Hors délai 100k

A few weeks ago I convinced a 3 of my coworkers that it we should ride the 100k popular. This was going to be the first Rando event for two of them. We all knew ahead of time that it would be a wet and wild ride around the hills of Seattle. When the alarm went off at 6 am it was raining hard, but as I was finishing packing the rain stopped. It was nice and quiet outside but now as snowing very hard and sticking to the ground. There were three doubtful riders standing in the parking lot when I showed up. We went inside to check the highway weather cams of seattle. By this time the ground was covered in a heavy, wet snow. It looked like it wasn't snowing in Seattle at that time, so we packed up and made the snowy drive up to the city. By the time we made it to the ride start, a brave group of 38 riders were assembled getting ready for a wet ride. We started about 30-45 minutes late from the start. Luckily there were some large hills at the start of the ride to warm up our cold muscles. It was raining but there wasn't any snow on the road.

The ride continued smoothly until we took a break to fix a flat. At each control, the brave volunteers kept giving us encouragement even though we were well behind the the time limit. Discovery Park was our downfall when we took the wrong bike path and biked around in circles for a few minutes. I can navigate rural county roads in the night with no sleep, but give me an urban park and all bets are off. By this time, the weather was improving and we set off in the correct direction and were pushed up a few of the larger hills by a nice tailwind. As we changed directions to head out to Alki Point, we got to battle a headwind. It was good to be in a group taking turns as we ground out the miles while talking and laughing.

The heavy wind blew the clouds away and the sun was shining as we warmed up with cup of noodles, a Rando staple. It's amazing how quickly the weather can change the mood of the day. The sun warmed us enough to ditch the rain jackets and we were laughing and smiling as we pedaled back to the brewery. I enjoyed the end of the ride after I realized we weren't going to make it into the finish before the time limit. Instead of trying to push to make up time, I could just enjoy the sunny ending of the ride along Lake Washington. When we pulled up the Big Time Brewery, the few volunteers cheered us to the end and plopped a big pizza down on our table. We sat around talking about the next ride and then the next ride after that. There are so many roads to pedal...