Tour Wrap Up

Putting together a rider lead tour is a large undertaking. Instead of hiring a tour company such as Trek Travel or Backroads, we plan and execute the tour as on a rider volunteer basis. It takes a good size team of people to pull this off.

The detail planning starts in January with the selection of the ride location, often from a selection of several possibilities.  This year, the tour coordinator, A.K.A cat hearder, was Kevin. we also had a team of folks working our the hotel accommodations, a team for dinner and breakfasts locations, a transportation coordinator to take care of truck rentals and bike rentals, a ferry coordinator to figure out the ferry details and a route coordinator who took the information from the hotel group  and the ferry coordinator to plot the routes. Finally the tour treasurer estimates the trip expenses and sets the budget for the hotels, dining and other expenses. The treasurer also monitors the expenses during the tour to insure that all the tour bills will be paid.

By planning our own tour, we have the ability to control the daily ride length and the tour duration. Many of the commercial tours are a week long. Our riders often request a longer tour length. This tour was 13 riding days.

Over the years, technology has enabled better communications. We set up a website to coordinate the trip planning and all the routes were on an app called RideWithGPS that allowed a wide range of GPS devices to download the daily routes. The need for paper maps and route directions are no longer required because of the widely used bike GPS devices 

By the numbers

• 10 ferries

• 13 cycling days

•  664 miles total miles

• 51 miles daily average

• 72 miles longest day 

• 37 miles shortest day

The ride has finally come to the end. Friday night, I packed up my bike into the bike box that the bike was shipped to Seattle in for Monday pick up from the hotel. Saturday morning (7/26/25) I climbed on the plane for an early flight to to Los Angeles Airport (LAX).  It's now Thursday (7/31/25) and my bike has arrived at home via UPS. I reassembled the bike, pumped up the tires and took it on a test ride. It's now time to mark this tour complete and prepare for my next tour, Paris to Milan.

2025 - Pacific Northwest Ferries

A huge part of this 13 day tour of the Pacific Northwest Tour is not the routes, the hills or the many towns that we visited, but it's the 10 ferry rides that we took between the bike routes. All the ferries where much larger that I had imagined and we operated by 3 different companies ( Washington State Ferries, Black Ball Ferry Lines and BC Ferries)

Mark was in charge of making all the ferry arrangements. The details for each of the ferries included number of people, including rides age for senior citizen rates, tickets for the 2 vehicles (luggage truck and SUV support vehicle and the departure and arrival times that would be our routing constraints. He developed a very detailed spreadsheet to make sure that all connections were made and everything ran like clockwork.

The huge ferries included drive on drive-off ramps for vehicles of all sizes and the embarking and disembarking of bikes, cars and pedestrian passengers were operated with precision. After all, these were transportation carriers with a tight schedules to keep. 

Below you can see the gaping hold of one of the several ferries we rode on

Bikes were allowed to enter the ferries first almost exclusively which allowed us to fully comprehend the volume capacities of the ferries   

Boarding early, we would lock up our bikes in the ferry hold and walk up a flight of starts to the passenger lounges. The lounges comprised of many rows of very comfortable seats  Some of our trips lasted 90 minutes or so while others were more brief at 30 minutes or less.

On board amenities would include restrooms and a concessions with snacks and drinks. I noted that the first ferry we took from Seattle to Bainbridge Island had posters announcing happy hour food and drinks for the commuters.  Sometimes the ferry would include a gift shop. 

The cargo carrying capacity was almost always fully utilized with vehicles filling all available space from one end of the ferry to the other 

Weather permitting, the views of the passing landscape could be breathtaking and memorable. Once were saw, way off in the distance, and orca. So we got both whale watching and transportation on a single ticket. 

Not all ferries where behemoths. Some were more of a single open platform and the best seating on the upper outside decks. 

Ferry Photo Album

Brian

Day 13 - Seattle Loop

Final day of the trip and we're squeezing one more ride. We're down to 4 riders taking one final spin of the peddles. Many of the other rides are taking a walking tour of Seattle or the day off. Three of the riders, Chris, Cathy and Mark are riding to the 25 mile mark to meet up with the luggage truck before turning in their rental bikes.

I returned to the Ramada Inn via the Lake Washington shore route. A very pleasant ride with the view of Lake Washington and the homes along the route. As a final tour ride, it was a cherry on top

The final four, Chris, Brian, Cathy and Mark

Today's Photos

Brian

Day 12 - Ride to the Spheres

Today I did an alternate solo route. The rest of the group took the scheduled route from Snohomish to the hotel, 

Chris, my nephew who works for Amazon on the east coast, was in town on a business trip and invited me to give me a tour of the Amazon Spheres in downtown Seattle.

