steady but not impossible -- I
could see how, on a hot day, this shadeless stretch could be more trying.

Then we were riding on official bike routes through Burnaby and Vancouver.
We were more or less riding with a loose pack of other bikes at this point.
David found this portion of the ride tiring because there was constant
starting and stopping at various intersections, and consultations with the
map and tick sheet, because the Dan Henrys were generally not there.

We managed to navigate successfully all the way to Chinatown, and then we
missed a turn. In our efforts to get ourselves back to the route, we found
ourselves in the middle of some festival. The street was closed. Vendors
were crowded on the sidewalk. Children were bouncing up and down on a moon
walk contraption. Live music was blaring. And there were millions of cars
jammed together, trying to get somewhere, god knows, and we were suddenly in
the middle of it.

When there's urban chaos, probably there's no better means of getting around
than a bike. Amidst yells of "ped up!" as yet another little old lady tried
to trot through with a white plastic bag of vegetables, we threaded our way
through the mess and finally returned to the official route.

We then had to work our way through downtown, consulting the map and tick
sheet repeatedly, and suddenly, we were at the event hotel. "Put your bike
on the 3rd floor of the parking garage" someone yelled, and we rolled down
to the garage and dumped the bikes.

Then it was up to the party. We got to our luggage to at least change out of
bike shoes and dump the helmet and hydration pack. We each had a coupon,
which could be used for either a beer or a hamburger. We did I think the
smartest thing -- we picked up our complementary souvenir beer glasses, and
used coupon #1 to split a beer in each glass, and then coupon #2 to split a
hamburger. Lynne called to say she was at her cousin's house, and we wished
each other mutual congratulations. It was at this point that I ran into my
friend Steve (who had also done the ride, but at a pace twice as fast as us)
and gave him a big hug. Two more friends were going to have Japanese food at
8:30 that evening -- did we want to join?

It turned out perfectly -- we took a cab from the event hotel to our cheaper
but very nice Quality Inn about 3/4 of a mile away. We got showered and
cleaned up. We had a leisurely stroll along the main shopping street of
Robson, and then Denman.

Then we got to the restaurant. Now, normally I'm suspicious of
all-you-can-eat, because I don't like places that emphasize quantity over qu
ality. But after just completing this strenuous ride, quantity sounded
pretty good. And Steve assured us that the quality would be very reasonable.

There ended up being six of us: my friends Nona, Carol, and Steve; another
Steve that Nona and Carol had met along the ride, and my husband and I. All
of us were completely and thoroughly ravenously hungry after the two long
days of cycling.

I am sorely tempted to make a list of all that we ate: platter after platter
of potstickers, sushi, tempura, sashimi, yakitori, teriyaki, rumaki, Korean
short ribs, the pitcher of beer, the sake -- on and on it went, BC roll,
spicy tuna hand roll, crunchy roll -- and finally, I confess, ice cream for
me and David for dessert. $21.95 Canadian per person (not counting alcohol).
I can't imagine they made money off of us.

While we were eating, the most spectacular firework show started. We could
see most of it through the restaurant window. As it was coming to an end, we
pushed ourselves away from the table and walked back to our hotel.

The rest of the trip was pretty uneventful. The only notable thing was
running into my old friend Mark Weiss, who I knew was also supposed to be on
the ride, only just before it was time to board the buses home. All the
people I knew were doing the ride I then had finally met and knew that they
didn't bail, despite the rain and cold for the first part of the ride. We
were all champions.


--
Warm Regards,

Claire Petersky
please substitute yahoo for mousepotato to reply
Home of the meditative cyclist:
http://home.earthlink.net/~cpetersky/Welcome.htm
Personal page: http://www.geocities.com/cpetersky/
See the books I've set free at: http://bookcrossing.com/referral/Cpetersky


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  #2  
Old August 10th 04, 06:36 AM
dreaded
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Posts: n/a
Default RSVP 2004 Trip Report (long, long, long)

yum spicy tuna roll! thanks for writing all that...


  #3  
Old August 12th 04, 04:34 AM
William Holiday
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Posts: n/a
Default RSVP 2004 Trip Report (long, long, long)

On Tue, 10 Aug 2004 03:21:32 GMT, "Claire Petersky"
wrote:

probably not its usual scene. We read the local paper, and found our ride on
the front page of the Bellingham Herald's sport's section. We had a
substantial breakfast after a long wait, and then finally high-tailed it out
of there by 7:45.

googled on Bellingham Herald Rsvp:

http://news.bellinghamherald.com/sto...s/201832.shtml

Thanks for writing
 




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