WHAT A DIFFERENCE A DAY MAKES



Samish Island, Mount Erie and Samish Bay from about the 1,000-foot level of Burnout Rd.

I wanted to get in more climbing so 24 hours after my Mount Baker repeats, I pulled out the 29er and headed up Cleator Road for a sustained 45-minute climb. Followed that up with Burnout Road, off the south side of Fragrance Lake Road. Along with probably the best unobstructed water views (see above and below) around, it's got four crazy-steep pitches that thankfully, aren't super long.

Burnout Road tops out at about 1,800 feet or so and in the old days, before last fall's logging, you could find the So Easy Trail that dropped down beyond Lost Lake, pass behind Samish Lake and then climb up out of the basin to Pine and Cedar Lakes. And maybe you still can, I just need to take the time and make the effort to find it. Today, I wanted to see if I could connect the Burnout Road with the Dictionary Trail and thus Lost Lake. And as I found out you can. Yipee!

At the top of Burnout--which, like Cleator, tops out at about 1,800 feet--just head through the clearing, look north toward B'ham and Chuckanut Mountain and follow the above road to that point right there. Just before you reach the end, there's a semblance of a trail off to the right. Pop down there and in two or three overgrown trail-riding moments, you'll be at the Dictionary. Very cool. This should make for some epically fun, scenic-as-heck loops.

In all, I got in 31 miles with 3,700 feet of elevation gain. Not sure how mountain bike miles and climbing feet translate to road-riding units. I'd think it'd count for more since my mountain bike is much heavier than my road bike and mountain climbs sometimes reach pitches of 25 to 30 percent. Whatevuh--I've got close to 11,000 feet of climbing in two days. (Which is still 5,000 feet less than the Mount Shasta Summit Century.)



TEAM UNATTACKED DOES CLEATOR-GALBRAITH DOUBLE

Also threw in some Lake Padden trails for fun. Above, Scott Young and John Clark attack the steep hill on the expert loop.

John (above) was taking his maiden ride up his Niner Air 9. He even let go of the above railing a couple times. Below, note evidence of the spill I took on the Railroad Trail near Alabama Hill. Good thing I was wearing gloves. I looked down at my computer and my handlebar clipped a tree. Got a few scrapes but nuffin' serious. All told, we rode 40 miles with 4,600 feet elevation gain, in a little over 4 hours.

John and I are both training for an 8-hour mountain bike race down in Northern California at the end of March. We're soloing it, not riding it as a team. I've been working with Daryl Smith of Advantage Multisport who's got me doing back-to-back longish rides on weekends (generally four, four-and-a-half hours one day with signif. elevation gain, two to three hours the following day) and a tough interval workout during the week. That's usually hill repeats up Sehome Arboretum Road.

Friday, Jen, Bake and I leave for SoCal where we hope to catch the final three days of the Tour of California. Bummer that Fabian Cancellara won't be there but I think there'll be one or two other well-known cyclists we may recognize. Go Levi!

CLEATOR-GALBRAITH IN ONE DAY

In a move that impressed absolutely no one save for himself, area boy Mike McQuaide today rode his bike to the top of Cleator Road. Declaring that not to be enough, he then headed for Galbraith Mountain and rode to the top of the Tower Road. He then made it back in time to pick up Bake at school with a quick stop at Starbucks on the way. Total stats: 41 miles, 4,800 feet elevation gain.

Above, the sun finally breaks through the fog. Below, a huge washout from the recent floods, about halfway up Cleator Road.

LANDSLIDE ON INTERURBAN TRAIL

Post-flood mountain biking in Bellingham redux again part II the second.

Today, John Clark and I planned on riding out the Interurban to the top of Cleator Road. No dice, again. (There seems to be a definite lack of dice lately.) A massive slide off Cleator Road has completely closed off the Interurban about a quarter-mile north of Cleator. Kwazy. (Seems to be no lack of weather kwaziness however.)We rode the road (Chuckanut Drive) for a while, then headed up Cleator. Several spots have slumped significantly and/or washed out. We made it to about 1,450 feet before heavy wet snow turned us around.
Still, it was a great ride made even greater by the presence of John's new orange gloves.

Godfather Part III

"Every time I get out, they keep pulling me back in." That's the line from the otherwise forgettable third Godfather movie that comes to me each time I go out for one of these fairly long trail runs. This is the winter I'm definitely not doing the Chuckanut 50K because as the top two pictures show, I've been having a great time riding the Fantom CX up and down the dirt roads surrounding Bellingam.

That's MC Awesome (AKA, Jim Robbins) in the top photo about to summit Cleator Road on his titanium road bike (an Airborne) which he'd hoped to turn into a pseudo-'cross bike by putting fat (28s) tires on it. He didn't quite have the lower gears that professional cyclocross model Glenn Gervais (other dude in the below photo) and I have on our compact-crank adorned 'cross bikes but Jim is tougher than nails. Cleator climbs 1,550 feet in 3.6 miles (minus a mostly flat mile in the middle) and he gutted it out. Made us darn proud.

So it's rides like this--and up Galbraith too--that I plan to occupy myself with this winter and to keep me from even having the slightest whim to run that damn Chuckanut 50K.

The above ride was Saturday. Sunday, I decided to tag along for just a bit with the Sunday running group. (See below, photo courtesy of Polly Favinger.) It was great to see everyone (even John Clark) on a beautiful morning and to run wild on those back trails to Lost Lake. I was surprised that I didn't feel more beat up from Saturday's ride; in fact, given how little I'm running right now (maybe twice a week) I was amazed how really good I felt. (I ran 1:47 with 2,100 feet elevation gain; they did the 3-plus hour Samish Loop with 4,100-foot gain.) Talk inevitably touched on the 50K and the possibility/likelihood of a route change. Though I tried to ignore it I found myself involuntarily intrigued, interested and mulling it over especially after I turned around at the Lost Lake sign and had a solo run back to my car.

That night I told MC Awesome about this potential quandry. His impression: "Who are you kiddin', McQuaide--you'll end up running it. You know it."