The trip allowed me to enjoy some of Seattle's biking infrastructure that crisscrosses the city and exposes you to it's many smaller communities. A real pleasure that many cities can learn from.  

Some of the paths were tree lined

I also came along a street that was reserved for pedestrians and cyclist that only local traffic was allowed. I've seen this type of street in other cites that allowed commuting cycle "highways" between points without building new roads exclusively for bicycles and pedestrians. 

Upon arriving, I met Chris outside the Spheres, the Spheres are only open the the public on scheduled days. Being an employee, he was able to badge me in and show me around.

You step inside the big glass domes and its filled with plants of all descriptions. Walking through the multi-story structure is similar to being in a huge terrarium. The temperature is warm and humid. But I don't know of any terrarium that has a coffee bar in it. We had time to chat while sipping coffee and taking in the view. The structure is set of multi-story platforms that allow you to wander freely amount the plants and water features.

I had a schedule to keep as I had 18 more miles to the hotel and Chris needed to return to his meetings. So off I peddled and he return to work. As I left, I took a couple for photos of the exterior. If you take a look in at the photos, you will note that the it's not a single glass bubble, but multiple bubbles, almost like if they were blown by a child with a bubble wand. From the view angle, I could imagine that the bubbles were in the shape of a water molecule or maybe my eyes were playing tricks on me.

Today's route, captured below is broken into two parts. Snohomish to the Spheres and the Spheres to the hotel. Most of the day was very pleasant, sunny and in the upper 60's and as I got closer to the end lower to mid 70's 

Today's Photos

Brian

Day 11 - Oak Harbor Road Cycling

Falling behind on my blog. Will catch up when shortly. Some  

photos and ride recordings in the meantime.

Today's Photos

Day 10 - Crossing the Mighty Bridge... Again!!!

 Today's ride, we retraced portions of our previous ride, this time from Anacortes to Oak Harbor. The route included a trip back across Deception Pass Bridge. We had to factors in our favor that made the return trip less stressful. First we were crossing earlier in the day and second were crossing it on a weekday not Saturday as we did previously.

Again most of us arrived as a group and had sometime to take photos. Traveling from the north to the south the view of the bridge is better. As we rounded the bend before the bridge, a ride side turn out gave us some time to take pictures and organize ourselves. In addition Cathy was driving the SUV and would pull out behind us to provide a moving block between us and any traffic behind us.

When the coast was clear, the group moved out on the roadway and smoothly crossed the bridge and we were on our way. 

The rest of the ride was uneventful reaching the lunch at 11:30 where Rick and Cathy had set up the tables with all the fixings. It was only about 10 miles to the Motel and I the way, Peter and I stopped for Ice Cream a short distance from the end.

It was getting in a bit early and relax a bit. Tomorrow will be a longer day with a ferry ride.

Today's Photos

Brian

Day 9 - A Three Hour Tour

 Nice ride today. Two ferries, one island. Our destination was San Juan Island. We took a 70 minute ferry ride from Anacortes to San Juan Island. I gotta tell you, they have some mighty big ferries in in the Pacific Northwest!!

You head down to the terminal before the ferry arrives and you see this huge boat come into view and dock head on. They load the bikes on first and park them in designated spots and hurry up stairs to the passenger lounge and find a spot in one of may places on the upper deck 

These boats are huge

Since the bikes load on first you get to see how cavernous the holding area of the boats are. The scale is enormous! This route must be very popular. The interior of the ferry was filled with vehicles of all sorts.

From the huge dump trucks loaded first to the passenger cars loaded last every spot was taken. 

There were also lots of day tourist like us heading to the island to relax, tour the island, shop and eat.

Our agenda for the day was to circumnavigate the island and to return on the 3:50 PM ferry. Of course there was to be coffee, snacks and ice cream on the way. The route was only 36 miles, however, like all the other islands We have visited, there will be lots of climbing. I just don't know if there is even a flat spot anywhere in this set of islands.

Off we went. The weather, perfect sunny blue skies. The temperatures cool enough to have jackets at the start and removing them a couple of miles into the ride as we began to warm up a bit. Just 10 miles into the ride we reached a very upscale seaside community called Roche Harbor. I know it was upscale because we passed a small airport where we spotted several twin ending private aircraft and a handful of private jets. Just wondering, is this where the rich and famous escape to say out of the public eye?

