Mileage: 52.3 Climbing: 3111’ Route: Downtown—Mercer Island—Medina—Kirkland—Market Hill—Juanita Hill—Perkins climb to Shoreline—185th—Dayton—8th—Ballard Bridge—Magnolia bluff loop—Myrtle Edwards Park—Downtown Attrition Rate: 0%
Emil led today’s ride and with only the four of us, today’s journey didn’t really have the feel of a “group” ride, even less so because we all are friends and know each other well. I enjoyed getting to ride side by side with each one of the other three riders at different parts of the ride. All in all, it was a very social ride. We rode pretty hard at times, and mellow at other times. The way the ride just flowed along seemed very appropriate for a cloudy day in mid-October.
All four of us showed up with some iteration of “winter bike”, although Warren was the only rider to have fenders with flaps. Emil had his steel Marioni, Reg was using clip-on fenders, and I rode my Rodriguez steel bike, which I think of as my “wet road” bike. My singlespeed Bullet Bike is what I grab when I expect real nastiness. We never saw any rain, but about half of the ride took place on damp roads.
Over the past six years, I have made a lot of friends on the HOWC, and on days like this I am reminded about just how important a part of cycling making friends on the ride is for me.
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