Wander Around Washington -- 7-28-07

I'm awake at 5:00 AM and rolling again at 5:15 AM. My good timing continues and I roll right onto the 5:30 AM ferry headed to the Fauntleroy terminal in west Seattle.



Rather than take the hilly route across West Seattle, I take the longer, prettier route that includes the waterfront trails and Beach Drive.


I notice hand-drawn sharrows on the street. At first I think these might be some direct action from local riders but as I see more of these and some thin white lane markers, I suspect these are place-holders indicating where the city will lay down official markings.




I see the very familiar Seattle skyline, ride over the west Seattle bridge and ride north to my Pioneer Square work neighborhood. I stop for coffee and a maple bar at Zeitgeist and then head for home via my usual commute route.


As I'm rolling across the floating bridge which connects Seattle to Mercer Island, I cross paths with my pal Mark Vande Kamp. Mark is out for a morning ride and he reverses course to accompany me across the island. I give him the super-condensed version of my tour story. "We'll have to go riding," he says. "Yeah," I agree, "but maybe not right away. I think I'm going to take a few days off!"

On the east end of Mercer Island, Mark turns back toward Seattle and I continue on to Issaquah.

I'm home at 9:40 AM. Over the past 15 days, I've ridden 1341 miles, taken hundreds of pictures, and chatted with dozens of people about cycling in their parts of the world. I have lots to think about, and a lot of work to do.

I want to thank everybody who helped make this trip happen, the folks who offered their hospitality and time, the people who covered for me back at the office, the people who work in mini-marts and run ferries and build roads. And all the people everywhere who work hard to remind folks that a bike can be a good way to get around in this world.

Keep 'em rolling,

Kent

Wander Around Washington -- 7-27-07 (Vashon Island)

My dad believes in the concept of Karma, although he never refers to it that way. Instead I remember him saying to me over the years, "Son, clean living pays off."

I'm thinking of my dad this evening. As I work my way north toward the ferry terminal, I realize I'm low on cash so I'm looking for a cash machine. The gas station has a cash machine, but it's out of order. The lady at the cash register sees me looking at the machine and says "I can give you up to forty bucks in change off your card."

"Great," I say grabbing a Gatorade.

"Oh, you don't need to buy anything," she says.

"No," I insist, "I'm thirsty."

I get my quart of Gatorade and a bunch of change, thank the clerk and roll down the hill to the ferry terminal. "Just in time," the fare-taker tells me. I roll on the boat and it pulls away from the dock ten seconds later.

Clean living pays off.

I've never been a fan of cell phones, but my boss strongly suggested one would prove to be handy on this trip and he was right. I'd used the phone a lot to set up meetings, connect with folks and even do a couple of interviews but my favorite use of the thing has been to call my lovely wife. I call her now from the ferry, tell her how much I miss her, how close I am to home, how lovely Mount Rainier is off to starboard at this moment. I'll be home tomorrow. I'll camp somewhere on Vashon Island.

It's a short ferry ride to Vashon. The light is fading and the warm day is becoming a cool, clear night. I pull on my yellow rain jacket both for warmth and visibility. I turn on the lights on both my bike and my helmet.





Vashon is always lovely but there is something wondrous about the island at night. Only a few miles from the big cities of Seattle and Tacoma, Vashon remains a world apart. While the cities blaze and hum and click and whir with the business of men every hour of each day and night, Vashon remembers the rhythms of the sun and moon, the tides and the trees. The island sleeps. Here and there a dog barks at my passage, remarking on the unusual break in the natural order.

I could ride through the night, catch a late ferry to the mainland and perhaps be home by midnight. I have the legs and the lights to do it. But tomorrow will come soon enough and as the poet Bill Holm has noted "the heart can be filled anywhere on earth". My home is not just Issaquah or in the arms of my beautiful wife. It is not even just Washington state, this lovely state I've gotten to see know a tiny bit better over these past weeks. Willie Nelson said "home is where you're happy." I'm happy to be right here, right now.

I find a quiet clearing, not far from the road, dark and quiet and I roll out my bivy sack. By the light of my helmet, I see a small slug about an inch and half long. This slug is more active than most slugs I've seen. The creature is waving all four of its tentacles, it knows I'm here.

I don't know much about slugs, but tonight I learn something new. I'm settling in, drinking the last of my Gatorade and eating the last of a bag of chocolate chip cookies. I don't think there are bears on Vashon but as is my custom, I stash the food somewhere away from where I sleep. But before I do, I shake a few cookie crumbs out near the slug.

A tiny crumb is a big cookie to a slug. By the light of my helmet I watch the slug reach for a crumb with its lower tentacles. It seems to like the crumb, it grabs it up, stuffs the crumb in its mouth and chews. Then it reaches for another.

I settle in for the night. In the morning, all the crumbs and the slug are gone.

Today's stats: Dst 77.56 miles Ave 11.8 mph Max 29.0 mph

Wander Around Washington -- 7-27-07 (Trail and Tacoma)

I roll out of Olympia around noon. My destination is Tacoma but as I often tell new bike commuters, "the most direct route for driving isn't necessarily the best route for bicycling." This is very much the case when attempting to ride from Olympia to Tacoma (or vice-versa). The direct route is Interstate 5 and a combination of marsh land to the west and McChord Air Force Base to the east effectively eliminate the possibilities for side roads. It's legal to ride the freeway here and I rode the freeway last February when Brad, Michael and I came down for Lobby Day, but today I figure I'll take a longer, but more pleasant route.

I basically go what seems like the wrong direction. I go east to Lacey, catch the Chehalis Western Trail south to Rainier and then follow the Yelm to Tenino Trail
north and west to SR507. This big loop takes me around the Air Force Base and even though it adds miles to the day, the route is on pleasant, shaded corridors where the trains used to run.





