Camp One

An old Igbo proverb states that when a maiden divorces her husband and marries her lover, she gets to figure out who was the better man. Me, I loved them both, having rode Hood Canal Loop 2.0 on Wednesday and the Original Hood Canal Loop the following Saturday. Both rides were done under similar conditions, relatively dry January days but cold enough for a 200k to exact a toll. Geoff describes the geographical and topographic differences, I tend to remember more clearly the Rando's and the Rando's and perhaps two long climbs on the original loop, from Allyn to Belfair and then out of Belfair and the feeling of freezer burn on my african skin.
There was endorphin-talk on the ferry ride home Saturday about Hood Loop 2.5 a 250K
Sunday I found myself very stiff and definitely in need of a recovery ride and the motivation to undertake one.
The motivation came from John from the Lahar club. he was going to do one of the popular club rides, what we refer to as "Camp One". We would start from Orting instead of Sumner cutting the ride to 30 miles.

We start from John's house in a neighborhood that takes stunning views of The Mountain for granted, you can hear the Carbon river running in his backyard. We head south on the bike trail, running parallel with Hwy 162 between the Puyallup river and its vassal, the Carbon river, this is the flat part.

I am behind John the whole time pretending to be taking pictures, truth is that my behind is pretty sore. I had spent much of last fall breaking in my Brooks saddle yet it seems it tightened up again in the freezing weather, should I have used more proofhide?

Should have! Could have! Would have! it tilts up to 2-3% as we abandon the Carbon river to stay with the Puyallup river towards Lake Kapowsin. Then we turn off into the Camp One forest road

to greet 5-6% and ice, deciding to explore further we walk past the ice and continue without

further interruption to the turn around point.

Where it is a balmy 60 degrees Fahrenheit. I wonder why there was no inversion at Walker Pass that registered 30 degrees the day before. We have gone 15miles out, climbing from close to sea level to 1500 feet ASL.

We start the return to a view of Lake Kapowsin and a narrow atmospheric line that may be the point of inversion, watching carefully on the descent for the ice which we walk across, agreeing unanimously that it would be no fun to hit it at 30MPH.

Jury is still out if this was a good choice for a recovery ride, but I felt a lot better after a cold one and some mmm tasting almonds at Johns.

Thanks John