Monday, March 30, 2009

Wet Loop of Washington

This past Saturday, Duncan and I lapped Lake Washington again. Though the company was pleasant, the weather was not. It rained, and rained, and rained, pretty much the entire time we were out. On top of that it was pretty chilly. At one point we stopped for a snack, then froze when we remounted. I only warmed back up after we sprinted up the west side of the airport and got our cores up to operating temperature again.

I rode the Phantom this week, as I had no mishaps on the way to Gasworks Park. I felt a bit slower uphill, but stronger overall, and far more comfortable. Last week my legs started hurting at about mile 20, this week they didn't really hurt at all. I felt fine on Sunday, and took the Salsa on a quick 15 mile ride around Magnolia and then back up Queen Anne. I also averaged over 14 mph, including climbs, for the first time in Seattle.

Monday, March 23, 2009

Lake Washington Inaugural

I did my first lap of Lake Washington this past weekend with Duncan, and overall it was a great ride. Just over 50 miles with more climbing than we'll see on the STP. I finished the ride feeling better on my Salsa than I ever have on an upright before. I'm really, really excited about that. My legs were a bit more fatigued than expected, both during and after the ride, but nothing to do about that except train harder.

But before the ride started things weren't so rosy. My recumbent flew off the roof rack, not once but twice, and got a bit mangled in the process. Now I'll have to take it into the shop for some hopefully minor repairs. Then I had to head back home and get the Salsa, put it back on the car and head back to Gasworks Park to start the ride. Somewhere during that process, I forgot to bring my carefully packed tailpack, so I ended up leaving without many of my supplies (mostly extra clothes) I'd packed the night before. Since I didn't end up needing any of them, I guess I was a bit overpacked.

In any case, I started about 40 minutes late, then pushed it hard to get to the Eastside at a reasonable time. Juanita hill turned out to be less fearsome than I expected - I wasn't fast on it, but it didn't feel too bad either. One nice side effect of riding up Queen Anne frequently is that most other hills just don't worry me much now.

Duncan was kind enough to lead the rest of the way, which went pretty well, though I was a bit spent from getting to his side of town as quickly as I could. Still, it was a really nice ride overall, with some killer views to boot. I'm looking forward to doing it again.

Wednesday, March 04, 2009

reCAPTCHA

Saw this cool article yesterday. I wonder how much I've been contributing to the effort?

Iphone tips

Did you know you can look up people's email addresses, if you use your iphone with Exchange?

If emailing, press the plus to add names, then the groups button, to the left. now choose Directories. It probably says you@xyz.com. In the search box, put in a few letters of the address or name you are looking for, then hit search and there you go!

Also, to put a period after a sentence when typing, just hit space twice, and you'll get a period and two spaces without going to the punctuation screen. Neat.

Monday, March 02, 2009

Saturday Recumbent Riding

This past Saturday Duncan (and his brain)and I took our recumbents on a bit of a tour of Seattle's bike paths. What was planned as a leisurely out and back on the Burke Gilman turned into something else.

Only a few minutes into our ride, my wife called to inform me I'd locked her out of the garage and that she had to call a friend to pick her and my son up for an am birthday party. (In one of my brainier moves, I'd given a mechanic ALL her keys, not just the car keys.) There was some discussion of how they would get back from the party, but Duncan graciously agreed to ride back to my place and then help me ferry the car over to the birthday party (in Magnolia) before we continued our ride.

So we turned our trusty steeds westward and slogged up QA hill, only to discover that his bike wouldn't fit on my roof rack. That led to Duncan riding over to Magnolia solo, and waiting for me as I dropped off my car, unloaded my bike and headed back to our arranged meeting spot.

Finally, we could ride in earnest. We did a lap of Magnolia, then went down the path through Myrtle Edwards park toward downtown. Back uphill through downtown to the Dexter bike path, then parted ways as I headed up the hill and he down.

Overall it was a nice ride, with about 2,000 feet of climbing and 25 ish miles overall.


p.s. I got 2 extra copies of the garage key made yesterday.