Well they didn't keep this band of cyclists out. We cruised through the center of town and lollygagged, sipping coffee and nibbling on danish. After a while we were reminded that we were on a schedule and if we wanted to loop the island and make the last ferry of the day, we need to finish the coffee and take the last bit of the danish. And with that we were off, climbing out of town under huge overhanging trees

Cycling is a silly sport. you work like crazy just to push your bike with skinny tires along the road. If you are cruising like today, maybe 15 miles per hour, you hit a hill and if you are lucky maybe you're climbing at 8 miles per hour while keeping your eye on the road looking for the crest to come into view so that you can do it all over again. But on a day like today, you feel the cool ocean air flowing over your skin and cadence of the pedals and the air rushing out of you lungs. You have the opportunity to feel alive as you balance on the bike, keeping your eyes open for any road obstructions and your mind constantly performing calculations of your current speed versus the distance to the top of the hill or whether to squeeze the brakes a bit more or a bit less as you are descending a hill and if with your current speed, if you can make it to the top of the next hill. Spoiler alert, you very very rarely every have enough to make it to the top. But your mind is always running the calculations.

You remember the dump trucks on the ferry this morning? Well later this afternoon I discovered why they were here. A large road construction project was going on and road signs were diverting traffic from the area. Well of course a little bike could find a way to scamper through the construction, surly? So even though the other riders took the proper precautions and followed the recommended detour, I figured to try my luck.

A couple of miles past the detour, I hit the construction area. A women with a stop / slow sign waved me on and said the construction was about a mile and a half long. The top surface was removed for repaving leaving a hard gravel surface that was rideable. Not a lot of fun, but I could manage. About a football field length into the gravel, my phone with the turn by turn directions alerted me to turn right onto a nicely paved road. I smiled figuring the the cycling gods were just playing with me a bit.

I was only a couple of miles away from the ferry landing in Friday Harbor an made a left hand turn to the North and the cycling gods rewarded me with a wonderful cook tailwind all the way into town. I ran into Chris and Kevin who arrived earlier and we found a wonderful ice cream shop. By the time we finished it was time to board the return ferry to Anacortes where dinner was in our future. A wonderful day to remember.

Today's Photos

Brian

Day 8 - Deception, From gloomy to sunny

 Today was an interesting ride from Port Townsend WA to Anacortes WA. It involved a ferry ride from Port Townsend to Coupeville, about 35 minutes then head north across the Deception Pass Bridge and into the town of Anacortes, a nice town that I expect we'll have a chance to explore since we'll be spending 2 night here.

We woke to a very cool and gloomy day. Cloudy with temperatures in the low 50's and as we exited the ferry in Coupeville, you could almost feel rain drops. Maybe yes, maybe no, but the entire group headed off. My legs were feeling a bit beat from yesterday's ride and it was slow going until the legs stopped complaining. I'm not pretending to know anything about chemicals in the body, but I've been told that the aches you feel in your muscles after a hard day of riding is because of a build up of Lactic acid. All I know is after about 10 miles I was able to pick up the pace a bit. Or maybe it was because by 11 AM the clouds had dissipated and the warm Sun came out casting shadows and warming the air. We stopped to remove some of our cool weather gear and moved on.

Lunch was at the 16 mile mark and Rick, with the luggage truck found a wonderful location for the picnic and by the time we had arrived, the tables and picnic food was all set up.

Below is a great ad for this ride, bike all day and get to sit on the ground to eat!

In the title of this blog I used the word "Deception". That's because we need to cross the two lane, 1930's era bridge called "Deception Pass Bridge". During the planning of this trip there was much discussion on the best way for the group to cross this expanse. Whether to walk across the pedestrian walkway or to bike on the walkway of whether to cross as a group and "take a lane" and force the the cars to follow us.

Our group of about 8 or 10 riders huddled on the road side about 1 mile or so from the bridge and decided to try to cross as a group if the conditions permitted. As we got closer to the bridge, the traffic slowed bumper to bumper, almost walking speed. This was our chance. We found a gap between a set of cars and moved into the open space side by side taking the lane. The bridge surface was smooth asphalt and we proceeded across. I kept my eyes forward focusing on the road ahead so I didn't look back to see how badly we were slowing the cars behind us. I assume that the cars weren't too upset with us since no one tried to pass us and I didn't hear any horns blaring. Shortly after the bridge, we made a left hand turn to follow our route and I saw a stream of cars moving at a similar pace as our bicycles. In a couple of days, we'll be traveling back across the bridge in the opposite direction and I assume that we'll use the same approach. 

As we got close to the end of the ride, ice cream was spotted. A great way to end a ride.

