A Saturday ride

February 2003

Well, this year doesn't seem like it's going to be much good for skiing - too many sunny days that alows for riding the bike - no contest there. i figured I need to ride more and want to attemot the Iron Butt association's Bun Burner Gold certification this year (1500 miles in 24 hours or less - see www.ironbutt.com for more info). So to be able to tackle this feat with any realistic expectaition of completing it I would have to do my homework up front - get some more saddle time and get familiar with the range that the new 30 liter tank will give me. The most i've done in a period of less than 24 hours in one go was about 1200 miles last summer when I moved from Memphis to Tacoma - I did the stretch from Casper, WY to Auburn, WA in one go, arriving at about 1:30am in the morning.

So last Saturday the weather forecast looked good and I figured I'll drag my newest riding companion Hayo and his Adventure around the Olympic peninsula. We left DuPont at around 9:10 am (about 40 minutes later than planned) and headed west to Aberdeen and the coast. I hooked up my MP3 player to the in helmet audio system and that would give me approximately 10 hours worth of music without repeating any tracks. At Aberdeen we headed north on US101 through the mountains towards Queets on the coast. The temperature were supposed to pick up from 9am onwards and by around midday it was supposed to be around 10deg C. At 11:30 we stopped at Queets to warm up a bit - we were freezing our tits off. There was a thermometer outside the store in Queets which gave us a very good explanation why - with all the fog and lack of sunshine the temperatures had not rissen much since departing earlier the morning - it was still about 1 deg C. We got ourselves some coffee to warm up and a couple of smokes helped a bit as well. We headed further north towards Neah Bay and Cape Flattery (The Northwestern most point of the lower 48 states). The temperature warmed up and the fog burned off. The ride improved and became much more enjoyable. We visited Cape Flattery and then turned east towards Port Angeles and Seattle. It took us about 3 and a half hours back to Tacoma from Cape Flattery (usually this trip takes about 4 1/2 hours by car. The riding was good and we stuck to the coastal route. We had to keep our eyes on the road though since most of the turns were in the shade and the road surface were a bit most and snotty in places. The Tourances broke away on a couple of occasions - just enough to wake me up. Made it to the Hood Canal Bridge at about 6:15 pm and stoped to phone the missus and tell her we're still alive and almost home. Made it home just after 7pm. Total distance for the day 420 miles and the bike ran great.

Cape Flattery with the lighthouse on Tatoosh Island in the background

Neah Bay

On the way home