Mud Mt Dam

I decided to take Tuesday off after 3 consecutive days of riding and some serious vertical feet in my legs.  However, I was able to contact my friend, David, to arrange an afternoon ride on Wednesday.  The weather was supposed to be nice, partly cloudy,  and above 60 F.  I figured this would be a great day to ride...

Turns out, again, things were not as advertised.  It was above 60, 60.000001 F, but there was some wind and lots of clouds.  Still, it was not a bad day and David was able to join me for the ride.  Because I am gearing up for the TEARs rides, I really need to start climbing more.  As a result, David and I decided what better way to increase the climbing on a ride, than to do repeats of Mud Mt Dam.

If you are unsure what a repeat is, what a repeat is, what a repeat is, then think about how it sounds.  Repeats involve riding up a climb, then down the climb, back up the climb, etc.  You do these until completely mad, bored, or have accomplished your goal.  Since David and I did not have a set goal, we would probably be considered mad when finished.

David and I were lucky enough to have the wind at our backs for the ride out to Mud Mt Dam, and we dealt with almost no wind on climb (very forested).  Since we did not have a set number of repeats in mind, we rode the climb at a pace that made talking difficult.  On the last time up the climb a couple started to waive at us, obviously thinking we had gone mad.  I decided to have fun and yelled, "how the hell do you get off this damn (get it) mountain?"  They started laughing and cheered us on.

In all we did 4 repeats, all above 10 mph, and one HARD effort where I averaged 12.2 mph.  The climb has an average gradient of only 5.1%.  However it is a very difficult climb due to the constant grade variations.  With constant variations it is extremely difficult to find a good rhythm, and I am a rhythm type of climber.  After the 4th repeat we decided to head back home via HWY 410.  This meant two nice, fast descents, and one long drag that is slightly up and into the wind.

David did a lot of work keeping our speed up on the first and second descent, and I rewarded him by killing myself on the long drag in between, fighting the wind and slight upward tilt of the road as I went.  I almost looked liked Tony Martin, due to the drool and snot pouring out of my mouth and nose.

Once in Enumclaw, David and I kept up a good pace, rode side-by-side, and had a good conversation before splitting to head to our respective homes.  All said and done, my ride was 40.6 miles and over 2900 ft of climbing.

I  took off yesterday, am taking off today, but planning on doing an 80 mile ride with some good climbing tomorrow.  So far the weather is not looking great, and there will be some good wind.  Look for a report Tomorrow evening or Sunday morning.

Cheers