Today's Photos

Brian

Day 7 - Gotta Move today

Yesterday the it was decided that our planned route from Port Angeles to Port Townsend had a dicey section in it and either had to shuttle the riders through a mountain pass or add additional miles to go around the pass and add extra miles. The alternate bypass route requires about 8 additional miles.

Some of the riders selected the shuttle option and five of us chose the alternate bypass route.  

We woke up in Victoria BC today, a beautiful city where a classic car show is in town. Just so many restored cars, mostly Fords were running around town. I created a photo album just for these cars.

Today's ride started in Port Angeles and we took a ferry from Victoria BC to Port Angeles, boarding at 10 AM. The transit took about 90 minutes and by the time we arrived at Port Angeles, cleared customs and mounted the bikes it was close to 12:30 PM. We advised riders to snack on the ferry because the lunch stops was moved to the 25 mile mark meaning that most riders would be arriving at lunch in the 2:30 to 3 PM time frame. The late start also meant the the riders with the new 61 mile route would have to keep the pace up to make it to Port Townsend in time for dinner. 

We did have a powerful plus in our favor today, As you can see in the forecast below, for most of the trip we would have the wind to our backs for most of the trip with some head winds toward the end. The pace was set primarily by Warner. At one point of the trip, before lunch, he was setting a 20 MPH pace. With the 4 of us hanging just hoping to not drop off the back. It was a ball.

Lunch had been moved to about 25 miles into the ride at the same John Wayne Marina that we had lunch on the outbound Port Townsend to Port Angeles trip a few days ago. The lunch was brief as we were looking at the clock. There were many more miles to go and we wanted to get to Port Townsend in time to check into the hotel and shower up in time for dinner. We had to keep moving.

With the time crunch on, we were able to maintain our energy levels, drinking water and eating snacks on the move. We even passed up an opportunity to stop for ice cream!!

The miles flew past. by the 50 mile mark, we had climbed the high point of the day and on the descent. About 12 mile to go and we were on the home stretch. We were very fortunate that the temperature had remained cool for the entire trip, high 50's in the morning (requiring jackets) and now in the later afternoon it was in the low 60's. Temperature is critical in an endeavor like this. When it's too hot, it just draws the energy out of you.

As you get closer to town, you start counting down the miles. We're still keeping the pace up and the signs start to indicate that Port Townsend is drawing closer 12 miles, 8 miles and finally 4 miles. You look at the time on the GPS computer and you realize that you may make it to the hotel by 6 PM.

A couple more traffic circles and one or two traffic light and you spot the marina just south of the hotel and then you make the final turn on the street leading to the hotel. You're there! Check in, have a beer in the lobby, drag your bags to your room and take a shower.

It was a great day to be alive. Not many photos today, we were too busy moving.

Today's photos

Brian

Day 6 - Everybody Drives the Car - Butchart Gardens July 18, 2025

 For this ride we are fortunate to have 2 vehicles. A large Penske truck to move our luggage and lunch supplies and a second SUV to be our support car, called a SAG, to run errands and provide support to riders as we bike along.

Today I got to drive the support car. The highlight of today was a stop at the world famous Butchart Gardens. I have to admit that I know nothing of it's history but I was aware that it's a truly world class attraction with breathtaking display of floral colors. The "Sunken Garden" takes advantage of the features of the geography to produce a outstanding pallet of floral colors. If you google sunken garden, Butchart Gardens pops up.

The Sunken Gardens is only one section of this outstanding display. In talking to one of the swarm of gardners I was struck number of times during the year that the garden bed are ripped up and replanted to take advantage of the season in order to keep the colors alive.

Our Butchart Gardens photo album is located (here). Please take a couple of minutes to browse the photos. In the Pasadena, we have 3 beautiful gardens (Huntington Gardens, Los Angeles Arboretum and 

Descanso Gardens). All of them are beautiful, but the lushness and color of the Butchart Gardens is unsurpassed.  

Today we also stumbled on the beauty of a different kind, classic cars. Every three years, Victoria hosts "Duece Days" where classic cars roam the streets. Many of the owners of the cars are staying at the hotel that we are stay at and roaming the hotel garage is like walking through a museum of classic cars. I set up a separate photo album for cars that we spotted in town and at the hotel.

Tomorrow promises to be an adventure, check back.

Butchart Gardens Album

Classic Car Album

All the Best,

Brian

Day 5 - Short ride, STEEP HILLS!!