At 2:00 PM, somewhere north of Rainier, I catch up with a couple of riders whose loads indicate that they are out for something more than just a day ride.

Mel Roberts and Dennis Neusel are headed to Centralia for a couple day trip and once I convince them that I'm headed to Tacoma and yeah, I know it seems like I'm headed the wrong way, we have a great chat. Mel and Dave are both not just cyclists, they are cycle activists. I would've thought I was the only person taking pictures of things like roads and shoulders and trail surfaces and gates, but I would be wrong. Mel excitedly shows me pictures he's been taking of the trail. Dennis and Mel are both active in the Kent WA Bicycle Club and the Kent Bicycle Advisory Board. Our both being on this trail at the same time is completely serendipitous, but these two guys are yet another example of the kind of person I've met every day on this trip. Good roads and quiet paths in the forest don't just happen, they happen because people who care, people like Dennis and Mel and Larry and Carley and Emily and Todd and Beth and John and Liz and all the rest, make them happen.


At 2:30 Mel and Dennis roll off southwest toward Tenino while I turn northeast toward Yelm where I catch SR507 heading north.


Mount Rainier dominates the horizon, reminding me that I'll be home tomorrow.


SR-507 features something rare and wonderful, rumble strips that seem to have been designed with some consideration given to bicyclists. A few days ago I took pictures of bad rumble strips on Hwy 12, strips that take up most of the shoulder. In contrast, the rumble strips on SR-507 are built into the fog and center lines, effectively leaving the full width of the shoulder available to the cyclist. In addition, every dozen feet or so there are gaps in the rumble strips enabling cyclists to move from the shoulder to the traffic lane. Much of the time on a country road like this the shoulder is the best place to ride, but of course a cyclist might have to merge into the traffic lane to get ready to make a left turn or to avoid some debris and it's good to see a road design that recognizes the legitimate needs of non-motorized road users.

The relatively quiet SR-507 merges with SR-7 which becomes Pacific Avenue as it rolls north to Tacoma. For a while there is shoulder and a bike lane but there is also road construction, the urban franchised "everybody knows this is nowhere" sprawl and the five o'clock rush hour. The road and traffic get worse and even though I'm an experienced urban cyclist, I wouldn't recommend this route at this time to most cyclists. For the first time in several weeks and over 1200 miles, I'm advised by one of my fellow road user to "get the f**k off the road!" I'm sure that it's easier to yell at one cyclist going 12 miles per hour instead of the hundreds of other drivers stuck in traffic going 12 miles per hour but I'm guessing this fellow, who looks like he answered a casting call for "red-neck pick-up driver", isn't saving all his rage for me. I've always been a "choose your battles" kind of guy and I figure this fellow really isn't in the mood to really discuss traffic, transportation and the rules of the road. I stop for a yellow light that mister truck blasts through and the last I see of him he's raising his blood pressure over some woman in a minivan who happens to have committed the sin of being ahead of him on his road.

At 5:25 PM, I'm in downtown Tacoma. I haven't scheduled any big meetings here but Gene Smith is a local cyclist whose offered to buy me dinner and show me around.

Gene is a great guy. We'd met a earlier this year at a commute seminar I gave at the Tacoma health department and we'd also ridden together on an SIR training ride. Over burgers we talk about the city, riding and roads. Tacoma still has some cobbled roads and steep hills, it's a place where local knowledge pays off. When I tell Gene that I came in on Hwy7/Pacific he says something like "Wow, that's...uhh...brave." I think the word he was searching for was "stupid" but I appreciate the substitution. The next time I visit, I'll map things out a bit more carefully.

After dinner we ride around town for a bit. Gene has to get home and I too am anxious to get going. I roll down to the waterfront and take a few pictures in the fading light. It's been a good day's work, but I'm thinking I can get a little closer to home. I head north to see if I can catch a ferry to Vashon Island.

Wander Around Washington -- 7-27-07 (Olympia)

This morning I do touristy bike-geeky things. I take pictures of the capitol. I take pictures of bike lockers and bike racks by the transit center. I take pictures of my bike by a big war statue.





At 9:00 AM, I meet up with Larry Leveen at his house. Larry is one of those great guys who just plain gets things done. Larry literally wrote the book on bike commuting and then put it up as a free PDF here:

http://www.olybikes.com/resources/commute.pdf

He has a bunch of other great stuff including printable summaries of the Washington State bicycle laws on his website here:

http://www.olybikes.com/resources.html



Larry and I chat for several hours. Larry has a good sense of what works in terms of growing a community that fosters cycling. "It's not just facilities and infrastructure, it's education." But jurisdictional issues make it hard to do programs and it's relatively easy to put a stripe of paint on the road. But a bad bike lane, something that encourages cyclists to ride in the door zone or dumps them into the path of right turning cars, often does more harm than good.

We talk about the Effective Cycling people. "The problem is a lot of people will never even consider riding in traffic and a lot of EC folks spend way too much time and effort railing against facilities." I tell Larry about a site I tend to point people to, Michael Bluejay's How Not To Get Hit By Cars. "I like it because it's more pragmatic and less dogmatic."

Larry and I agree that one of the things that makes us safer as cyclists is if there are more of us out there. And that's where facilities can help. But it's not all one thing or the other. Bike trails, bike lanes, vehicular cycling, sharrows, helmets can all be part of the mix but each of those things can also be a point of controversy that absorbs huge amounts of time and energy.

Larry has good advice on how not to get bogged down in the "you're wrong!" discussions. "Keep the ego out of it. Work on what you can and if folks wind up using it, that's great." He points to his commute guide. "We just made it." Larry left space on it where folks can put their own logos and stuff and he encourages folks to print it out and use it. "It's been used by a variety of other states and towns." He's found it pirated in some cases but usually people ask. "I don't have a problem with people making copies, that's why we made it, but it's better if they ask. I can keep track and keep people up-to-date with revisions." As with many things, there is more to do than time to do it. I tell Larry I'll be happy to help with the next round of revisions.

