Early-Season Rides

It’s already mid-March: two-and-a-half months into our riding season. And what a season it’s been so far, full of memorable rides enjoyed with wonderful friends. Here are just a few snapshots from those long, early-season miles.
These are the rides when our legs feel sluggish, the weather is cold, and yet we are happy to be out on our bikes. We enjoy the conversations as we ride at a leisurely pace. We talk about plans for the season and reminisce of memorable rides.

These rides take us on familiar roads that we don’t usually ride during the summer, like this old railroad grade near Carnation that has been turned into a trail.

Sometimes, we explore new roads that entice us to venture into the hills.

Many of the rides have been rainy, since we’ve had a very wet winter. On this dismal day (above), we stayed on the Burke-Gilman Trail and its extension. Just for fun, we usually ride a few laps around the track at Marymoor and dive down from the banking for a rush of speed. That day, the surface was so slippery that one cautious lap each sufficed.

We’ve been testing the new Compass tires over the last few months to see how well they held up on challenging rides. Here my René Herse is equipped with a black Babyshoe Pass on the front and a Grand Bois Hetre on the back.

Since we were testing tires, we were tempted to take rougher trails than we usually do. That is how we found ourselves on a mountain bike trail near Issaquah.

The tires (and our randonneur bikes) did fine, and only once or twice did we prefer to walk rather than go over large rocks that might have ripped off our front fenders.

We visited our favorite taco truck for lunches in their heated tent, and we had a good time.

As spring approaches, we are ready to head into the hills, and then up into the mountains as the snow melts. It promises to be a good season!