 The mileage for today's ride was fairly short. Less than 45 miles total, plus two ferry rides. Pretty simple, hun?  From the motel in Cowichan to the ferry in Crofton. Fourteen miles in just over an hour. A short ferry ride to Vesuvius Bay on Saltspring Island then 25 miles to Fulford Harbor and another ferry ride to Swartz Bay and finally a short 4 mile ride to the hotel. How easy could that be?

It turns out that if the route on Saltspring Island has numerous 18% grades, then the ride can be pretty challenging.  Looking at the second GPS recording below, you will note that the route takes a large fish hook around the north side of the island. The road is shaped this way because the it's trying to avoid the large chunk of rock in the following photo in the middle of Saltspring Island. The photo was taken from our hotel across the bay as we were biking to the first ferry this morning.

We arrived at Saltspring Island and biked across the gangplank and boom!! A 18% grade was waiting for us. Eighteen percent grade simply means that for every 100 feet you move forward, you ascend 18 feet in height.  A 3 or 4 percent grade is noticeable. Six percent is a maximum design grade of a highway and 18 percent means that, if you can, you shift down to your lowest gear and stand on your peddles and make each stroke as if you were climbing a set of stairs for multiple flights of stairs, you finally make it to the top and zoom downhill only to be confronted with and another 16, 17 or even 18% grade at the bottom. 

Slowly, ever so slowly each of us slowly climbed our way up each hill. Our destination? Small town of Ganges where we'll stop for lunch. Ganges is a tourist town that has many shops and restaurants scattered about. Our group exchanged group messages between each other as we announced where we were stopping for lunch. Before long, it was time to catch the second ferry of the day to Swartz Bay. To catch the ferry, the largest climb of the day was in front of us. We had a small group of 4 riders and near the top and picked up 2 more along the way. 

We had a ferry to catch and needed to be at the ferry landing by 3PM. Gotta keep moving. After the last bit of climb, we zoomed down to the landing, with minutes to spare for the 3 PM meet up, only to see the ferry pulling away. Turns out that the schedule had changed and therefore had to wait for the next ferry in about 90 minutes.

We hung out at the general store, munching on ice cream, soda and snacks. Not a bad way to spend our time waiting. We discovered a water mister near the landing that was thoughtfully set up where you could trigger a mist of water for 30 seconds or so. I the hot afternoon Sun, it felt sooo go.

The ferry soon arrived and we boarded it. The ride was about 30 minutes and we were seated on the upper deck and watched the world go by as we cruised past the beautiful scenery.

Upon docking, the ride to the hotel was a fairly quick and flat and only 4 miles.

Another day to remember 

Today's Photos

Brian

Day 4 - Trestles and Totems oh my!!

Woke up in the beautiful city of Victoria today. We arrived yesterday via ferry yesterday and took the short ride from the ferry landing to the Chateau Victoria Hotel. I'm not here to do hotel reviews, but it is without a doubt the one of the nicest hotels that I have stayed in. Huge multi room suites and wonderful staff. This morning breakfast was on the top floor surrounded by bottom to top glass windows looking out on the inner harbor.

We started our ride today on the Galloping Goose Trail. It passes within a short block from the hotel and took us from the inner harbor through the dense inner harbor through the city to the outskirts of the city. I should have talked photos of the path because it was so much of a pleasure to ride, safe, well maintained any heavily used by the morning commuters. Maybe that is one of the key indicators of a good bike paths. If you can design a set of interconnecting paths that commuters would prefer to use than climbing into a car, then you will have a successful system.

Our ride today was, by our touring standards, fairly short and involved a 30 minute ferry ride. We have 10 ferry rides scheduled for this trip and this one was number 3. The Galloping Goose Trail took us 4 miles from the start and our route took us off the trail on to well marked residential streets toward our ferry almost 15 miles from the start. At 7 miles the path turned into a tree covered winding dirt path which many of our riders were looking for an exit back onto asphalt roads while the rest of us found the path to be pretty fun, it not challenging.  If I was to route the ride again, I would have had an alternate ride for the asphalt riders though we would have to share the road with morning traffic.

In about and hour and a half we arrived in time for the ferry. When taking the ferries we need to arrive early enough to queue up. Some ferries require reservations, some ferries don't. Today, it was first come, first served. It was small compared to the two huge ferries we have taken so far. When it was time to board, the bikes and passengers were first followed by the cars. The 30 minute trip was enjoyable as we seated on the upper deck bench seats, taking in the view while chatting with other passengers.

On the far side, Mill Bay, lunch awaited us. Rick had selected a new lunch spot for us since the original location was not suitable. After a short 10 miles, including another dirt path, we all arrived safely. After lunch, the two main attractions were still in front of us, the Kinsol Trestle bridge and totem poles in the town of Duncan.