Larry is getting ready to head off on a camping trip, so I thank him for his time and all his great work. It's 11:00 AM now and his shop is open so I swing down to Oly Bikes to snap a few pictures, get a local bike map and advice on the best route out of town.

Oly Bikes is a tiny shop, but they make great use of their small space. They sell a lot of basic transportation bikes and Larry told me that business is up 20% this year and 40% for the last month. Since coming to Olympia, I've seen more bike trailers in use than I've noticed anywhere else. Larry attributes the popularity of the trailers to the presence of Evergreen College and it's environmentally minded students. There are a lot of folks in this town riding bikes instead of driving to do errands, get groceries and do other practical things.

Wander Around Washington -- 7-26-07

7-26-07 Portland OR to Olympia WA

Even though I'd told her that I in no way expected her to be awake when I left, Beth got up very early this morning to make sure I had everything I needed before taking off. I take her up on her kind offer of breakfast and we have a wonderful quiet chat over coffee, cereal and toast before I take off at 5:20 AM. Beth's notes of that chat are here:

http://bikelovejones.livejournal.com/44576.html

I work my way north and west through the streets of Portland, past the college and out of town via the St. John's bridge. I stay on the Oregon side of the Columbia, stopping briefly at a minimart in the little town of Deer Island for some coffee and a candy bar.



At 10:10 AM I cross back into Washington via the Longview Bridge. The traffic is heavy on the bridge and the narrow shoulder is strewn with bark debris from the passing logging trucks. As has been the case earlier on this trip, I'm glad to be riding a bike with fat, tough, two-inch wide tires instead of some faster, skinny-tired machine. My green bike might not win and beauty or speed contests but it's proven itself to be a great bike when the road conditions are less than perfect. The Schwalbe Marathon tires let me hold a straight line and roll over a lot of road junk that would puncture more fragile treads.



I work my way through the Longview traffic and head north on the relative quiet of route 411. I'm basically following the Seattle-To-Portland (STP) route backwards and I stop for snacks at Castle Rock and Winlock, where I take a picture of the World's Largest Egg.


It's been years since I've ridden the STP and my state map doesn't have the detail to list all the small local roads but my navigation seems to be going OK. I see a few other riders out enjoying the day and as I get closer to Centralia, I start following some local Dan Henry marks.



Like hobos of bygone days, some cyclists leave marks for their fellow travelers in the form of a visual code. On this trip I have relied on the State Bike Map and various local bike maps for navigation, but often I've found the knowledge of local riders is my best guide. In this case, the Dan Henry marks get me close to Chehalis via some lovely local farm roads. In Chehalis I cross I-5 and then roll north to Centralia.

I'd arranged to meet Phil Meany in Centralia. Phil is a very nice retired fellow who'd been the Centralia College librarian for nearly 40 years. He is also an avid cyclist who has served on the Washington State Bicycling Advisory Committee. Phil and I meet up at Santa Lucia Coffee Roasters in downtown Centralia. We have a wide-ranging chat over coffee and Phil tells me about the local cycling and history. He hands me some local ride sheets he's produced and tells me about work he's done to promote the area as a cycling destination. Since the Centralia area features many quiet country roads, is equidistant from Portland and Seattle and right on the Amtrak line, it is be a good get-away destination for riders from either of those cities. One of the sheets Phil hands me is for the Historical Lewis County Bicycle Ride. I suspect that the Dan Henry marks I was following earlier mark out one of the loops of this ride.

Phil also advises me on my route to Olympia. "The shoulder will disappear right at the Thurston county line, but it the road widens a bit further on and then the shoulder returns." I still have some miles to cover today, so I thank Phil for his time and the great information and head north at 5:30 PM.


I roll into Olympia at 7:45 PM, snap a picture and know why I've been lugging a spare camera around. One of the weaknesses of my cheap pen-cam is that the shutter button is fragile. As I snap the photo below, the shutter button jams inside the camera. The shutter directly on a micro-switch which is soldered to the camera's circuit board. I should say "was soldered to the circuit board" because it just sheared off. I guess I'll be taking pictures with my other camera for the rest of the trip.
I explore a bit of Olympia, grab a burger and some onion rings for supper. As darkness falls I find a quiet place to roll out my bivy. (This trip has taught me that I would make an excellent hobo!)

Today's Stats: Dst 135.62 miles Ave 11.5 mph Max 29.0 mph

Wander Around Washington -- 7-25-07 (Portland)

After lunch Todd and I ride back over the I-5 bridge into Portland. Todd explains that Vancouver really doesn't have much in terms of bike shops. The tax situation works against Vancouver shops, Oregon doesn't have a sales tax and Washington does and given a choice most consumers want to avoid the tax. While Vancouver is bike shop poor, Portland is bike shop rich.

We stop by a shop called Revolver Bikes. Todd's looking for a solution to keep the grips from wiggling around on his bike and I chat with Mark Pickett about his business. Lots of practical bikes here but the one that catches my eye is a Redline Monocog 29er. I've always been very happy with my 26" wheeled Monocog and while I've been intrigued by the big-wheeled bikes, I've never been sure how they'd work for someone of my relatively small stature. Mark happens to be about the same height as me (5'6") and he says it's not a problem. Then he adds what I've heard so many times from the 29er folks, "those big wheels just roll over lots of stuff that would bog down a smaller wheeled bike." Mark also tells me what I've heard in every shop, "business is up, more folks are riding."

Todd and I split up here. I've got the address of my internet friend Beth Hamon and I've got her instructions and the Portland bike map and Todd's advice on how to get to Beth's place. Everything works and at 2:00 PM, I'm at Beth's house.

