The Eleven Year Old Bullet Belt

So John and I decided to ride permanent 531 today. You basically ride all over the place for 200k. You start on Mercer Island, roll around Lake Sammamish and then go south to Renton, past the salt mine, down to Orting, up to Seattle, and then do a victory lap around Mercer Island.



I've been getting over a cold, and I really wanted to get my R-12 on, so to speak, but there was no way I was going to play with the big boys in the hills today, so the flattest ride that starts closest to my house was on the play list.



We did this ride two times last winter, and I remember walking in snow and ice on one ride as well as sucking it up in dumping rain on the other ride. Today was crisp (couldn't resist) but clear.

Every time I've ridden within 10 miles of Orting, I get yelled at; I expected today to be no different. Last time I pulled into the Safeway in Orting, the local soccer club hit me up for a donation. No, I'm not going to donate since your dad just tried to hit me with the mirror of his truck and your sister just called me a "teenage mutant ninja turtle." Yelling at me keeps my donations to a minimum; call me crazy.

But today, not one person yelled at us. However, there were three kids, about eleven, doing their best to be tough hanging out at Safeway. I'm not sure if they were playing grunge-death metal-goth-skinhead-hipsters, but I suspect they are not going to be running for higher office any time soon. The best bit was that one of them was playing with a bandolier of very real looking bullets which he wore as a belt when it was time to leave.

That's just not going to end well.

The contrast with the QFC on Mercer Island was pretty severe. Sure, the kids on Mercer Island are more likely to bring down the next Lehman Brothers, but they appear one heck of a lot less disturbed.

We met one other disturbed person as the Seahawks game got out. We timed our ride past the stadium perfectly.

After she smacked and punched her I'm-guessing-by-now-ex-boyfriend in front of three cops, they gave her the chance to walk away many many times. But no, she thought it would be a great idea to pick a fight with the cops. I doubt it ended well for her, but at least she didn't have a bullet belt.





Let's play "That's Rando!"

Sadly, no contestants had anything sufficiently rando today. However, the judges of "That's Rando!" have awarded this entry from the SIR road clean up as this weekend's winner. Congratulations, mystery winner!

Best DNF Ever.

Today was my first Randonneur DNF. I ended up riding with Chris and Robert, and I could not have had more fun. Tires and tubes did us in. This was my second or third Mountain Populaire 100K.

But don't you rando guys carry everything you need? One would think so. Between the three of us we had a metric crapton (about 2.2 thousand pounds for those of you from the UK) of tires and tubes, but it wasn't enough. I suspect we also had enough patches to construct a new tube from scratch. We used our last tube where the course was pretty close to the start/finish line, so instead of venturing off to Carnation, we coasted down the hill and called it day.



Notice any excellent color matching?



Did I mention it rained? This wasn't cooling mist rain; it was full-on Stevie Ray Vaughn Texas Flood rain. Boy was it fun.

Just before we got to the parking lot, Chris decided to lock his rear wheel and slide around for a while before pulling over to the side of the road. Who knew those Paul brakes were that strong? Oops, it wasn't the brakes. A couple of miles before, I mounted my spare tire on his wheel for him because the bead was a bit funky. I didn't do such a good job. We had just enough time to check it out and watch the tube burst out before it blew up. Most excellent.



Thanks so much to the orgainzers.

Now let's play, "That's Rando!"

As you might imagine, a 100K in the rain was ample hunting grounds for the next winner of "That's Rando!" I'd like to express my gratitude to all who played today; you put forth an excellent effort. For a while, this entry of the rear facing front bag (complete with wheel sucker map window) was in contention.



But then, during the first of many, many flat stops to work on Chris's stunning Tournesol:



I noticed this chunk of fabric missing where a rat ate his Berthoud bag. Clearly today's winner. Nobody else bother playing: