Last Sunday I packed up the old Orbea (aka my "travel bike") and headed for Moisant Field at around 4:00 am. I had an early morning flight to Seattle where I would be taking a shuttle from there down to Olympia. The wife had already been there for a few days. Our task for the week was to dog-sit for the daughter's two dogs while she was out in the wilderness around Mt. St. Helens leading a team that was supporting her partner Sharon who was entered in the Bigfoot 200, a 200 mile ultra run. I had already reserved a parking spot at the U.S. Park place, just down the road from the airport. By the time I pulled into a parking space, the shuttle was already there waiting for me, which was nice. It was reasonably quiet at the airport. I shoulderd on my Airport Ninja bike case and deposited it and my other bag at the Alaska Arlines counter, and headed over to the short TSA line. This time they didn't ask me to remove my shoes or to take the laptop out of my carry-on messenger bag that was stuffed with all sorts of electronics, including the laptop itself, an android tablet, my cellphone, a bag full of cables, a small battery pack, my bike computer, headlight, and tail light. I was a little surprised they didn't need to open up the bag, considering. Anyway, despite all my efforts to get to the airport really early, the flight was delayed for at least half an hour, which put my shuttle ride connection in jeopardy. I texted them before boarding and they moved me to a shuttle leaving half an hour later.
I was flying first class this time, thanks to the daughters copious Alaska Airlines points, which meant I had pre-ordered a breakfast that was served on an actual plate with a real glass and everything. The flight was uneventful, but of course SEA is a big and busy airport, which meant I had to get from one terminal to another to get to baggage claim, which was still under construction and kind of a mess. I stood in front of the luggage carousel wondering if the bike would come down the regular luggage chute, or get diverted to one of the two oversided chutes. Just as the bike came down the chute, the shuttle company called to check on me, and a few minutes later I found my way over to the parking garage where they were waiting for me, so that all worked out pretty well. An hour later I was at the house in Olympia and ready to put the bike back together so I could ride the next day.
I ended up riding over 200 miles between Monday and Thursday. Everyone there seems to ride in the evenings. At 6 am the temperature was usually 58-60, but by early afternoon it was in the mid to upper 80s the first couple of days. I had a few routes that I'd more or less ridden before, so although I was solo, at least I wasn't in entirely unfamiliar territory. There was a GBC team ride on Tuesday and Thursdays starting at 5:30 pm, so I went out to meet it on Tuesday. Unfortunately, since there was actually a heat advisory that day because of the high temperature of 90, nobody showed up except one person who led me a few miles to the slower group ride that left at 6 pm. That was quite a nice little ride, actually, and considering that I'd ridden almost 70 miles the day before, it's not like I really needed a hard ride. I ended up riding alone again on Thursday rather that trying to make the team ride because by then Danielle and Shannon were back, and I needed to take the bike apart for an early drive to Seattle the next morning. Shannon survived the race pretty well, although it was a couple of days before she was walking normally again, and Danielle was relieved that the very complicated support logistics involving multiple pacers and rest areas and satellite phones worked out.
We had a nice time with the dogs, walking to the nearby Starbucks every morning for coffee. The trip back was pretty smooth, although the flight was again delayed, this time because the Captain was still in the air on another flight at boarding time and they had to wait for him to land and get to our plane. The flight back was nice, again in first class, and we were back home before dark.
The entire time I was riding there, the old Orbea was making various creaking noises that, as always, sounded like the bottom bracket. When I was taking the bike apart to pack I noticed that the freehub was actually coming loose, which was obviously causing the noise. It just took a couple of allen wrenches to tighen it up again and all was well. Granted, the crankset bearings are just a little bit looser than I'd like, but I'm pretty sure the noise was all coming from that loose freehub.
Back in town, I headed out on Saturday for the Giro. There was just a small group on hand, which has been status quo lately since a lot of people have been doing the SaMoRi to escape half an hour of summer heat. It was a good fast ride, though. It's always a better workout with a smaller group since there's no place to hide. Unfortunately, the Seabrook bridge was closed for repairs (again) and we had to take the alternate route down the Danziger bridge. So on Sunday I decided to meet the northshore ride. They were doing the "mailman" route, which is pretty much the same as the training race route they used to do back in the 80s, but the pace was pretty relaxed. For some reason my neck and shoulders were hurting from the start and were absolutely on fire by the time we finished. No idea why.
On Monday there was a good turnout for the Mellow Monday ride. With Tulane back in session now, we had four or five Tulane riders. As often happens with a larger group, the ride didn't stay mellow for very long, so it was more of a workout than I'd planned for, especially since my legs were still a little sore from the weekend. This morning's Tuesday ride also had a pretty good group and got fairly fast, especially once we picked up a bit of a tailwind heading westbound. By the time we got to the lake trail it was just Jess, Matt, and me, though. Matt was on his TT bike and towed us all the way out to Williams Blvd., and most of the way back. We were still a couple of miles from Causeway when he sat up and I rolled through, not realizing that he had flatted. I continued on with Jess on my wheel and was past Causeway when I finally looked back and reailzed he wasn't there any more. Oops! Right about that time Jess's Di2 rear derailleur locked itself into the small cog. I think it probably went into crash mode when she hit a bump just right. Anyway she rode all the way back like that.
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