This is the first time I've met Beth in real life, but we've traded a lot of emails, we know a lot of the same people and we're on the same wavelength on a whole bunch of issues. Beth is a wonderful person and she's just a delight to be around. She's taken the day off from work and she and her sweetie opened their home to me and Beth made it clear that I could do as much or as little as I wanted to in terms of seeing Portland. If I wanted to veg out, that was fine, if I wanted to go places, she could guide me or I could check things out on my own. If I needed to work on my bike, her home shop was at my disposal.


Beth is super knowledgeable about bikes and Portland and a bunch of other stuff. I took her up on her offer to play tour guide. I'd arranged to meet Jonathan Maus, the man behind the wonderful Bike Portland Blog, at Clever Cycles at 4:30. Clever Cycles was another place that I really wanted to see when I was in town. I knew that Jonathan's office wasn't to far from Clever Cycles and I figured I could make the best use of my time by meeting him there.

After spending a bit of time at Beth's we rolled south. Beth filled me in on local history while we rode and showed me the big "hill" in the neighborhood. I had to put "hill" in quotes because it highlights a difference between Portland and Seattle. Portland is a heck of a lot flatter than Seattle. They label things as hills things we wouldn't bother to mention. Portland's Mount Tabor would wind up in the "hill" category back home.


Beth rode her wonderfully practical city bike which sports a handy Citybikes Bike Bucket. The bucket pannier is made locally at Citybikes, the worker-owned co-op where Beth works as a bike mechanic.

On the way to Clever Cycles we stop by another great Portland bike resource, the Community Cycling Center. The Center is huge and since Beth used to work here, she knows everybody. She introduces me and proceeds to give me a tour of every nook and cranny of the place. To quote from their website:

The Community Cycling Center, founded in 1994, helps build skills and foster personal development of youth and adults through community-oriented educational and recreational bicycle programs and services.

We refurbish donated bicycles and redirect them for use in programs and our neighborhood bike shop.

I chat a bit with Alison Hill about where they get their bike donations and if they get any off the bikes forgotten off TriMet buses.

"Some of the drivers will donate bikes that are forgotten and unclaimed," I'm told.

I then tell Alison and Beth a bit about one aspect of my job up in the Seattle area. "The Bike Alliance has a contract with Metro and Sound Transit to handle the bikes forgotten on King County buses."

"Do you get a lot of bikes left on buses?"

"Over 700 last year."

Beth and Alison are amazed, "What happens to them?"

"51% are claimed by their owners, another 5% get claimed by drivers (it's in their contract, they get dibs!) and the remaining 44% get donated to local charities." I realize that I sound like a total bike wonk but I guess I am a bike wonk, so it's OK. Plus I'd happened to have run the 2006 numbers for the lost bike program just before I'd left on this trip, so the stats are fresh in my mind.

"I don't think that many bikes get left in Portland," Alison ventures.

"Maybe not," I say, "but you should check into it. Of course there are a lot of Magnas and Verticals and other, uh... bike-shaped objects, but some of it is decent, usable stuff. We've recovered stolen bikes from bus racks and then there are just some genuine spaced-out dudes. I talk to lots of people who've forgotten their bikes on the buses and I talk to a lot of spaced-out dudes."

I go on, "We always see get the most bikes after a weekend and then there are some events that generate a bunch of lost bikes. You know what our biggest single day is?"

"Folklife?" Beth guesses.

"Close," I reply, "it's the Monday after Hempfest."



We're starting to run low on time so Beth and I pedal off to Clever Cycles. Todd Farhner opened Clever Cycles a few months ago and it's a really cool shop. Here's Todd's fifty word description of the place:

Clever Cycles serves families and businesses seeking to avoid dependence on cars with stylish, practical bicycles and accessories for everyday use. Dutch bakfietsen and city bikes, folding bikes, and our Stokemonkey electric assist for Xtracycles feature passenger and cargo capacity, plain-clothes comfort, all-weather readiness, and low maintenance.

The shop has an open, airy feel, almost like an art gallery and the bakfietsen and the bikes are all very stylish and practical. In the accessory department, Todd proudly shows me that they carry Rainlegs. I really like the looks of some of the practical grocery hauling panniers and it's super neat to have a shop where you could do something like test ride both a Bike Friday Tikit and a Brompton.


The bakfietsen are incredibly cool machines but I've worked my car-free life in such a way that I really don't have to haul big loads, so I think I'm immune to their charms. But they are amazing machines and for many folks, they really are the sporty utility vehicle that makes sense. Todd is well on his way to selling out is second batch of these machines.


Of all the folding bikes I've seen, the Brompton is the one that always strikes me as the cleanest folding. My wife often points out that I have too many bikes (she often says crazy things like that and things like "bikes don't belong in the kitchen," but she puts up with me and I think maybe someday a Brompton may find it's way into the Peterson household.





Both Beth and I get to test ride the bakfietsen but the real treat is when Todd takes each of us out for a spin as cargo. Todd has some pretty decent power in his legs (and for those of you who want an added boost, talk to him about a Stokemonkey electric assist) and he can make these machines just zoom. I felt like I was in a low-flying plane as we zipped around the Clever Cycle neighborhood.

I was quite impressed with the degree of walk-in traffic in the shop. The bakfietsen are their own best advertisements and they really draw people in. And of course, Portland is a very bikish town. A fellow whose name I didn't catch stopped by with his tall bike. One of the overwhelming things about Portland is just how darn many bikes and shops and riders you see. Cyclists really are a significant part of the transportation mix and there are lots of riders. Because there are more cyclists, drivers by and large expect to see cyclists and basically I saw drivers and cyclist coexisting quite nicely.

