2002 Training Schedule

Jul 13, 2002 | 2002 Trips

Although this schedule stops with the STP, we won’t. We’ll keep training for another Ride Across Washington (RAW). Bold indicates commercial rides. Their links are included in the Comments column. Italics means Evergreen Tandem Club rides.

Date Ride Est. Miles Actual Comments
9-Mar need to start! 20 0 Weather too miserable to start riding!
10-Mar Paceline Training 20 18 ETC Pacelining Workshop with Tamara & Michael (center). Jay and Sara (shown left) are the only other ones who showed up for this rainy & muddy ride besides us.  View photo
16-Mar 30 0 SNOWING!
17-Mar Mercer Island  Loop 20 22 COLD! WINDY! But we rode!
23-Mar From house to Seward Park 20 20 First sunny day, fast out & back.
24-Mar ETC Snohomish Country 45 40.3 Great route, some hills, overcast but dry.
30-Mar ETC La Conner-Guemes 30 0 Spencer sick all week so we didn’t ride
31-Mar 20 0 Spencer sick all week so we didn’t ride
6-Apr Ft. Dent 50 11 Blow out so aborted ride. Ran into Sandy Weiss & Duane Wright and rode the last half with them with a great tail wind.
7-Apr North Lake WA loop 20 40 Rode with Sara & Jay
8-Apr Leavenworth 40 20 Spring Break, visiting Ellen & Hans, gorgeous, sunny day. Rode out to Eagle Creek Ranch and back. Lots of hills.
9-Apr Leavenworth 60 50 Not sunny, but at least it didn’t rain. Followed a cue sheet from Sleeping Lady Rally taking Chumstick out and looping back into town on Route 2. Very cold with accumulated snow pack in some places.
13-Apr Carnation-Monroe 70 66 Rainy and windy on and off, longest ride to date…feeling virtuous and exhausted.
18-Apr Test riding daVinci around Capitol Hill & to Ballard 7
12		 7
12		 We liked it! We’re going to get one!
20-Apr Mathews Beach to Marymoor and back 36 36 We averaged 16.3 and focused on spinning at 90-100 rpm.
21-Apr Daffodil Classic 50 52 We rode with Mike & Cindy and Dave & Kelly from ETC and practiced paceline riding. We’re hoping to pick up a few more tandems and train to do the STP together in one day. We averaged 17.6 over 52 miles compared to last year on the same course at 16.2.
27-Apr ETC Tulip Ride 35 x 2 54.3 There were a dozen tandems and it turned into a sunny day. We volunteered to ride sweep the first hour. We rode at 10-12 mph pace, practicing spinning at 100+ rpm, on the flats visiting with a couple who came down for the ride from Canada. Then in LaConner we took off with two other, faster, tandems and added an extra 20 hilly miles to the original 35. We picked up our pace significantly bringing our average up to 14.8 overall. Had a great visit with one of the couples we rode with. Turns out Bob Strzelecki rides track races on a tandem and won a medal in the ‘96 Olympics!
28-Apr ETC Cedar Valley River trail 55 57.75 A gorgeous sunny day from the get-go. This was a combined CBC/ETC ride. There must’ve been at least 50 bikes there (about 6 tandems). It was great to see the teams wearing the new ETC jersey. We ended up with a mechanical problem within the first 5 minutes which set us at least 15 minutes behind the last riders. We played catch-up a lot of the day, helping lost riders who didn’t have maps find the route. This was a very hilly ride and we managed a 15.6 average. That means when we weren’t trudging up big hills we were kicking butt at 20-22 mph! A couple of singles complimented us, saying we were already in mid-season shape and we won’t have any problem doing the 1-day STP with the way we’re riding now. We think we’ve recruited another couple to join our training group for the STP.
