If you asked me a year ago if it were possible to ride your bicycle 3,450 miles and only leave your home county four times, I'd say no. The boredom of riding the same roads would make you looney.
But that's what I did in 2010, and I can't say I was ever bored.
It's probably because King County, Washington, covers more than 2,300 square miles. That's twice the size of Rhode Island and slightly less than Delaware. That's a lot of room to roam by bicycle on the roads out here.
Big county
The county stretches from the Puget Sound to the crest of the Cascade Range. I can ride my bike up to overlooks within 10 miles of my home where I can see the snow-capped mountains to the east and the watery home of orcas to the west.
Sometimes I pedal across Lake Washington on the I-90 bike path to Seattle, the largest city in the Pacific Northwest and one of the League of American Bicyclists' gold-level bicycle-friendly communities.
Other times I head out into the rural farming and dairy communities. One town has such a strong dairy history that it is named Carnation. Cows in nearby fields appear very contented.
I used to travel with other cyclists on these roads in bicycling events presented by the Cascade Bicycle Club, the largest cycling group in the nation. Now, I usually just head out on my own.
Mountain biking
If I need a break from pedaling along on my road bike, I can pedal my mountain bike. There are hundreds of miles of trails in the county. I can ride a gas transmission line right-of-way less than a mile from my home, pass an old coal-miner's cemetery, and pick up a track through the woods that's leftover from a turn-of-the-last century coal-hauling railroad.
Further out there are abandoned logging roads into state park and US forest lands in the Cascade foothills. Elsewhere, in city and county parks, there are mountain bike trails maintained by the Evergreen Mountain Bike Alliance, one of the most active such groups in the nation.
I do ride some of the same roads repeatedly. One of those is May Valley Road, but the surrounding landscape almost never looks the same.
Variety
This time of year the road is usually wet. There are often clouds hanging along the tops of Cougar and Squak mountains, and on especially cold days there's a dusting of snow on those hillsides. May Creek itself usually floods the low horse pastures, and they become duck ponds.
In the spring, the roadside fruit trees blossom. Late in the summer, prickly branches heavy with blackberries will scratch anyone pedaling their bikes too close to the edge of the road.
Outside the county
Anyway, that's how I can ride my bike 3,450 miles in a year and only leave the county four times. Of the rides not in King County, one was February's Chilly Hilly bike ride on Bainbridge Island, and another was a three-day bike tour down to Mount Rainier and back.
The third “out-of-county” ride was Seattle to Edmonds in Snohomish County with a reader who was visiting Seattle from St. Louis (I still owe him an official “Biking Bis” T-shirt which has yet to be created). On the fourth, I borrowed my son's bike while visiting in Spokane and explored the Centennial Trail.
Tribute
When I started writing this post, I meant to write a summary of my rides for 2010. My favorite ride, my longest ride, how a lot of them were errands that turned into longer rides. How many miles I plan to do in 2011 (more than 4,000).
I didn't mean to write a tribute to the advantages of bicycling in my county, but it turns out there are quite a few. Even so, I bet I could write a similar piece about the great bicycling available everywhere else I've lived.
The important thing is just to get out there on your bicycle; you'll find the good places to ride. Here's the official bicycling map put out by King County
Photos: Top, last red brick road in King County; middle, view of Mt. Rainier from a hilltop; bottom, taking a break along Carbon River in Mt. Rainier National Park.
Recent Comments