Jonathan Maus stopped by the shop and we chatted. Jonathan's blog is amazing. There is so much bike related stuff going on in Portland and it seems like Jonathan manages to cover all of it. Jonathan's take on our conversation is here:

http://bikeportland.org/2007/07/26/wandering-advocate-stops-in-portland/

As is often the case on this trip, I wish that I had more time to stay in one place, but Beth and I have to get rolling. We stop at her current place of employment, the the Citybikes Sales Annex. Citybikes is a worker owned and operated shop and on this Wednesday afternoon the place looks busy, although Beth tells me this is actually kind of slow. "The other day," she tells me, "we had a dozen people waiting for us when we opened up."



Our next stop is the grocery store where I get supplies for the road, and Beth picks up food for our final stop of the day: a potluck dinner over at Joel Metz and Ira Ryan's place.

The potluck is great fun. I first met Ira and Joel a few years ago when we all raced the Raid Californie-Oregon and Ira happens to be wearing the very sporty shirt from that very sporty event. Joel is a partner in the Magpie Messenger Collective and Ira builds beautiful bike frames in his business, Ira Ryan Cycles.

A few days ago I'd said to Laura Stone "I know people, urban chicken people, bike co-op people, foodies...I know lots of people." This was not just some smooth line to impress the chicks (pun intended!) but it's true. To illustrate the point, let me point out these facts:

Joel has a chicken coop and a garden behind his house. Michael Rasmussen (the commuter, not the guy who just got thrown out of the Tour de France), who organized this potluck, raises chickens in his back yard. And Patrick and Holly, who brought this wonderful chickpea, lentil and smoked wheat-berry dish, founded the Eastside Egg Cooperative. So yeah, I know chicken people!


Other folks at this little shindig include Beth's sweetie Liz, David Rowe and Sara Stout. David is a fellow randonneur and blogger and Sara is an interviewer for the local KBOO Bike Show. Sara is creating a small piece on randonneuring for KBOO so she interviews those of us who have ridden rando events. She says the show will probably air in the next month or two.



Michal brought the legendary pound cake, which his sweetie made because the recipe called for so many eggs. When you raise chickens, you tend to have a surplus of eggs. I do my bit for the cause by having three (or was it four?) slices of pound cake.

It's a great time with great people but I have to get up early to pedal to Olympia tomorrow, so as it starts to get dark, Beth and I head back to her place.

Stats: Dst 21.39 miles Ave 9.6 mph Max 22 mph

Wander Around Washington -- 7-25-07 (Vancouver)

If you can only talk to one person about bicycling in Vancouver Washington, Todd Boulanger is the person you should talk to. And if you are very lucky, like I happen to be today, you will get to spend a few hours with Todd and get to see a bicycle advocacy dynamo in action.

Todd's official title is Senior Transportation Planner for the City of Vancouver but pretty much everybody just thinks of Todd as "The Vancouver Bike Guy".

I check out of my motel at 8:30 AM and call Todd. "Where are you?" he asks. "Under a clock tower in a park by the convention center downtown," I tell him. "Great, I'll be there in three minutes. I'm doing some bridge timings and then I'm off to a meeting. You want to come along?"





Our schedules couldn't have meshed more perfectly. I have a few hours to find out a bit about cycling in Vancouver and one of the things I need to know about is how to get across the I-5 Bridge to Oregon. Todd happens to be doing timings of the existing bridge crossing and is then heading into a meeting with the Pedestrian and Bicycle Advisory Committee (PBAC) of the Columbia River Crossing (CRC).

We meet up and Todd and I head over the bridge. He stops at the base of the bridge, explains what we are doing, clicks his stop-watch and off we go. On the other side, he clicks the watch, jots numbers in his notebook and we repeat the process in the other direction. I'm busy snapping pictures and Todd's busy explaining the existing bridge crossing. He knows how many people go across the bridge, when they do it and why. Today he's getting some baseline numbers he'll use for comparison against some of the new designs.


He points out a bike pump bolted to a concrete pad at the base of the bridge. "Got air?" he asks. Later I'll find out (not from Todd) that he was the one who placed these pumps at various locations around the city.

We head over to the meeting. "You can stash your bike in a locker," he says and pulls out his wallet. He takes out a smart-card. "You can order these online," he says, showing me the card. "You can reserve a locker or use the card in any unreserved locker." The system is amazingly quick, clever and secure and I'm thinking that we have to get these things in Seattle. We stow our bikes and head into the meeting.


The meeting is three hours long and there are a lot of smart people in the room. I'm really just there to observe but this is just one meeting in a long series of discussions on the new I-5 bridge. People from both states and both cities are here, transportation folks, engineering folks, smart folks working on hard problems. There are engineering drawings and mock-ups and maps. There are grades calculated, ADA issues considered, budget projections, bullet points and outlines. It's an interesting three hours but it takes a special kind of person to keep going working on these big issues over the years it takes to make a project like this happen. I feel lucky to get a glimpse into this process and frankly glad that I'm not going to be going to every one of the meetings on this bridge project.


I mostly stay focused on bridge issues but I have to admit that I am a bit distracted by Carley Francis' legs. Well, one leg in particular, the one with the bike tattoo. Carley is the SW Region Bicycle and Pedestrian Coordinator for the Washington State Department of Transportation and I guess you could say her commitment to bicycles is more that skin deep.


After the meeting I chat briefly with Carley and some of the other folks. Joe Greulich introduces himself. Joe is a long time member of both the Bicycle Alliance of Washington and the Oregon Bicycle Transportation Alliance. Joe is very active in advocacy issues, doing things like attending our lobby days for the past several years. As Joe points out to me "I'm retired and I'm the only person in this room who isn't being paid to be here!" I thank Joe for all his efforts and say "it's guys like you, going to meetings like this, that make things happen. Thanks so much!"


It's lunch time now and Todd and I wind up going to lunch with another meeting attendee, Emily Gardner of Oregon's Bicycle Transportation Alliance. We talk about various bike geek things over some great Hawaiian food and when the check comes Todd insists on paying. Emily hands me a super nifty pocket size bike map of Portland and we use it to plot out my afternoon.

