Sunday, February 17, 2013

Another Great Ride With the VBC!

At the end of my Friday ride with the Vancouver Bike Club, Dick told me there was another ride on Sunday at 10:00. Since I had so much fun on the first one, I thought I'd do it.

This ride met at Fred Meyer out Salmon Creek area (on the other side of the freeway from the previous ride). I took the same route out to 134th that I did Friday. This time I turned left to get over to Fred Meyer. One of the, sometimes, tricky things is finding where the ride REALLY starts from. Fred Meyer is a big place. Fortunately, as I came into the parking lot, I saw a Hi-Vis yellow jacket. Turns out it was Kelly from Friday (he was the guy who asked if the pace was what I was used to). He was the first one there. He was very nice and even printed (and laminated) a map of the route for me!

Once everyone got there (not as many as Friday, but several of the same people--Kelly, Dick, Debbie, Joe, and Kristen), Joe, the ride leader, went over the route and regroup spots. Once again, everyone introduced themselves (I think this is a great idea). I think there were just two (or maybe three--I don't remember if Debbie's husband, Curtis, was on Friday's ride) additional guys, Henryk and Russ that I don't think were on the Friday ride.

We took off out behind Fred Meyer to 10th Ave. After a few turns off of 10th, we came back to 10th at I-5. We rode parallel to the freeway. I even knew where we were! Okay, not a big surprise considering you can see this road from the freeway. We were going by the fairgrounds. Kelly and I got ahead of the rest. As we rode along, Kelly pointed out the next turn and told me the top of the hill would be the regroup spot. So I headed for the top of the hill. We regrouped and continued on.

We did some good downhills as well as some uphills (this was a nice rolling route). We came around over by the Columbia River. The rolling route continued until we returned to Fred Meyer.

At the end, Kristen said something about taking the Salmon Creek Trail to WSU. My ears perked up when I heard "trail". We figured out the way I could go, then head back to my dad's. So, I did another new trail!

At the end of the Salmon Creek Trail we came out to 119th. I rode that back to 50th Ave. then over to St. John's and back the way I went on Friday.

Today's ride was 39.5 miles for me. Average was a little slower due to all the hills I'm sure. I really enjoyed meeting all the new people through the VBC. I hope to ride with them again next time I'm down.

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