The Kinsol Trestle bridge must be pretty famous because if you google "trestle bridge" a picture of the Kinsole Trestle shows up. It's huge and imposing and we were able to ride across it. The height can make you dizzy if you look down from mid-span.

Our next stop  was the town of Duncan. If you google; "What is Duncan BC known for" it will tell you that it's the "City of Totems". Take some time in the town and learn about the art of the totems and how each tells a story. I set up a Totem Pole album to capture some of the ones we came across.

Found a very nice bike shop. Very handy, my front chain ring had not be shifting properly and the shop, Cycle Therapy, was able to fix me up in no time. If you are in town, be sure to stop in and say hi to the helpful and knowledgeable staff. From there is was only about 6 miles to the hotel. A very nice day on the bike indeed.

Today's Photos

Happy Biking

Brian

Day 3 - Exciting and Exhausting

This trip has been set up by a committee of riders with trip planning starting in January of this year. I'm not sure of the exact number of volunteers, but it must of been a dozen with Kevin as the "Chief Cat Herder".  A team of took care of the hotels, another team took care of the dinner and breakfast, one person for the ferries and I took care of the daily ride routing. 

When I laid out the ride to Hurricane Ridge, from Port Angeles to the top of a local mountain, it didn't seem to be anything special. Only 40 miles out and back. A nice climbing ride, but nothing special. When you are routing the ride, sometimes you miss details. The detail I missed was it had over 5,000 feet of climbing 20 miles. A very substantial climb in a short amount of miles.

We started from the Super 8 Motel at about 8:30 AM following the route, that on paper didn't look too intimidating, but in short order, we rode through residential neighborhood started with  some very steep inclines just to get to the start of the Hurricane Ridge access road.  Typical steep roads are about 6%, but in no time, the Garmin GPS started to report 9% then 10% until we were a couple of miles up the road, we were facing 15% inclines. Peer pressure is a powerful incentive. You look around, everyone is still moving forward and some riders are even starting to pull away. So you reach down and find the energy. You start to find your pace, trying to find a speed that you can maintain. In the back of your mind, you know that they don't build roads that are 15% and that the road is gotta level out at some point. If you can just hang in there for a while maybe it will all work out. You know that several miles up, there is an entrance gate. Maybe you'll finally bail on the ride at that point. At least that would be a some good showing and you keep moving on. By this point, your jersey is dripping in sweat as you over heat, then a cool morning breeze brushes against you and chills you to bone only to the the cycle repeat.

You keep looking at your cycle computer. You know at the start of the climb, it's 17 miles from the start. Maybe 1/2 way is good enough for today. Maybe, 1/2 others will have turned back. Maybe, by the 1/2 point and it will flatten out and slowly, ever so slowly, you reach the entrance gate. The ranger asked if I'm with the cycle group, if so the group rate has already been paid.

In another mile or so, our support vehicle being driven Kristin and Rick pulls up besides us, they will meet us up the road a bit with snacks and water. Can't turn around now, there is some snacks ahead.

We caught up the them with 8 more miles to the top. Filled up with water and more snacks and were off. The ride was really wearing my down at this point and I figured that if I would bike a mile and take a break, sip some water, take a couple of bites from a cliff bar and resume, the I could break the ride into 8 stops. To break each mile down into bit size chunks, I resorted to a game that Jim and Lauri Young would play at the end of a long ride. We would imagine the last ten miles of a favorite ride and think of what we where we would be at those mile points as we counted down to the destination. I this case, I have the last mile to my house memorized and I imagined what cross street I would be at each tenth of a mile; crossing Huntington Drive, crossing Cynthia St, crossing McLean St, crossing Almansor St, crossing Grand Ave and finally turning into my home. Stop, drink some water, take a couple of bites to eat and start the cycle again. After 8 cycles, I would be at the top. What was the Yogi Berra's quote; Baseball is 90% mental and the other half is physical. Well today I was playing the mental part of the equation and it got me to the top.

After a bit of a celebration at the top of the hill with the riders who made it to the top before us it was time for the descent. Adrienne, Leigh and myself started down the winding hill and the air was pretty chilly as we started to pick up speed. The road surface was in great condition. No significant bumps as we continued to pick up speed. It was pretty neat to see on the 17 mile descent, the distance between the riders stretching out on the straight sections then compressing as we entered curves then stretching out again on the next straight section. I would glance down at my cycle computer occasionally as my speed was ever increasing. Always hoping that I had not missed any defects in my tires this morning because having a blowout at these speeds would be very very painful.

