My long-term readers know that I’m in training for a couple of bicycle rides later this summer (a century in June, and a two-day double century in August). The rest of you haven’t had the joy of reading endless descriptions of my cycling exploits, but I’m sure you’ll get  a chance to do this in the future.

Anyway, I’ve been slowly upping my mileage to about 90 miles/week, including a 45-ish mile trip around the top half of Lake Washington, including a ride across Lacey V. Murrow memorial floating bridge (otherwise known as the I-90 bridge). That in itself is a experience, riding across a lake 20 or 30 feet off the water, both for the view and for the risk, given that a big chunk of the bridge sunk in the early 1990s due to an impressive display of cooperative incompetence between the state and the renovation contractor. The route around the Lake is really nice on a sunny day, but involves a lot of starting and stopping north of the University of Washington on the Burke-Gilman trail.

Last Saturday, I decided to vary my route. After riding about 25 miles and feeling good, I decided to ride on the east side of Lake Sammamish (lots of lakes around Seattle), which I hadn’t done before. I had one of those rare moments when everything seems to be working currently, and I rode for about 15 minutes at 21-23 MPH (about 4-5 MPH faster than normal), and then another 15 minutes flying (for me) up a 2-5 mile hill.

Overall, I did 48.6 miles in just under 3 hours, averaging a little over 16.2 miles per hour.

Which makes me very slow compared to more serious cyclists, but much faster than I was before.