Day One - June 21 to Woodinville, Wa

Group photo before the ride starts


Mount Rainer from Seattle

Today was day one of the ride across the US. I left West Seattle at about 9:00 for a leisurely and touristy ride along the coast and through downtown Seattle, to Woodinville, WA. The ride was mostly flat and along bicycle paths and wooded trails until the last mile, a steep one mile hill.

I passed a breast cancel walk that wound its way through downtown Seattle to the Baseball stadium, and a solstice parade that brought our thousands of people in all sorts of costumes and no costumes, including nude bike riders, or bike riders dressed in paint. I don’t think I have seen so many tie dye shirts in one location at one time since the 60s, nor so many bicycles on the road anywhere. There are coffee shops and restaurants galore. Next time I’ll spend more time “eating in Seattle”.

Technical Stuff
We will be crossing the Cascade Mountains, starting on Monday and I decided, while riding the hills of Seattle and Vashon Island during our shakedown rides, that my gear ratios were too high and that I needed lower gears to spin more and preserve my knees. I exchanged the small chain ring on my triple from a 30 teeth ring to a 26. During the process I noticed that the other 2 rings had worn teeth and that’s why my gears were slipping. So, $144 later all was well, except that the chain would fall off the rings when down shifting from the second to third chain ring. I installed a chain ring guide and now the bike is humming along flawlessly. I’ll have to yell at the bike shop in NY who was responsible for preparing the bike for the trip and missed the worn gears.

Day one we rode only 35 miles and a touristy and sightseeing pace, probably not more then 10 miles an hour, with lots of stops.

Social Stuff
There are 14 riders in this group from all over the country and 2 drivers for the SUV pulling a camper. The camper is for the bags during the day and the drivers at night. The group appears to be very congenial and as most long distance riders that I have known, very self sufficient. Baring injury or illness, everyone should have no trouble completing the ride, some faster and some slower, but it doesn't matter. We'll all get stronger as the ride progresses.