May 17, 2008 was the earliest date in the calendar year that Seattle weather has ever exceeded 90°F. Tom Blackwood and I Tom_and_Jeff.jpg embarked on a 40 mile loop from his house on the Sammamish Plateau at 9:30am. First a little neighborhood riding, down the first of many hills, a ride along busy highway 202, then back up and down Union hill in Redmond. We planned a lunch stop in Carnation and kept riding until then with only brief stops Jeff_at_Carnation_Farm.jpg. After lunch we had our first encounter with the Snoqualmie River's reaction to the heat wave; the new Tolt Bridge wasn't open and the approach to the old bridge was flooded Bridge_Problems.jpg. In or der to get to the older bridge we had to vault down an embankment in such a way that we clearly could not go back. I then climbed and descended the Tolt hill for the sake of my qualification scoring while Tom cooled his heels. A little bit further upriver, we both ended up cooling our heels -literally- where the river had flooded our road, choosing to walk a hundred yards rather than get our hubs rinsed Low_point_of_Day_1.jpg. The heat was a real factor in the last couple hours as we continued through rolling farmland then up a big climb back to the Plateau before 5pm.

Statistics generated using Tom's GPS, which we handed off:
Distance: 64.6 km
Ascend & Descend: 863 m
Average speed: 9 mph
Max speed: 16 mph Jeff_at_16mph.jpg
Final Rating: 140
No subjective rating modifiers