After lunch Todd and I get our bikes out of the lockers and roll back over the bridge to Portland.

Wander Around Washington -- 7-24-07

7-24-07 Iron Creek Campground to Vancouver

While I am a fan of living in the moment, one of the things that makes us human is our ability to plan, to anticipate, to understand cause and effect and use our human skills in the present to make our future better. As they say, "today is the tomorrow you worried about yesterday."

My meager planning skills pay off this morning. The day dawns cool and grey and I get to wake up feeling like a genius because last night I heated water in the Kelley Kettle and I have lugged a small stainless steel thermos all over this great state and I brought along some General Foods International Cafe Vienna instant coffee.

So this morning I am drinking hot coffee about ten seconds after thinking that I would sure enjoy a cup of coffee and then I breakfast on Clif Bars and pack up my camp. At 6:20 AM I'm rolling up the road.


The sky clears as the day brightens and I ride up Elk Pass. There is no sign at the summit of the 4,075' pass, which seems like something of a shame, but I know and the bike knows when we've come across the crest. It's blue and clear on the south side and the road swoops and turns and before too long there is a gap in the trees and Mount St. Helens looms into view.



At 10:15 AM I take the slight detour to the east to stock up on food and drink at the Eagle Cliff General Store before rolling west along 90 on the north side of the Swift Reservoir.


Cougar really is a blink-and-you-miss-it town and while I don't blink, I do think "well, I stop someplace in town" as I roll by the trading post on what I think is the outskirts of Cougar. Nope, that was the whole damn town. Oh, well. I keep going.

I stop at a place called Jack's where 503 turns south and where all the folks sign in if they are going to go climbing on Mount St. Helens. It's 1:00 PM now and I have an ice cream bar and a pint of milk and grab some M&Ms and caramels for the road.

503 rolls up and down and up and down, south past farms that look like farms and not like the big agri-businesses I'd seen further east. As the road heads south, traffic gets heavier and the road gets bigger. Amboy is still a little town but Battle Ground is big and has strip malls and all the things we build when we want to make one place look like every other place. The old town is still there, but it seems to be loosing its battle with the future.


I'd been planning on stopping in Battle Ground, but when I couldn't find the bike shop listed in a quick scan of the phone book, I decided to keep rolling south.

The road is busy rolling out of town, but there is bike path along east side of the road. I work my way south and things become more urban.


The back side of the Washington State Bicycle Map features small detailed maps of selected cities, including Vancouver. I use this information to plot my approach into the city. At the Padden Parkway I follow another cyclist onto the bike trail and then I follow a series of bike trails and roads marked with bike lanes downtown.




I do a bit of solo exploring in Vancouver and I'm pleased to find that it's pretty easy to get around this town by bicycle. I think I know the names of a few of the people responsible for this nice state of affairs and I'm hoping to meet with some of them tomorrow. For now, it's 6:30 PM and I decide that I've exercised my hobo skills enough over the past few days. I check into the Econo Lodge, have a nice shower and call home.

Stats Dst 107.58 Ave 10.4 mph Max 31.5 mph

Wander Around Washington -- 7-23-07

7-23-07 Yakima to Iron Creek Campground

I'm awake at 6:00 AM. I pack up quickly and ride over the the Yakima Greenway Trail. I have a lot of miles to cover today, including a long climb up to the 4,500' summit of White Pass, so I don't have time to see a lot of Yakima. While I can't wait around for the local bike shops to open, I do get to follow this lovely trail along the river. One neat thing I notice on the trail is the garbage cans. They use bicycle inner tubes to keep the plastic garbage liners in place. I always enjoy seeing creative reuse of materials.



Before I leave town and get on Hwy 12, I stop at a minimart for some coffee, a sandwich, an orange-mango drink and some cashews. I always have to make certain I have fuel for the journey.

Hwy 12 features some examples of bicycle unfriendly shoulder design and I compromise my safety a bit by working the pencam to get shots of the rumble-stripped shoulder that completely disappears on the bridge and the narrow shoulder with incredibly stupid rumble-strip placement. I think a lot of folks would be amazed at how much time we spend at the Alliance trying to keep bad road design like this from happening and how much work it is to get these badly designed roads fixed.


At Naches I stop at the ranger station to make sure the roads I'm planning on riding are open. The rains last fall and this spring washed out many roads near Mount Rainier and Mount St. Helens and while I'm pretty sure the route I've chosen is clear, it's always best to be certain. I also call the office to check in and get a few phone numbers of people I'll be seeing later in the trip.


I have coffee, juice, eggs and sausage for second breakfast at the Drift Inn Cafe here in Naches. Remarkably, the cafe/store here in this tiny town has a wifi connection so I post a quick update to the blog before I roll out at 9:55 AM.

It's a long slog up to White Pass. I've been over White several times before, but always riding from west to east. This is the first time I've done it from this direction. The grade is never very steep, maybe 6% or so, but it goes for miles. And in places the shoulder pretty much doesn't exist. Fortunately, there isn't much traffic here on a Monday. I have a rear view mirror on my helmet and while I don't find the climb too troublesome, this isn't a route I'd recommend to nervous or novice cyclists.



The scenery is spectacular and it's great to climb into cooler weather and be back into country with trees. At 12:35 PM I stop at the Rim Rock Grocery Store for an ice cream bar, a pint of milk, a bag of Cheetos and 2 20 ounce bottles of Gatorade. Even though it's not as warm here as it had been lower down, I'm careful to keep replenished with both fluid and salt.

At 3:15 PM I'm at the White Pass Summit. It's cooler here and cloudy and I layer my wool top and wind vest on for the descent.