Having a high speed downhill ride of 17 miles is just unbelievable! Holding on to the brakes through the turns will cause your hands to cramp up and you try to relax them on the straights and move the fingers a bit to get the blood flowing for the next turn. But before you are ready, you are approaching town and need to  ease back on the speed.

It was 4 hours up and only 40 minutes or so on the way down and it was a blast of a lifetime.

A very exciting day indeed. 

Today's Photos

Happy Biking

Brian

Day 2, Port to Port

 Yesterday we biked from Seattle to Port Townsend and today we head west on the Olympic Peninsula to Port Angeles. Which is almost directly west of Port Townsend. Whereas yesterday's route was mostly north south, today's route will travel from East to West. If you look at the map closely, you will see at today's route follows bike routes more often than not. A nice change from yesterday where we often shared the roads with cars. 

Before we joined the route, Brooke took several of us on a tour of Port Townsend. A quaint town with brick multi-story building lining the main thoroughfare. We stopped at the marina at the far end of the street to enjoy some espresso and bakery goods. We had just left the hotel's breakfast, but to have some really good coffee and bakery goods was truly worth the stop.

Next to the coffee shop (Velocity) are boat works that specialize in wood boat construction. We were there before they were open, so we peered through the windows and saw many gorgeous wooden boats undergoing repairs, reimbursement and  construction. We'll be returning to Port Townsend latter in our tour. I'll make it a point to investigate Port Townsend at that time. Hopefully when the business is open.

If you look at the map below, you will see that the first 5 miles were on unpaved trails. The surface was hard packed earth and our bikes, even with skinny tires, was easy to ride on. The morning air was cool in the upper 50's, just perfect for biking. 

We reached the lunch stop at John Wayne Marina (34 miles) in pretty short order. Rick was there with the Penske truck and had lunch all laid out. There was plenty of shade and the view of the water was wonderful to look at and we probably stayed longer than necessary. There really wasn't a need to hurry, it was only 1 PM and we only had 22 miles to Port Angeles so there wasn't a reason to lollygag a bit more.

After lunch, the afternoon winds had picked up a bit and became, slowing our progress. Speed was not essential as we had plenty of time to spare. The winding bike trail became a rail-to-trails bike path. As I have mentioned previously, rail-to-trails are former right-of-ways of former train lines. They are often straight and occasionally gentle curves and ascents and descents. The trails today were lined with trees that blunted the headwinds. The remaining breezes were cool, almost to the point of requiring jackets.

As we got close to Port Angeles, we mistakenly deviated from route, some less informed people may have said that we got lost, however, we found our way on to a gorgeous bike path that hugged the shore all the way into town. 

 

We're looking forward to tomorrow where we will be climbing to Hurricane Ridge to a ski area before turning around to return to the ferry landing to catch the late afternoon ferry to Victory BC.

There will be more fun to come

Today's Photos

Brian

Day 1 - The First day was long and succesful

 The first day of any ride is a bit stressful and exciting at the same time. It's stressful today because some of the rider arrived late last night and early this morning because of transportation issues with the airlines and several bikes needed to be assembled yesterday and may of undiscovered issues. Exciting because this trip has been in the planning stages since January and were all looking forward to experiences in riding new places. Also today was the first of 10 ferry rides and who doesn't like to hop on and off a ferry.

The following group photo was taken at the ferry landing with the Seattle skyline in the background.

The ride from the hotel to the ferry landing was 15 miles along mostly dedicated bike paths and we make it to the ferry with time to spare. The ferries are huge, fitting a large number of cars and possibly hundreds of people.  I'll try to get a couple of photos of these monsters in the next couple of days.

We arrived at Bremerton at 11:30 AM and we would be at the lunch stop in 10 miles. You will notice in the recording of the ride the elevation profile at the bottom. It almost looks like dragon's teeth. Most of the climbs are add to the daily elevation gain and some of the grades were greater than 8% with some reaching 11 or 12%.

There were some issues with the routing that I plan on reporting the RideWithGPS that provides the routing software, but no one got lost.

I got a chuckle at the road sign below. It's not often you see a bicycle, a pedestrian and Bigfoot on the same sign.

had 

Lunch was in a nice location, overlooking the water, picnic tables, rest rooms and good parking for the truck carrying the luggage and food. 

