FORTNIGHTLY ARTIST POINT RIDE

Rode to Artist Point today for the third every-other-Thursday in a row. I love it so much up there I'd ride it again tomorrow if I could! We left from Kendall making for a 70-miler with just about 6,000 feet of climbing. Please enjoy some pics...

John Pottle and Tom Meloy make the final turn.

Almost there. In the distance, you can see the top of the Artist Point restrooms poking above the snow.

The players: Reg Norbert, Tom Meloy, some McQuaide dude, John Pottle.

Refilling water bottles at Silver Fir Campground.

 Waiting in line for pilot car to take us through repaving segment on Power House Hill. We lucked out and had to wait only about 5 minutes both ways.

Team car shouting encouragement.

At this point, John's got it in the bag.

Tom on the descent; Table Mountain in the background.

GRAND RIDGE-DUTHIE HILL MOUNTAIN BIKE RIDE

Thanks to everyone who turned out for last night's "75 Classic Rides: Washington" slideshow at REI Issaquah! Always great to catch up with old friends as well as make some new ones. I want to thank Tom Meloy also for taking me on a 3-hour ultra-cool Grand Ridge-Duthie Hill mtb ride from his Issaquah home. Here're some pics:

Tom on one of the smooth fun-as-hell berms at Duthie Hill Bike Park.

Riding across the Log Bridge on the Grand Ridge Trail. Almost lower Mullet-ish, innit? (For all you Galby riders.)

So you can get an idea of where this is in relation to I-90 and Issaquah (sorta), here's a photo of the trailhead map.

Blurry boy rides the berm.

Tom's all-carbon S-Works Epic. Nice bike or what?

Though I'd never been on Grand Ridge before, I visited the Duthie Hill Bike Park just before it opened about two years ago. Here's a story I wrote about it for The Seattle Times. Here's our route on Strava: 

MORE CLASSIC RIDES WASHINGTON PHOTOS

 

Headed out last Thursday to get some final shots for my 75 Classic Rides Washington book, which comes out next May. Above is that cool, switchbacky hill just outside Plain, which is just outside Leavenworth. Below is a little south of Snohomish, just minutes after sunrise. Rode the new Giant 'crossbike for the phots; she acquitted herself admirably.

Above, Tom Meloy, rocking an epically beautiful (and new) Tarmac SL4 (I believe) was kind enough to do repeats up Squak Mountain for me. Seventeen percent that hill be, in parts!

Stevens Pass.

Hughes Road, near Cashmere (of Aplets and Cotlets fame). 

EVERSON-REESE HILL-ARTIST POINT-EVERSON; 100 MILES OF FUN

Hooked up with Tom Meloy, David Longdon, Carol Noble-Potts and Mark Clausen, all from Cascade Bicycle Club's High Performance Cycling Team, for an epic Everson-to-Artist Point-with-a-detour-up-Reese Hill-and-back ride on Thursday. Why start in Everson instead of somewhere on the Mount Baker Highway? Well, the Mount Baker Highway, from B'ham to about Maple Falls, is actually pretty cruddy to ride--high-speed mega-trucks and the like, pickups with sideview mirrors that extend out on either side like airplane wings, etc. Plus, from Everson and back it's about 95 miles unless ... you add the short but nevertheless, painfully evil Reese Hill (350 feet in 0.8 miles) on the way out which makes it exactly a hunnert.

We skipped Reese Hill on the way back, basically following the Ski to Sea bike course from the D.O.T. sheds to Everson. My right leg cramped badly at mile 89 but after a few sips of Mark's mystery liquid (EPO, methamphetamine, cocaine and salt), I felt fine. Sixty-eight hundred feet of climbing in all. Super (hard) day!

Just above, that's me on the left (obsessed as I am with the Belgian national champion's jersey), Tom Meloy in the center and Mark Clausen on the right. In the top photo, Meloy leads Clausen through the first switchback on the descent from Artist Point.

On the way back to Everson, we stopped at Graham's in Glacier for Coke, maple bars (me), salty chips--anything to help power us through the last 25 miles. Above, Tom pours the nectar of the gods into Carol's water bottle. Below, Carol, Mark, Tom and David. A group of nice folks and truly great to ride with.

As for the MTB side of things, Scott "Titanium Cowboy" and I are watching the weather forcast before we pull the trigger on registering for next weekend's Capitol Forest 50-Mile mountain bike race. Looks pretty good so far, a little rain but not multi days of drenching downpours which would make it sehr unpleasant. 

McNEIL CANYON 'N' EASTERN WASHINGTON

Back in B'ham after three days of ridin' slash book research including mucho hill climbing. Skykomish to Leavenworth via Stevens Pass on Wed., 40 miles near Chelan including McNeil Canyon (steepest hill I've ever climbed) on Thurs., and a fun L'worth-Plain-L'worth 40-miler this morning.

McNeil Canyon, above two pics, is psycho steep! Climbs 2,200 feet in 5 miles. My Garmin Edge was reading 15 percent and above near the top. No less an authority than Seattle's Tom Meloy, who rides 10,000 miles and climbs 500,000 feet a year, says it's harder than the Galibier, Alpe D'Huez and Co de la Madeleine, all of which he's climbed. Personally, I found the descent absolutely hair-raising and admit that I walked a bit of it. (The descent, that is, not the ascent; the broken collarbone still has me a tad sheepish on descents.)  

Above, the Columbia River. McNeil Canyon is the large mass to the left. It put the hurt on me.