MORE 2011 MONTHLY BIKE PHOTS

Here's July through December. 

July. A lovely summer afternoon climbing the upward-tilted Burnout Road with terrific views overlooking Samish Bay. Samish Island is the foreground (ish) strip of dark forest with super-steep Mount Erie in the distance.

July (part 2). Mount Shuksan as seen through the spokes on one of my repeat rides up the ski area on the Mount Baker Highway. Because of 2011's mega-snowfall, this year the road never opened all the way to Artist Point.

  

August. Mount Shasta Summit Century. Ultra hard, ultra long ("That's what she said" joke goes here.)--130 miles with 14,750 feet or so of climbing, 10-plus hours on a bike. Glad I did it but it was the day I realized that anything longer than about 6 hours begins to enter the This-isn't-a-whole-lot-of-fun-anymore zone. Also in August, I turned 50.

September. Riding across the Skagit Flats on the way to La Conner and back with the Cowboys Titanium. Seventy-three miles, a stop for coffee in L-town, some hellatious town sign sprints thoughout--certainly one of the year's most enjoyable rides.

October. Crazy Jacob Stewart holds onto his bike for dear life after dropping down into a hole atop Anderson Mountain. This was on a cool MTB ride with Jacob, Ryan Rickerts and Scott Young. 

October (part 2). I just really like the colors on this helmet cam photo of Titanium Cancellara pedaling down the Interurban Trail. 

November. Another helmet cam shot, this one during a warm-up lap of the Cross-Border Clash CX race outside Ferndale. That's Glenn Gervais in blue; he won the men's master C race that day.. 

December. I've not taken many bike photos this month. (We've been running too damn much.) Here's a snapshot taken from a helmet cam video I shot of our Samish Loop ride 'n' bushwack. The reason I'm not wearing a helmet is that I'm pointing the camera at myself whilst riding.

Happy New Year, y'all!   

FIRST HUNDRED MILER OF 2010!

The Titanium "Scott Young" Cowboy and I got out for our first hundred miler in a while on what was our first road ride since maybe last June or so. (We've been riding mountain bikes almost exclusively for a while now so it felt great to get out on our sleek elegant machines.) Super fun, super great. Weather couldn't have been any better and in fact, I think this is the first time I've ridden 100 this early in the year.

From B'ham, we headed south on Chuckanut Drive to the Skagit and over to Samish Island. Throughout the day we probably saw 50 eagles, 100 or so swans, countless great blue herons and even more countlesser daffodils and tulips. It's OK that I took photos of the purty flowers and even one of Scott in front of the flowers, innit? (See at the bottom of this post.)

From Samish Island, we continued south to La Conner--see pic of Scott drinking coffee whilst eyeing Rainbow Bridge (which is also the title of a Jimi Hendrix album I once had)--and then points inland and upland and though we tried like heck to avoid it, we eventually found ourselves climbing Bow Hill Road.

From there, up to Lake Samish, which we lapped twice because we realized we were a little short on mileage, and then back to B'ham. A hundred miles in 5:47. And now I eat. And eat.