After lunch the climbing of the dragons's teeth continued. Seemed that each climb was a bit higher than the previous. It was pretty warm when in the sun and nice and cool, almost chilly when the road became shady. We had two long bridges to cross. It was at Port Gamble, a cute small town overlooking the we found a general store with an ice cream parlor in the rear that we found what every biker is looking for, ice cream floats. We were all pretty worn out at the time and to spend some time enjoying ice cream was a real treat. With 26 more miles to go and some riders were calling for the sag wagon to pick them up. 

The sag wagon is a SUV that we have that can seat several people with a bike rack so that if someone has issues, they can be assisted. 

Mark had created a spreadsheet used to help us plan the trip. It has all the details, start time, travel distance and speed, ferry crossing times even times for breaks. The spreadsheet had calculated that we would be arriving at the hotel in Port Townsend at 5:23 PM. As we were rolling into the Harborside Inn, it was 5:45 PM. Just enough time to check-in, grab a shower and meet in the lobby for dinner at a local sea food restaurant. With no injuries, gorgeous scenery and fun riding partners, we had a very successful day. and tomorrow we get to do it all again as we head to Port Angeles.

Today's Photos

Happy Riding,

Brian

Arrived safely

 All went well today, traveling from Alhambra CA (near Pasadena CA). Uber to the airport with plenty of time to get some breakfast while waiting for the loading time.

I was smart enough to  bring a couple of books with me. I've been a fan of Michael Lewis every since his first book, Liar's Poker. His entertaining style is to take a very complex subject and tell the story through the eyes of key people.

This timely book, "Who is Government?: The Untold Story of Public Service", tells the story of people that have done incredible work on behalf of the American public service. I had bought the book when I saw Michael Lewis being interviewed on a recent book tour. Seven authors are credited with each chapter contributing a story of how Public Service enhances the United States and often the entire world. 

As I flipped a page to a new chapter titled, "The Searchers", I immediately recognized some faces in a photo and even the room where the photo was taken.  The chapter describes the ongoing work being performed at Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) to find evidence of life on another planet.  The chapter's author, captures the sense of mission that infuses JPL and the people that work there. Where the stated goal is to "expand the bounds of human knowledge". Having worked at JPL for 37 years, I can say the the depiction of the employees and the environment are accurate.

This book is the perfect antidote to the story that seems to have captured Washington DC that the government is filled with DMV workers all watching the clock. This book instead highlights talented, highly educated and motivated public servants that are working in the government making incredibly important contributions in the only place that is in position to perform that work, the government.

Ready to go!!

 It's the evening before I get on the big silver bird and head for Seattle. I was planning on getting one more day of riding today, but stuff got in the way. 

I'm on the board of my townhouse and the water heaters and HVAC units are on the roof.  The units are getting older and the board needs to know the age of the units so the we can plan on replacing them. Each unit has serial numbers that can be used to determine their ages. So Steve (board president) and myself spent several hours, climbing ladders and reading placards and recording model numbers and serial numbers.

I also needed to attend a virtual meeting to discuss my review of requirements for the next mission to Mars to return samples to earth. All of NASA is hoping that the 2026 budget isn't as bad as it looks currently. We have a rover (Perseverance) on Mars that's collecting scientifically important rock samples into small metal test tubes. My project (Mars Sample Return) will fetch the samples and bring them back to earth for further analysis.

Oh yea, I had to finish packing for the tour as well. For each tour, I make up a packing list of things I gotta bring and a couple of days out, I start to gather the items on the list placing them into a laundry basket. A short time ago I opened up my wheeled duffel bag and filled it up. It took less than an hour.

For this tour, I performed most of the cycle routing and I'm more than a bit nervous.  We had a team of people setting up the tour. Folks to make the hotel arrangements. Another team to make the dinner arrangements, and because our location in Seattle and the San Juan Islands, another team member to make the 10 ferry arrangements. All I had to do was to find cycling routes from the hotels, to the ferries, then from the ferries to the destination hotels. I'm a bit nervous because I've never been to the area and I hope that everything works out.

The image below is our tour map. Each of the colored lines represents riding days. Thirteen days of riding and 10 ferry crossing. A lot can go wrong with a bunch of amateurs planning a tour. The group is experienced having done many tours previously. I just hope that I didn't screw up my part of trip planning. 

I have a 11AM flight from Los Angeles to Seattle tomorrow, then on to the hotel where my bike is waiting for me (I shipped it vis UPS to the hotel four days ago) then reassemble it and take it on a test ride. The entire group is staying at the same hotel and we'll tag up tomorrow evening for a meeting before starting the tour first thing Sunday morning.

Feel free to leave any comments in the blog.

That's all for now

Brian Cox