Ride Report: Bike Sabbath Bowling 3/28

I woke up yesterday morning with a tough decision to make. My legs ached from Prof. Dave's race the day before, my head swam from the free flowing beer that followed, and my bike had no fenders with the skies threatening almost certain rain. But it was Sunday, which is synonymous with Bike Sabbath, and I was itching to get some more miles on the new Trek (bike check to come). Before long I found myself out front of Fremont coffee with the gang, eyeing the ominous clouds above.

The plan was to head toward Renton for either minigolf at the Family Fun Center or bowling at Acme Bowl depending on the weather (bowling was already looking like the likely choice). To get in some extra miles, we decided to head across I-90 on the way there so we could head up the West side on the way home, completing the southern half of the Lake Washington Loop:

The ride started well enough with mild weather and still air. It was not to last. The wind came first, before we even got to Mercer Island, where we had to keep pedaling to not lose speed even on good descents. Bryan lead a failed campaign for fries at Roanoke Tavern, and we soon lost our first rider to non-weather related causes; Peter decided it was best to head home when it became clear his internally geared hub was trying to kill him.

We continued south, fry-less, taunted by warnings of ducks that never seemed to materialize (we can only assume they were smart enough to see what was coming, and stayed in their homes eating deep-fried potato delicacies). Just as we (or, rather, I) began to get sick of the rolling hills, our route opened up into beautiful downtown Renton. Then the skies opened up as well.

The next few miles are tough to recall. It was pouring, harder than any rain I can readily remember riding in. We were instantly soaked, to the bone. By "we", I mean all of us other than Bryan and Ben, who had sprinted ahead during some earlier confusion, and, I believe, managed to sit out at least some of the heavier rain under the awning of a local business.

As quickly as it picked up, the rain all but stopped as we pulled into Acme Bowl a few miles on. Bryan immediately ordered 12 pounds of fries, Ben butt-stamped every seating surface in sight, and we collectively covered their dining area with acres of spread out wet bike gear. Despite all this, we got surprisingly excellent service, had some tasty beverages, and signed up for a lane as Margaret and Rebecca decided to start their ride home.

Bowling is hard. The game was well-fought, I was briefly in the lead, and there was a lot of swearing in front of children, but I'll let the scores speak for themselves:

After the game and the wettest photobooth shoot ever, we left Daryl to be picked up by car and set off in search of the Green River Trail. Instead we found some big ass (big dick?) barriers, that, despite Bryan's best efforts, could not be ridden through. We looped around, finally found our path, and made excellent time to Loretta's, where we claimed the Airstream trailer out back and Monica led us in a round of group bonding questions (turns out my big-concert-going experiences are decidedly hippy, Ben has some serious punk rock cred in his junior high musical choices, and Monica still may be unclear how babies are made).

We left Loretta's, and travelled over the soon to be closed South Park Bridge into Georgetown where we lost Bryan for home. The group continued up through SoDo, before officially disbanding at 7th and Jackson after 39 miles.

My legs hurt today from two days of riding, my clothes are still wet from the second wettest Bike Sabbath I've been on (and apparently the second wettest ever), and I still have no fenders, but the ride was, as the unofficial two-week-old motto of Bike Sabbath suggests, wicked tits.

Be sure to check out more photos from Jeni and Bryan on Flickr.

Bike Sabbath is an open ride that meets at Fremont Coffee (map) every Sunday, departing by 12:30 sharp. Details of each ride are posted beforehand on Twitter and Facebook.