Nick and I rode from my house to Tiger Mountain via Snoqualmie Falls on Saturday morning, a great little 42-mile ride with quite a few good climbs. I have learned a few things:

• I am an idiot. We stopped at Snoqualmie Falls, where we took pictures with our camera phones. Moments ago, thinking I had successfully uploaded those photos to my computer, I deleted them from my camera. It’s a shame I didn’t check to make sure the transfer went well, though, because it didn’t. Those photos are gone, daddy, gone. Q. What’s worse than a fat gadget geek cyclist? A. A fat gadget geek cyclist who doesn’t know what he’s doing.
• I am not the only idiot. Part of the ride we were on overlapped the Flying Wheels Summer Century the Cascade Bicycle Club puts on each year. As we continued on, though, we kept seeing riders who had evidently missed the (very obvious) course markers and were now trying to reconnect. One guy in particular seemed in bad shape — he was on a tricked out time trialist bike, but, even though he had only gone 25 miles, was completely whipped. And he was 10 miles off course. And he was furious at the event organizers. Which made me think: any time you have open registration for a popular event, you’re bound to have a few people who are unable to follow course markings, no matter how clearly placed. And some of those people will be unable to take responsibility for their mistake. This epiphany led to the following Mental Note to Self: Never become a race / event organizer. This is followed by another Mental Note to Self: Always express appreciation to race / event organizers, to counteract the idiots who — alas — fail to realize they are, in fact, idiots.
• I learned a new term: "Dan Henry". I am lucky enough to live close to a road that borders on the rural. This road acts as an artery to a number of country roads, which are of course great for cycling events. Until Nick told me on Saturday, though, I didn’t realize that the course markings — spray painted circles with directional arrows coming out of them — are called "Dan Henry’s." Now, I’ve noted before that I’m tentative when it comes to exploring different roads and trails, the result of which is that I wind up doing the same ride over and over. Well, this morning I decided to follow the Dan Henry’s for the Flying Wheel course — partly out of curiousity as to whether there was justification for all the lost souls I saw on the road last Saturday, and partly to see what other roads are good for cycling near where I live. And I am so glad I did. The road took me along a number of farms, through rolling, twisting woods, through Carnation, and up Issaquah / Fall City Road, which is incredible: wooded, twisty, climby. So the 30 mile ride I meant to do this morning before work wound up being a 50-miler, and I discovered that I live in a much more beautiful area than I previously thought. Tomorrow, I think I’ll follow the John Henry’s for the Tour de Cure route (and I’ll make sure I sign up to do these events next year, to avoid Poacher guilt). I need to get myself a map of the area and start figuring out how all these roads interconnect.

Today’s Weight: 174.0. This was the most concerted weight-loss effort of my life. I’m not sure that subsisting on grapefruit and lemon-water for a weekend is really the smartest way to drop weight long-term, but I had money on the line. So now the jackpot goes to $100, and I’ve got to lose another 2 lbs this week, this time without resorting to drastic measures (if at all possible).