I’ve always wanted to get into biking for a while since I started college; however, I only started actually biking semi-recently, getting into the sport summer 2023 during my SWE internship, when I actually had both money and time.
Some Memorable Rides
Basically every nontrivial ride I’ve done.
Summer 2023
Where it all began.
- 4 June 2023: ride that started it all - a short 12 mile spin on some nearby trails.
- 11 June 2023: round trip from Redmond to Bellevue/Lincoln Square. I got mega coolered by the SR-520 hill, learning about it the hard way. Also, I forgot my lights and it was nearly dark by the time I started heading back, so that was exciting.
- 14 June 2023: mickey mouse clubhouse lake loop around Lake Sammamish. ‘Twas a dark time that even matches couldn’t fix.
- 17 June 2023: round trip from Redmond to UW Seattle. Another dreary week where I got myself out of bed at 8am to rush to a cat yoga appointment 15 miles away at 10:30am. Cat yoga and meeting friends was a real game changer. On the way back, my friends took the bus and I biked back, and at some point they spotted me waiting for the crosswalk as they passed by on the bus. Absolutely generational.
- 20 June 2023: slowest sprint ever from Redmond to AMC Woodinville. For the first time in over 2 weeks, I felt like I had escaped from the trench that I had been stuck in for the first part of summer, only to be destroyed by debugging pain the next day.
- 9 July 2023: round trip from Redmond to Meydenbauer Bay Park. PSA to wear sunscreen and eat food.
- 12 July 2023: ½ century training ride: Redmond, Bellevue, Mercer Island, Lake Washington Loop, Seattle, Burke-Gilman Trail. Missed baking social for this because I’m slow.
- 15-16 July 2023: STP
- 28 July 2023: round trip from Redmond to Seattle - SR-520 on the way there, Burke-Gilman on the way back. It’s crazy how much stronger I felt on the SR-520 trail compared to my first Seattle round trip just over a month ago.
- 8 August 2023: final ride in Seattle - a few climbs in Sammamish and one final ramp up the SR-520. I’ll miss the nice trails.
Academic Year 2023-2024
I became a Zwift enjoyer in the fall, and a sleep enjoyer in the spring.
- 27 August 2023: first ride through Grizzly Peak. Definitely not a nice one but we’ll make it work.
- 4 September 2023, 16 September 2023: first and second rides to SF from Berkeley, better known as collecting Bay Area road trip inspo. The second time I fell a serious number of times as a consequence of clipless pedals.
- 9 November 2023: Grizzly rematch, the crippling realization that my all-out efforts are everyone else’s cruising efforts, and the start of “surely I’ll train :clueless:” to laying in bed arcs.
- 11 November 2023: Sonoma Coast century. I would’ve rather died than not finished that ride, and it was also the ride that let me know that I could take down RSVP 2024.
- 22 December 2023: a Cupertino classic (I don’t even live there) and a fine alternative to the other agenda I had hoped to have. This was the ride where I learned that I absolutely enjoy the commute - the main portion of the ride was probably 15 miles, but the commute there and back was another 15 each way. Nothing brings me as much serenity as these going from point A to point B through piss poor bike infrastructure.
- 30 December 2023: getting my overly inflated ego from Zwift severely boomed by failing Mt. Um. It’s not the first peak I’ll go on to fail. It was sorely disappointing to come home to chicken, broccoli, and rice after not having eaten anything that day, on top of the failure that was being far too weak for Mt. Um.
- 10 January 2024: random bike ride in Singapore. The bike infrastructure there is great; the weather not so much - it was muggy for the first half, then started downpouring on the way back. My CS70 sweater has still not recovered after that incident. After that, we bankrupted an all-you-can-eat dim sum place.
- 30 January 2024: gateway into 3 Bears, and the second time I didn’t quite finish a ride. Cue the “surely I’ll train :clueless:” to sleeping arc.
- 25 February 2024: third ride to SF from Berkeley, and second time I failed to summit one of the infamous Bay Area peaks - this time Mt. Tam, where I got a devious leg cramp which stopped me from making it up less than a mile from the summit. They don’t call the vastus medialis the teardrop muscle for no reason - that cramp got me moved to tears. Some slight wins though: managed to cruise at around 110W for ~25mi, and set a power record grinding up part of Tam.