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

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

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