The 2018 Summer Northwest Tour

The week after next, RandoGirl and I -- plus seven friends from back in Nashville -- will ride from West Seattle to Everett, Bellingham, Vancouver, Bellingham again, Orcas Island, and Port Townsend, before coming back to West Seattle. Here's the plan:

Friday, June 29

Tom and Judy Spear are coming in Thursday night, and Jeff Bauer, Jill Flowers, Cathie Allanson, and Steve and Joyce Grizzle arrive Friday morning. After we retrieve the van that we will be using during the week, we will assemble and tweak bikes at our house. If we can, we'll get in a ride to make sure everything works, but mostly we'll be just doing last-minute stuff.

A Note About the Van: The last time that I did this route (more or less), I toted my stuff and used panniers; this time, however, we're going more plush by having a minivan with us to carry everyone's bags and offer support on the road. We will share the driving, so at least one day each of us will be in charge of the van. The driver will not really follow the group, but will leap-frogging to previously designated locations where he/she can temporarily unload his/her bike and backtrack the route to get in on some of the fun.

Saturday, June 30

Today we ride through Seattle to Everett, Washington, mostly on some of the multi-use trails that wend their way throughout the city. Highlights include:

• The Elliott Bay Trail, with goes past the piers downtown before passing into a park at the point
• The Ballard Locks (also known as the Hiram M. Chittenden Locks), which enables boats to go from Puget Sound into Lake Washington and Lake Union (20 feet above sea level)
• The Burke-Gilman Trail, Shilsole Marina, and Golden Gardens Park
• A few miles of northern Seattle neighborhoods before getting on the Interurban Trail, which takes us to the edge of Everett

Sunday, July 1

Today is the longest day, with lots of bumps early before we get on flatter calm roads closer to the coast. We're staying in Bellingham tonight. Highlights include:

• Head east over I-5 and the river via roads that look like they should be busy but supposedly are not thanks to bike lanes and cycling-specific accommodations
• Climb
• Ride around Lake Stevens before getting on the Centennial Trail
• After 20 miles of rails-to-trails, head northwest on country roads to Conway to meet the van and maybe get lunch
• Roll through flat coastal country to Edison (nice bakery there)
• Take Chuckanut Drive (which is lumpy) almost all the way into Bellingham

Monday, July 2

Today we leave the country, unless Canada has finally given up on us beforehand and closes the border. They could probably get Mexico to pay for a wall.

Most of today's route uses the Adventure Cycling route that I took four years ago. Highlights include:

• Head out of Bellingham along I-5 via an access road
• Beyond Ferndale, head into rolling farm country all the way up to Blaine
• Cross the border at Blaine
• Get away from traffic by climbing a long hill followed by a long descent into another valley full of farms
• Passing through neighborhoods in the suburbs of Surrey and Richmond via mostly quiet roads, bike lanes, and multi-use trails
• Cross the Fraser River and enjoy Vancouver's architecture, people, and wonderful cycling

Tuesday, July 3

There are no planned rides today, but I will probably noodle around Vancouver some. Maybe we will drive somewhere.

Wednesday, July 4

We celebrate Independence Day by returning to the good ole' U.S. of A., mostly retracing our route from Tuesday. Maybe we will stop at one of the Tim Horton's on the way out of town (I've marked two). Tonight, we will be back in Bellingham, but on the north side of town for a change of pace. There will probably be fireworks downtown.

Thursday, July 5

We will again retrace our route today, but just for the first 20 miles to Edison (did I mention the bakery?). Then we divert so we can go to Orcas Island. Highlights include

• A super-flat ride along the coast on mostly quiet roads to Anacortes
• A boat ride from Anacortes to Orcas Island (hopefully the 3:45 sailing, since the next boat doesn't get us to the island until 8:25 and one hour of daylight may not be enough for the last 14 miles)
• A very hilly ride around Orcas Island to the Rosario Resort (dropping Jeff off in Eastsound)

Friday, July 6

Since I plan to drive today, in the morning I will go out early to climb Mount Constitution. Then I will follow everyone for 50 miles of cycling and 25 miles of ferrying to Port Townsend. Highlights:

• Second breakfast (and picking up Jeff) in Eastsound
• Another boat ride (probably the 12:25 sailing, getting us to Anacortes about 1 pm)
• If we don't eat on the ferry, lunch in Anacortes
• A lumpy ride along the coast to Deception Pass
• Ault Field - last time I was there, the F-16s were doing deafening touch-and-gos
• An even-more-lumpy ride along the coast down to Coupeville (for second lunch)
• Another boat ride to Port Townsend, from which we could then just walk to our hotels (if we catch one of the last ferries)

Saturday, July 7

This is the last day of the tour, and one of the hilliest. Highlights:

• Very rural riding early, passing through vacation/retirement communities in Port Hadlock-Irondale and Port Ludlow
• Crossing the Hood Canal Bridge, followed by more rural roads as we enter Silverdale
• A little more traffic as we go into Bremerton
• Another ferry ride into downtown Seattle
• Back up to West Seattle

My plan is to post a blog about the ride every day, so stay tuned.

