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Team Bikeman -
Race Reports
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Written by Joel Liefke
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Thursday, 01 March 2007 |
Chilly Hilly 2007
Bainbridge Island, WA
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Well the first organized ride of the season is always an interesting one, and for the past 4 years, that ride for me has been the Chilly Hilly on Bainbridge Island. Usually the Chilly Hilly is anything but Chilly, but as you can guess, it is hilly. This year was an exception with rain and even some snow/sleet during the ride. I’ll get into that a little later, but here is some history on this great event:
The Chilly Hilly has been kicking off the cycling season in the Northwest for the past 34 years. The 33-mile route around Bainbridge Island starts with an early morning ferry ride across Puget Sound from Seattle or you can join the crowd directly on Bainbridge Island. With Chilly February weather and 2,675 feet of Hilly climbing, the name says it all!
This year started off as most, cold and with a ferry ride across the beautiful Puget Sound. Unlike most years where the ride actually heats up after the first ½ hour or so, this one continued to provide rain and yes snow/sleet during the ride. Also, as an added bonus mother nature decided to throw us a curveball, yes it is getting close to spring training, with a nice / consistent 10-15 mph wind. Not even my best Bikeman wear would keep me warm on this day.
The ride is pretty level with some slight rollers for the first 12-15 miles, so pretty uneventful unless you count the guy that went down in front of me on this wet descent that almost took me out, but besides that all was well. Now the odd thing about the Chilly Hilly is that it isn’t just Chilly, but also “Chili.” Yep you guessed it, after the first two brutal hills, there is a chili feed at mile 15. Now my point has always been to be first in first out, as I’m not keen on riding behind people for another 18 miles who just powered down a bowl of chili and a hot dog, or yes, in some cases the dreaded chili dog. Feel free to enter in your greatest white spandex joke here.
The second half of the ride is the hiller of the 2 halves, with a pretty massive mile long hill climb ~2 miles after the chili stop. Yeah, I know what you are thinking, and I won’t even go there. The last part of the ride is pretty rolling without a lot of steep short climbs that have fun with the early season legs, although I actually felt pretty good this year and hammered pretty good on the last part to get in some good early season training. Those rides over the past month have really helped, definitely in a lot better shape than at this time last year.
The only negative part of the ride was the fact that while we were waiting for the next ferry, all 4000+ of us, they opted to let the cars on first while we had to stand out in the cold, rain/snow and freeze. Safe to say that I wasn’t the only one leading the chants of “let us on!”
Another great ride put on by Cascade Bicycle Club and thanks to all of you who supported the ride, another great display!
Joel Liefke
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