Sunday, September 28, 2008

Mexico Fun Ride

Our second annual fun ride down in Mexico. This is a ride that starts in Rosarito and ends in Ensenada. Last year it was just Randall and myself. This year Ted and Howard decided to join us. We stayed at shannon's house on Friday night down in SD. We woke up at 5:30 in the morning to arrive at the bus station at 6:30. The bus departed at 7:30 and we arrived in Rosarito at 9. We proceeded to the start line and Ted and Howard went to pick up their race numbers. All started well. We actually started towards the front this time, so we didn't have to wait very long to actually start riding. I began my stop watch once we crossed the start line and we were off.


The morning was foggy with a slight wind. We all stuck together for about 5 minutes and then Howard fell back, so it was going to be Randall, Ted, and myself for the race.

About 16 minutes into the ride I see Randall pull over to the side of the road and slow down. I wasn't sure if he was just checking something or if something had fallen of, so I took a quick scan of his bike as I passed by. I quickly saw that his rear tire was flat. We all stopped and helped Randall get his tire fixed. We pulled out the spare tube and started installing it. After it had been fully inflated Randall attempted to pull off the pump and the seal came out with it and the tube deflated. We then tried to repair his blown tube. Since he had it a deep pothole he had 2 punctures in his tube side by side. We decided to patch it with 2 patches. Unfortunately when we went to pump it up it wasn't holding air, so we again had to take the tube out and then try it with just one patch. We got it on and pumped up the tired. Then, once again when Randall pulled out the pump (this time we we using Ted's pump instead of mine), pop. The seal broke off his second tube. We were out of tubes now and only 3 or 4 miles into the ride. We had already told Howard to keep going since we would probably be able to catch up to him. This was a good 30 minutes ago, so he was long gone. A vehicle passed us and told us that there would be a truck following the last person and would be able to pick him up and maybe give him a ride to the next check point where he could get another tube and continue the ride.

Ted and I continued on the ride. We rode together past the first checkpoint. It was nice to have someone to ride with. I had stopped my watch while we were with Randall and started it up when we continued riding. Somewhere between the first checkpoint and the first downhill I began to inch away from Ted. I was about a mile from the first hill when I passed by Howard. It was on a downhill and I was traveling substantially faster than him, so I was only able to say a quck hi as a passed by. Now I was for sure alone and the hill was about to start. I remembered it being long, but it seemed longer than I had remembered. My goal for the whole ride was to not walk at all. I made it. At the end of the 2 mile hill there was the halfway checkpoint. The whole middle of the ride is a little flat and a lot of uphill. It was hot and very tiring. Of course once the hills were done, there was an 8 mile downhill where i'm pretty sure I hit speeds up to the high 30s. From there I came back to the coast and rode along the highway for a good half an hour until I hit the finish line. It took me 3 hours and 45 minutes to finish the race which would give me an average of 13.3 mph. I beat my last years time by about an hour and a half. Surprisingly I wasn't even as tired as last year and my legs didn't cramp up at all! At the finish line I waited about 35 minutes for Ted to arrive. We all eventually made it to the finish line. The final results were

Me - 3 hrs 45 minutes
Randall - 3 hrs 50sih minuts (we found out later that he took a cab back to the start line, fixed his tire and started over again)
Ted - 4 hrs 20 minutes
Howard - 5 hrs 30 minutes.

Everyone had a good ride and a good time. It's shame that this was the last Mexico ride. Maybe it'll start up again.

Took a few pictures while on the ride as well as some video.

Enjoy!

Documented Video of the Day

Wednesday, September 17, 2008

Seattle September 11-15, 2008

Had my first trip out to Seattle. It was a great time. I'll try to make the writing short.

Thursday - Leave house at 5am and arrive at my hostel around 1130. Walk down to Space Needle/Pacific Science Center/Ride the Ducks of Seattle Tour.


PSC - Imax on beavers - learned that beavers are freakin' awesome! went to Planetarium and saw some dinosaurs....


Ride the Ducks - 30 minute tour on land, 60 minute tour on Lake Union

Space Needle - bought 2 time pass (was only $4 extra) went up and hung out there for a few hrs getting some good night shots.






Walked back to Hostel and met up with April and Marsha around 11 when they arrived.

Friday

morning - Woke up and had some Breakfast

Underground Tour - Walked over to Pioneer Square for the Underground Tour - a good history of Seattle

Back up to Pike Place Market for a late lunch

Walked down to Space Needle again and hung out there till sunset - Some guy proposed right next to me during a tour up top.



Met up with Tim and Brenda and had dinner at Serious Pie - some of the greatest pizza I've ever had.

After dinner we walked back to the hostel and I grabbed my stuff to go home with Tim and Brenda. April and Marsha stayed at the hostel and spent saturday wandering around downtown Seattle (I hear they spent 3 hrs at Macy's)

Saturday

Woke up early in the morning and headed out for a hike to Snow Lake.






Got home and watched the Notre Dame game (Tim's a huge fan) and then just rested at the house for the afternoon. Brenda make some home grown dinner - blue scalloped potatoes, zucchini, cucumber...it was delicious! Then we played some Mexican dominos and called it a night.




Sunday

Woke up and Tim and Brenda drove me to the bus station where I caught a bus and headed back into downtown.

Went to the Aquarium for a few hrs


Then I went on a boat tour of the harbor. During the cruise the Seahawks games started and the fighter jets flew over after the national anthem. I got to see it from the boat.




Met back up with April and Marsha and we went to the Experience Music Project/Science Fiction Museum. the EMP was aweseome. Saw Jimmy Hendrix's first guitars and learned how Martin and Gibson got started along with their first model guitars. The SFM was also fun.




April and Marsha left for the airport around 630 and I went back and took another nap until 930 at night. Woke up and got a few night shots before going to bed.



Took an HDR shot of the First Starbucks



Monday

Woke up early on Monday and had some breakfast and walked around Pike Place Market for a little while getting some shots. Went inside the Starbucks and got some shots.








Around 11:15 I met up with Tim and his coworker. Tim worked just a few blocks from my hostel. We had some good Thai food.



After lunch I walked another mile and ended up at the Qwest/Safeco Field. From there I caught the bus back to the airport and flew homw.








For more pics CLICK HERE