Training for the big event!

LeMond Vs. The Badger 1986

Don't let the picture above fool you I have not been asked to ride the Tour de France, but I did do some training today, and it did involve riding my bike....to coffee.

I have been aware of the Coffeeneuring challenge, now in year 6, for a few years and read others blog accounts of their participation but have never done it myself.  I decided to change that this year and since the event kicks off on October 7th I figured I had better start training.

The basic tenet of the Coffeeneuring challenge is to ride to 7 different coffee shops over 7 weeks, since I live in one of the most coffee addicted and coffee shop dense places on earth, Seattle WA, that shouldn't be a problem.  In fact I found 7 coffee shops that are less than a mile from me and that's not even including the place with the Mermaid mascot.  One of the options of the challenge is to have a theme, so my theme is the coffee shop is less than a mile from my house, which makes things interesting since rule 7 states coffeeneuring rides must be at least 2 miles.  I will be doing some looping for this challenge to meet the two mile minimum, especially since my favorite coffee shop in the world is literally right next door - approximately 55 steps away.

For my training ride I selected a shop that is at the southern limit of my with in a mile rule, its  9/10ths of a mile away.  To get into practice I am logging the details of my practice run:

1. where you went (address and website, if possible); Cafe Ladro, a local chain, West Seattle Location.
2. the date you went there; September 27th -dry run
3. what you drank; Short Irish cream latte
   
4. a detail or two about your coffeeneuring ride, including your assessment of the “bike friendliness” of the location; The ride is a straight shot from my apt. and although the street has "sharrows" and a short section of bike lane its fairly busy so not a great ride route but bike parking is available at Ladro.  
   
5. total mileage. 1.8 miles as this was training I didn't feel the need to loop for extra mileage to hit the 2 mile minimum.

One of the things I like about this particular Ladro location, in addition to the fine coffee, is the adirondack chairs out in front of the shop sheltered under an awning.  In temperate Seattle you can sit out front sipping coffee on all but the foulest of days.

Hopefully I will be up to the challenge of 7 grueling 2 mile coffee rides from October 7th to November 20th.

Until next time Ride, Caffeinate, Smile, Repeat.