Be, look, feel

Saturday, 28 June

A couple of weeks ago, Candi told me, "if you can't BE good, you've gotta LOOK good." Well, that's about others' perceptions (how you stack up against them, or how you look to them). Today was all about me. I FELT good. I did a favorite 4-hour ride that I do most frequently when it's 40 degrees colder, probably wet, on my heavy rain bike, and all bundled up in layers and layers of clothes. Today was jersey and shorts and race bike weather, with a tailwind for about 75% of the ride somehow. I was riding solo, so there was nobody to make me feel old and slow. I probably didn't LOOK good (my pink summer jersey doesn't quite match my team shorts) but I FELT great.

How different things look at the end of June than they do all winter! I didn't realize how many of the trees and shrubs along the route are deciduous; there was lush greenery everywhere. The flower farms in the Snoqualmie Valley are in full bloom, and one of the raspberry farms had boxes and boxes of bees stacked at the ends of rows for pollination. The corn isn't going to be knee high by the 4th of July but it's on its way.

Just before I turned off the West Snoqualmie Valley Road for Tualco Valley, I was waved to the shoulder by a motorcycle WSP cop going the opposite direction, lights flashing. OK, I stopped. Another moto went by. Then nothing, so I kept riding. Pretty soon 2 more cops come along, so I stop and get off the bike. Still nothing. Then a WSP car, followed by 60 recreational (?) motorcycles. Some were ridden by the stereotypical big guy on his Harley, but some were ridden by petite women and a whole diverse variety of other folks. A lot of them waved at me. In total, this group, with its own rolling enclosure, had 10 or 11 WSP motos plus the car. But we can't get rolling enclosures to race our bikes....