I roll through Packwood a bit before 5:00 PM. The sky is kind of cold and spitting now and the wind fights me from Packwood to Randle. It's sections of road like this that make me glad I've got my cyclecomputer mounted on the downtube of my bike, out of my line of sight. At the end of the day I can see how far I rode and learn how fast I went on the descent. But right now, I don't need numbers telling me exactly how slow I'm going. I use the flat part of the Ergon grips as arm rests, stretch out with my back as flat as I can get it and turtle into the wind.

An elk watches from the roadside and I manage to take a picture before he bounds off.


At 6:45 PM I stop at the Mount Adams Cafe in Randle. For a couple of years, ever since I missed the open hours of the pie shops in Pie Town, I've been dreaming of a certain slice of coconut creme pie. Tonight, I got that slice of pie. The thing about that pie is that it is big and creamy and it is there at the end of more hard miles than most folks would prefer to ride. So in this small town, in this small cafe I got my slice of pie along with two big glasses of milk and a grilled cheese sandwich.

The skies are grey and the sky is still spitting but there is no doubt that life is good. The cafe has a great give-away map of the area produced by the Destination Packwood Association and it provides great detail of the roads I'll follow from here to Vancouver. I finish my pie, pay the check and head out to my bike. The waitress says "enjoy your ride." "I always do," I assure her, "I always do."

I follow FR25 south and up towards Mount St. Helens. It's 8:30 PM when I pull into the Iron Creek Campground. I pitch my tarp over the bivy and for the first time this trip, I use my Kelly Kettle to heat water. I make a cup of hot tea and pour the rest of the water in my thermos for morning coffee. Early in my planning it had looked like I might meet up with some friends here, but our schedules hadn't quite synchronized. But there is something very nice about being in the woods with the silence. I have everything I need.

Stats: Dst 113.00 miles Ave 10.0 mph Max 32.0 mph

Wander Around Washington -- 7-22-07

7-22-07 Richland to Yakima.

Paul made great lentil tacos last night and we're up early this morning to go riding. We get some coffee at a local Starbucks and at 7:00 AM we meet up with Paul's friends Nat Beasley and Jason Fuller.

We aren't riding very quickly but it doesn't take us long to roll out of town and onto some beautiful quiet roads. We follow the Keene Road to 224. I manage to get a few shots with my pencam and also chat a bit with Nat and Jason. Both of the guys brag about the great riding in the area and I can't disagree. We do talk about tackweed, the local thorn that makes Paul tend to favor Armadillo tires and thick tubes over something skinnier and faster. Once again, I'm glad I opted to take a tough-but-not-fast approach to this tour. My heavy Schwalbe Marathon tires are if anything even tougher than Armadillos.

We stop at the Conoco station in Benton City where I snap a few more pictures. Jason and Nat will turn back here, making the morning loop about 25 miles for them. Paul will ride further with me, but he's a randonneur and randonneurs are used to riding long distances.

The Benton City Conoco has a few unique features including a little fountain and a miniature model of the station itself. It would have been really cool if the model of the station included a tiny model of the station and so on to infinity but I guess the artist had to draw the line somewhere. The station also has a couple of peacocks who hang out on the roof that shades the picnic tables.

Paul and I ride from Benton City to Prosser along the old Inland Empire Hwy. As I've often found, there is great cycling along these old roads. All the busy folks take the newer main highway and these lesser roads are really only used by local residents and local cyclists.

At Prosser we connect up with a bike path that runs all the way up to Sunnyside. Paul is turning back here and I thank him for his excellent hospitality.

The old road here is called the Yakima Valley Hwy and I'm pretty sure it's headed where I need to go. It's hot (of course) so before I leave Sunnyside I stop at a minimart for a frozen Klondike Choco Taco and a pint of milk.

This is warm, dry country but the Yakima River provides the water to maintain a narrow strip where green things can grow. I see a llama cooling off under a sprinkler and goats resting in the shade.

At 2:20 PM, I know I'm getting close to Yakima and I stop at the Peppermint Stick Drive In in Union Gap for a wonderful cheeseburger, a very big lemonade and the best cherry milkshake I've ever had.

It's 94 degrees when I roll into Yakima. If I was more organized I'd have people to meet here but my planning for Yakima was sketchy even by my own loose standards. So I fell back on one of my favorite techniques, I followed the signs to the local visitor center. I was taking a bit of a gamble, since this was a Sunday and I had no idea if the visitor's center would be open. But Yakima takes pride in it's city, even on the weekends and the visitor center was open and staffed by a couple of friendly women.

Yakima has a good bike map that shows not only what is in town now in terms of cycling, but what is planned. I ask about camping options and I'm directed to both the state park and told about the KOA in case the state park is full.

Sportsman State Park is wonderful and not overly crowded. A find a nice shady camp site by a creek and settle in. It's really too late to check out any local bike shops and I realize that I've pretty much been going non-stop for a week. I roll out my bivy, write up some notes and relax in the shade. My little Nokia N800 portable computer can do a variety of things besides let me review the day's photos and type up notes. It has a built-in FM radio, so I scan the local radio stations. I find the public radio station, the country station and the rock station but nothing is quite matching my mood. But the Nokia also is an MP3 player and one tiny SD can hold the equivalent of a whole bunch of CDs. I didn't get to see Bob Dylan at Budokan but I've got the recording. And like a rolling stone, with no direction home, Bob and I, a couple of Minnesota boys who wandered onto the road a while back and just kept going, well each of us, in our own ways, we're here in Yakima tonight.

And don't think twice, it's alright.

Stats: Dst 88.30 miles Ave 11.5 mph Mx 25.5 mph

Wander Around Washington: Media Coverage

On my trip I mostly wanted to be the guy asking the questions, trying to find out about cycling in different places. But I was also out on the road as an ambassador for the Bicycle Alliance of Washington and on several occasions I wound up getting interviewed by the local media. Here are the stories from

Spokane:

Text: http://tinyurl.com/3brxaj

Video: http://www.spokesmanreview.com/media/video/?ID=1188

and Portland:

http://bikeportland.org/2007/07/26/wandering-advocate-stops-in-portland/

Wander Around Washington: I'm Home

I rolled home to my doorstep at 9:40 AM this morning. I'll be posting a lot more about my Wander Around Washington trip over the course of the next few days but right now I'm going to try to spend a little time not thinking about bikes and bike issues.