4-May ETC Yakima Tour 80 79 Stayed with Jay & Sara at Greg & Elisabeth’s house. There were about a dozen bikes for the weekend. Everyone else did 40 miles. Kevin & Saliha rode part of the second loop with us.The first 40 miles we averaged 17.1 finishing with a 16.2 average by the end of the fairly hilly ride. We felt strong.
5-May ETC Yakima Tour 20 19 Recovery riding with the ETC crowd at a very slow pace.
11-May Pt. Townsend Rhody Ride 62 65 We met up with Greg & Elisabeth from Yakima for this extremely HILLY ride. Unfortunately, having given blood on Friday, we really couldn’t keep up with them. They were gracious and waited for us at each rest area. We were pleased to be able to average the 15 mph pace we did. We enjoyed the sunshine and staying overnight on Friday with our friend Robin who owns The Annapurna.
12-May Carnation to Monroe RT 30 36 This was our second STP paceline training ride. We had GREAT fun riding at a 20.4 mph average with Mike & Cindy and Dave & Kelly. We’ve advertised to try to recruit another 2-3 tandem teams to join us.
Date Ride Est. miles Actual Comments
18-May Vancouver WA 80 85 We picked up the new daVinci Fridy night. Today we rode from Cindy’s house in Portland over the 205 bridge and picked up the Ride Around Clark County route. The weather improved as the day progressed finishing in 70 degree sunshine. It was a very hilly ride. We saw 4 other tandems and even rode with Diane & Michael for awhile. We LOVE our new tandem. This was a bit long for a shake-down ride. The stoker bars weren’t right and there was a chirping sound we couldn’t find to elminate.Also the bike computer would only show cadence.
19-May Portland – Salem 50 45 After getting the bars fixed at Gateway we took off and from from Portland to Salem. The weather wasn’t as nice as Saturday but it didn’t rain. And the route was significantly flatter. Our bike computer started working about 15 minutes into the ride (after the only hills) so it showed our average as 17 mph. We left the bike at Gateway for some more tweaking and will get it again next weekend. Then we can get some photos online.
26-May Mt. St. Helen 85 87 We rode from the freeway up to the Coldwater Visitor Center. It’s a long hard climb. This is the third time we’ve done the whole thing and our best time ever. We completed 87 miles in 6:13 saddle time (7:35 clock time includes breaks). Our maximum speed was 43 mph. It might’ve been faster except we had a strong headwind going down the mountain.The day started cloudy and we got spit on more than once. It eventually turned warm and sunny by the end. The cobbler we picked up at the 19 Mile House was incentive to finish strong.
27-May Mercer Island 20 23.52 Did a nice fast loop around Mercer Island from our house. Averaged 16.6 mph. It was warm enough to ride without long sleeves. In fact it was muggy out.
1-Jun Wenatchee Apple Century 100 105 We stayed at Ellen’s in Leavenworth Friday night with Ralph & Carol Nussbaum from ETC. The ride was changed this year so it didn’t have a mass start. We felt strong all day even as the temperatures rose to 80+ and finished the 105 miles averaging 17.7 mph. We were especially working to keep our off-saddle time to a minimum and managed to spend 6 hours in the saddle and 1 hour off, averaging less than 15 minutes per rest stop.
2-Jun Recovery Ride 30 28 Rode from the house to Seward Park then through the Arboretum onto the Burke Gilman to Fremont and back home. Spencer’s goal was to not get higher than zone 3 (heart-rate) and he was pretty much successful.
8-Jun Home to Auburn RT 90 91 Unseasonably cold weather (55 degrees) and some hard rain and wind made this a challenging ride to do alone. We dealt with mechanical issues and detours. All in all our least favorite ride in a long time.
9-Jun Carnation to Monroe 50 36 STP Paceline training ride. What a difference a day makes! Today was gorgeous, sunny, dry weather, close to 70 degrees. We had a great, fast ride and planned out the remainder of our training schedule and STP strategies.
