Valentines Day Bike Extravaganza: Chilly Hilly on Bainbridge Island

Every February on a Sunday bike riders from the Puget Sound area meet up for the "Chilly Hilly" on Bainbridge Island for a mass riding. The Island will be jammed!

So we (Kamil, Maggie and I) decided to use this encridibly "sickening hallmark holiday" to get our romantically unentangled asses on our bikes and circle the Island where boats get stuck ON piers.

Now, Islands are supposed to be flat, small and pretty convenient to travel on, right? Bainbridge doesn't go by these rules. It is supposed to be a beautiful touristy island, but it also has it's little brutal ways of sneaking up on you.

The hills come across pretty tame in the beginning. Sure, we went up and down for about two hours, but nothing worth mentioning. That had nothing to do with us not finding the right track or anything of course!

After a while, however, the hills got hillier and hillier and after almost five hours of riding we had gotten pretty sick of hills.
See the chart from the Chilly Hilly website to get an idea why:

We were on our way back when we saw our return ferry coming in from the city.

Our last energy went into a frantic sprint to get the ferry...of course there was yet another hill... and yet another... we made it just in time! I have no idea how we managed to ride our bikes back to Fremont, but I have this funny feeling my thighs will tell me the story tomorrow...

Pimp my Place: México in Fremont and my cool roomies

AMPUniverse:
I have been here in my new place Fremont now for a while. Time to introduce the inhabitants and space of the AMP (Amanda-Maggie-Paul) Universe! Since you already know me... sort of... here are my new roomies:

Amanda is very calm and quiet. She likes to keep the apartment clean and tidy and leads us with a good example on that. She studied philosophy and religion, worked in bioengineering, used to be a baker and now she does contract work in book keeping. She is very athletic and regularly bruses her butt on a snowboard. Although her taste in music is sometimes questionable (Timberland? Really now?), she is really cool and laid-back... at least when not working ;-).

Maggie is a little more lively. We seem to have quite a lot in common... except for one tiny little flaw that she has: She's vegetarian! However, I'm trying to be very tolerant about it - although I can't help myself and offer her meat every time I get a chance. Maggie used to work in PR and is now doing time work jobs to keep afloat in the economy. She introduces me to new music and makes fun of me all the time. We have this little brother-sister vibe going, although it is yet to be determined who is the older sibling ;-).

My room:

In memory of my Mexico trip, I have decided to dedicate my room to travel.

Unfortunately the ceiling won't support somebody to sleep in the hammock, but it still makes for a nice atmosphere.

The cover makes for a great "wallpaper" - and it covers the ugly yellow beghind it ;-).