The Other West Seattle Route

Another month, another permanent populaire.

For June, I decided to try "the other" West Seattle 100K that starts near our house: RUSA route 2597: West Seattle Edgy. Maybe it was the weather, or maybe it was because I started so early that traffic was light for a lot of it, or maybe it was because there were only five controls that were fairly easy to find, but I liked this route a lot more than the first one.

Since the start is an "open" control in Alki Beach, I wanted to begin at 7 am from Top Pot Donuts. But they don't open until 7 am, so instead I was forced to go to Starbucks.

(For those that don't live in Seattle, even though Starbucks began here most of us don't have a high opinion of their coffee. And none of their pastries are as good as a donut from Top Pot.)

Anyway, after most of a fairly "meh" vanilla latte and scone, I hit the trail right at 7 am.

Even though the sun had been up for over two hours, for some reason the streets were not full of cars ... maybe because it was Saturday. Either way, after cruising south on the edge of West Seattle, the route then turned inland ... and up, of course.

After rolling through a series of mostly quiet roads, I hit the first control in Burien. Then, I crossed over Hwy 509 into a few more hilly roads just north of the airport, before crossing Hwy 599 and then I-5 into Tukwila. The route gets on the Interurban Trail for a bit, then you have to wend your way up onto a sidewalk down along SW Grady Way (which seems to be busy even though it is next to I-405) before turning off on another trail for a bit before you enter an industrial park on the outskirts of beautiful downtown Renton.

Renton always seems to me like a slightly angry community ... like they're pissed off because they're not on Puget Sound and are way down at the bottom of Lake Washington where it starts to get swampy. There are a lot of cycling routes on the south side that pass through there, but mostly they seem to just be doing that: Passing through.

So I passed through Renton and got on the Lake Washington Loop, along with apparently another 50 other cyclists.

This is a nice little road with a decent bike lane. Eventually, you get off the bike lane and onto a multi-use trail that follows I-405 up to Factoria (famous for having a sporting goods store where you can get inner tubes) before crossing the trail along I-90 onto Mercer Island.

The route stays on the I-90 trail across Mercer Island, so you don't get to enjoy the loop south on Mercer Way. But looping down that way would have required another control (although an unscrupulous person could easily find a few shortcuts on this route) and would have made the route too long. Instead, you cross over to ride with a bunch of cyclists on the other side of Lake Washington.

South of Seward Park, you climb up and away from the coast again. I get the feeling that there are a lot of really nice homes between the road and the water there, but you can only see them if you're willing to go down steep roads from which you would then have to climb back up. And, to be honest, you probably couldn't see the houses themselves -- just the lovely gates to those houses.

By the time you see water again, you're in Rainier Beach.

Rainier Avenue is a little busy, but has a bike lane. Since it's busy, they don't do a great job of keeping the bike lane clean, so you have to keep an eye out for glass and other debris. But at least it's fairly flat and gets you down to Renton.

Which you, of course, pass through.

Soon, you are back on the Springbrook Trail for a little bit, right next to this gate into the water treatment plant.

I'm not sure if playing Pokemon is also a fire-able offense or not. You could probably claim insanity, since you have a compulsion to "catch 'em all."

After sidewalk wending my way back onto the Interurban Trail, I got on the Green River Trail near Starfire Sports. There were four fields full of fierce young ladies playing lacrosse there, and I had to gingerly pick my way past their screaming parents watching from the edge of the trail. Then, I was briefly free to ride again.

Of course, it being the beginning of nice weather in Seattle, I soon encountered a conflicting event on the Green River and Duwamish Trails: A half-marathon.

For the most part, I was able to get by the runners with no trouble. But my patience failed me in South Park, and that's why I killed Kenny.

Just kidding. Actually, South Park is another open control on this route, and I stopped at a convenience store to get my card signed and buy a Gatorade. A fellow named Mark approached me in the parking lot and asked why I was limping. I told him briefly about breaking my hip last summer, and he asked to pray for me. Sure, I said. So he did.

That's South Park.

From there, I got back on the usual multi-use trails, which had even more of the runners. As I got closer to the finish and caught a whiff of the barn, I decided to skip the madding crowds and get on W. Marginal Way, along which the Duwamish Trail runs. I was just thinking that I could finish the route in less than five hours when I remembered the very bad railroad tracks there, and looked up to see them just in time to hit them hard enough to give me a pinch flat on the back wheel.