15-Jun Camano Climb & Skagit Flats 110 100 We forgot to check the schedule or we would’ve done the extra ten miles! We improved on last year’s pace around Camano Island from 15.5 to 16.7 for the 50 miles and increased our top speed from 52.7 to 55.4! Then we tacked on another 50 flat miles through the Skagit Flats
16-Jun 30 31 Did a Great Harvest Bakery run and picked up bread in our panniers. Ran into folks we knew on the way. It was a short, leisurely ride.
20-Jun Mercer Island 20 23.75 A beautiful, hot Thursday and Spencer was out of school so we went for an impromtu spin around Mercer Island from our house. Sheila dislikes the ride from the house to MI and back due to traffic but we both love racing around the island’s curves and hills. We averaged 16.5.
22-Jun Flying Wheels 100 104 Cascade Bicycle Club is the biggest bike club in the country. They produce many large and excellent events, including the STP. This one is no exception. We had fine weather (a bit hot by the end). They reversed the route but it’s still pretty hilly (5 big ones). We rode with Mike & Cindy from our training team and Jay Nordquist who’ll be joining us on STP as a tail-gunner on his single. We averaged 18.2. Our only complaint is that they really needed one more water/toilet stop on the route, especially on such a hot day. 1:45 minutes between rest stops is simply too long.
23-Jun ETC  Ride 40 51.5 This ETC ride started at Sedro Wooley and turned around at Concrete. There were 7 tandems led by Don & Carol Hayes. It was another gorgeous day, a bit cooler than yesterday and the route was wonderful. We’d never been on these roads. Not only scenic, but light traffic and the ups and downs were so gradual it felt all but flat. This was a recovery day for us and the ride was advertised at 14 mph but the group ended up averaging a healthy 17.4 with some pacelining. It was great to ride with Steve & Denise on their new tandem. They helped set the blistering pace!
30-Jun Seattle > Mt. Vernon < back 140 138.3 Today was quite an adventure. After getting up at 5:30 a.m. we met Dave & Kelly and Jay in Woodinville and started riding at 7. The forecast was for rain. It stayed cool and cloudy and spit on us a few times. At mile 47 Kelly’s cold got the best of her and they decided they needed to turn back. Since Jay’s rear tire was giving out, we all rode back together to Jay’s house in Lake Stevens. Jay & Sara took Dave & Kelly back to their car in Woodinville and we continued on alone. When we came back through Snohomish we ran into the ETC Sno-Mon loop ride just coming out of the pie shop! It was fun to see Steve & Denise who lead that ride. Somewhere along High Bridge road some blackberry bramble jumped out and attacked us. We both had bloody arms. We ended up doing 138.3 miles at a 17.3 mph pace. Not too bad considering we did half of it alone and there were a fair number of hills. We rode through some sunshine with more rain spitting at us and at Maltby, 7 miles from the end, it started to downpour. We donned our rain gear and finished the ride at 5 p.m. It was a long day and we were pretty tired. It’s the longest ride we’ve done in one day, ever. Today we reached 1000 miles on our new tandem, Clio.
6-Jul 60 36 We met Jay & Sara at the airfield in Snohomish. We swapped stokers so Sara could try out the independant coasting on our daVinci. The hope was it would be good for her bum knee. While we had fun, her knee still hurt. We did a nearly flat 18 miles. Then after switching stokers back, we did the loop again, without them. The weather was gorgeous and we’re hoping it’ll be the same for next Saturday’s STP.
7-Jul 20 47.8 Today was our final training ride with our STP training group. Unfortunately Kelly was still not feeling well so they weren’t able to ride. The rest of us rode from Tracy Owens Park around the north end of Lake Washington including a loop around Mercer Island. After yesterday’s weather it was hard to adjust to the marine layer that brought clouds, colder temperatures and eventually rain for the last part of our ride. Mike’s foot came unclipped and he hurt it. We’re hoping it’s a minor setback.
13-Jul STP 200 199.3 Click here to see our full photo/report: STP
2002 Biking Season
Seattle to Portland STP 2002