August 2008 RSVP

Ride to Seattle to Vancouver, BC and Party!

Oscar challenged me with this ride last year and here we are! Oscar's bicycle club in Seattle, Cascade Bicycle Club sponsored the ride. I joined last December and signed up for the ride the on January 1st 2008. Once I paid all the money I was committed to do the ride. That's motivation enough for me. It is not a race 1500 riders ride as fast as they can and have fun. 183 miles of scenic Pacific Northwest back roads. I have been training so hard to be able to do this. It was all I expected and more! I would do this every year if I could afford it.

The first day we went 11o miles to Bellingham and the second day 73 more miles to downtown Vancouver, BC Canada for a big party. The ride was amazing, beautiful, fun, and harder than I could have imagined! I found it (what ever it took) deep inside and finished probably out of sheer guts and the determination to not fail. That gets me to another Motto I have adopted, "Ride hard , or die!"

Oscar invited another friend along too. Carley is so much fun and the 3 of us made it to the finish line within seconds of each other. Oscar and Carley rode together and I rode ahead most of the time but we met up at food stops which is where most of the photos were taken. I met so many great people along the way.

It was amazing to ride a bike through Vancouver with all those bikers. This is a huge city and we rode with the traffic stopping at stop signs and lights with the traffic. A bit scary actually.

When ever we pass another biker it is a courtesy so say, "on the left" so that the biker knows that you are passing on their left. Well, as we were riding through the Chinese part of town in Vancouver where they don't speak English, the Chinese people were clapping for us and cheering and waving saying, "On the left! On the left!" They thought that it was a greeting or motivation I am sure. It was so funny and those that were riding with me during that part of the ride all loved their encouragement. I felt like a professional racer!

Thanks to Oscar for this challenging and that he thought I could do it. He has no idea what that has meant to me. He is the best biking partner I could have ever imagined! It all started 2 years ago when he asked if he could join me in Moab for my mountain biking trip. He hadn't rode a bike since he was 12. I had been riding mostly by myself for 13 years on a mountain bike. I agreed to have him come with me after he spent some time in a spin class at the gym. I got a biking partner! He loved biking after that and bought a road bike and has been riding to work and for fun for over a year now. He even rode from Seattle to Portland last year with Cascade Bicycle Club. He has been training for his first triathlon! Oscar you rock!