Have I ever told you how much I love Mavic Open Pro rims with Continental Gatorskin tires? I can change a tire with those rims in less than five minutes. Every time.

And, no, the bike that I was riding did not have Mavic Open Pro rims, nor Continental Gatorskin tires. Instead, I was using what Jeff Sammons (the RBA from middle Tennessee) would have called "that light-weight racing crap." Which is why I lost 15 minutes changing the tire on the Duwamish Trail, as half-marathoner after half-marathoner shambled past. But at least I was able to change it and ride on back to Alki Beach. I even ran into RandoGirl there, and she joined me for lunch at Blue Moon Burgers.

I liked this route enough to ride it again. But next time I'm going to start a little later, so I can get that donut. And I'll watch out for those railroad tracks.

Lap of the Lake

The Seattle International Randonneurs (SIR) has this nifty tool linked from their website called "The Perminator," You can go there to peruse a list of all of their routes, or enter criteria for the route you want -- between 100 and 120 kilometers long with less than 2,000 feet of climbing for example -- and see either a list of a map view of the routes that comply with your requirements. From the list you can open a link to the route on RideWithGPS.com to see if it appeals to you. And when you find one that you like, you click another link and register.

There's also an option from the Perminator to view who is riding what, so long as they made their registration public. If you have the flexibility, you can join a public registration.

I've been looking at this page for the past few months, just in case somebody was doing a route on a date and time that worked for me. So far, that hasn't worked out and I keep riding by myself, but it has given me the chance to see which routes are more popular.

Route 1005 -- the Lake Washington-Lake Sammamish Loop -- shows up on the list a lot. So, with some space on my schedule Wednesday afternoon and the weather being almost perfect, I went out and did that.

This route has two variants, with one starting in Issaquah and another in Lake Forest Park. Although both were probably equidistant from our house, I opted for Lake Forest Park for what is really the ultimate reason:

Chocolate.

You see, there's this great store at the little mall there called Chocolate Man, and they have a chocolate-coated caramel that has habanero in it. To some that will sound yucky, but if you're the adventurous type you gotta try it.

So I arrived early enough to eat a quick sandwich at Great Harvest Bread Company next door, and then had one caramel before hitting the Burke-Gilman Trail. I cruised quickly south with a light tailwind through the University and across the bridge at Montlake, then climbed up through Interlaken Park before enjoying some city cycling down to the first control at Stumptown Coffee.

Since it was warm and the middle of the afternoon, I did not get a coffee but instead scarfed a croissant. Then I climbed east, descending back to Lake Washington.

The early commuters had not yet hit the road, so the Lake Washington Loop was fairly devoid of cars. The light wind was still out of the north, and I zipped past Seward Park.

Soon, I was in Renton looking for the information control at the airport.

Just past here I got a bonus mile by following the GPS track, which takes you onto Boeing property. A security officer very nicely corrected my mistake, and I managed to navigate Renton relatively unscathed from there. After another information control, the route took me onto a closed road that seemed to have snow.

This is actually some kind of white fluffy pollen prevalent here. There's enough of it floating around that you have to remember to breath through your nose or risk a massive coughing fit.

Eventually, I hit another road that I had seen riding with the Alki Velo Club a few weeks ago -- May Valley Road. The commuter traffic was in full force by then, so although it is a great cycling road when it is not chock-a-block with cars, right then it was not a great cycling road.

Eventually, May Valley Road ended at Issaquah-Hobart Road. Turning north here, traffic was lighter since apparently everyone who works in Renton lives in Mirrormont or somewhere further southeast. I've done this road a few times, too, and it has a good shoulder for much of the way, and an even better bike lane for the rest of the way in to Issaquah.

By this point in the ride I had managed to do something that I had not done in a while: Drain two bottles. So I was very pleased to stop for a bit and refill my bottles at the convenience store control, as well as eat half a bag of chips and down a big can of Arnold Palmer mix (tea and lemonade). Then I continued north out of town, dodging cars around I-90, and finally finding "the other lake."

I had ridden this road before, too, on the first permanent that I did in Seattle. Today was much nicer, with the wind calming a bit so that I could maintain a fast pace all the way past Sammamish and to Redmond, where I got on the Sammamish River Trail.

The trail was full of folks out having fun, but I was still able to bend the 15-mph speed limit there a bit. Right after the trail turned back into the Burke-Gilman, a cyclist in a skin suit passed me doing 22 mph, and I jumped on his wheel for a mile. When he realized that I was there, he took the pace up a bit. I stuck with him for another mile -- just to show him that I could -- and then backed off and rolled gently into Lake Forest Park for my reward.

Chocolate.