The hardest part of this trip hasn't been the riding or all the great conversations and meeting all the great people along the way. The hardest thing has been realizing how much I've missed. If I didn't make it to your town or I didn't get a chance to connect with you when I was in your part of the world, I'm really sorry. But there are only so many hours in a day and I feel like I'm just begining to learn about some of the great cycling and the great cycling people here in this part of the world. This trip is not a one-time thing and now that I'm home, it's not the end. It's really just another pedal stroke on a long journey.

For now, I'm going to rest a bit and spend time with my family. I've got hundreds of pictures to go through, loads of notes to transcribe, people to thank and plans to put into action. As I've written so often lately, more later.

It's a sweet world out there folks. Keep 'em rolling.

Kent

(A quick PS for you numbers people out there. 1341 miles in 15 days. I lost track of how much ice cream, coffee and peanut M&Ms went into fueling this journey!)

I'm in Olympia

OK folks, here's another quick update.

First off, damn it Portland really does have us beat in terms of bike culture! But Vancouver WA has super nifty on-demand bike lockers and everywhere I've been I've found some very smart, enthusiastic bike folks. We really can be the change we want to see in the world.

I had a great chat with Phil Meany yesterday in Centralia and today I'll be talking to Larry Leveen and swinging by Oly Bikes before I head off to Tacoma later this afternoon.

Kent

I'm in Portland

This is just another quick update. With too much to fit into each day, the close-to-realtime blogging has gone out the window. But I'm collecting pictures and notes and there will be lots more details posted when I get home. Anyhow, I camped at the State park in Yakima Sunday night, rode from Yakima up and over White Pass, fought headwinds to Randle, camped at Iron Creek near Mount St. Helen's Monday night. Yesterday I rode from Iron Creek to Vancouver. This morning I had a great time with Todd Boulanger in Vancouver. I'm in Portland this afternoon and evening and then I'll be headed back into Washington early tomorrow AM. Part of me wishes I had many more hours to spend in each place and I know there are people and things that I "should" see. But I can only fit so much into each day and I'm really looking forward to seeing my wife and kids again.

More later.

Kent

Wander Around Washington -- 7-21-07

7-21-07 Walla Walla to Richland

I wake at 5:00 AM and write some notes before I pack up my stuff and head downtown. Coffee Perk doesn't open until 8:00 AM, so I go to the Starbucks next door for some coffee and a slice of banana bread.

I leave Walla Walla at 8:00 AM, heading north on the low traffic SR125. I ride past the Walla Walla prison and out into farm country. After 18 miles I turn west onto SR124.

The farms here are huge, industrial agri-business operations with enormous irrigation networks and acres of corn and soybeans. For a brief second I think "who eats all this corn?" but then I realize that I do. It's what makes the high-fructose corn syrup that's packed into the gallons of beverages I'm downing to fuel me through this heat. It's used to feed the cows that become the cheeseburgers I'm scarfing or the other cows doing their bit for the nation's dairy supply. That Mocha Fudge ice cream doesn't just magically show up at the store. And now with biofuels we are making choices about growing food versus growing fuel. With the way I choose to get around, my food is my fuel. Years ago John Stamstad told me "I read food labels the opposite way most people do. They look for low fat or low calories. I look for the maximum calories per dollar."

A bit further down the road I pass an organic vineyard and I think of Laura Stone. I know I'm certainly no food saint and I think Laura is doing something interesting and valuable. Food is energy and right now the human race is doing some very strange things with food and energy. But are there enough Laura Stones to feed the world? I have no idea. But as the man said, "the times they are a changin" and what we are doing today with lots of oil and lots of water we may have to do differently down the road. It all takes energy and maybe a key source of that energy is going to be women like Laura and other folks who might not have the answers but are out there asking questions and getting their hands dirty.

At 12:30 PM, I stop to refill my water bottles at the park where SR124 connects with Hwy 12 right by the Snake River. It's 87 degrees now with a few light clouds that occasionally provide breaks from the sun and I'm going through liquid at a pretty fast rate.

I cross the Snake River and follow Paul Whitney's directions through Pasco, Kennewick and Richland. Paul is a randonneur and he's emailed me turn by turn directions through the towns. Randonneurs are used to following cue sheets and when you get directions from a randonneur, they are usually pretty good. Paul's route shows me some of the paths in the area and takes me along the river, through a park and eventually to his house.

The way I'd selected who I see in various areas worked like this. When we first came up with the idea of the round the state tour, we published the tentative schedule of when I'd be where in the Bicycle Alliance Newsletter and on our website with an invitation to folks along the route to get in touch with us. People in various places called or emailed. I'll be the first to admit that we were not super organized in figuring out who the key people we should be talking to in a given area. I was going on this trip because I didn't know a lot about many of the areas I'd be visiting, so I know I offended some people by not seeing them as I passed through. And before I left, I'd gotten a couple of "I can't believe you are not coming to community X" notes, to which I'd had to reply with my regrets that I just couldn't hit every place on one trip. In the case of the Tri Cities, Paul Whitney had offered up his couch and he said he'd show me around. I knew Paul through some of the Seattle International Randonneur's rides and we'd ridden together for a bit on last fall's "Big Lebowski" 600K brevet.

I got to Paul's place at 3:00 PM. I'd stopped to down a quart of milk and an ice cream bar in Kennewick and by the time I got to his house I was fairly baked. "You've got a nice trail along the river there," I said, "but I didn't really see anyone using it."

Paul smiles at me and points out the obvious, "Did you happen to notice it's a little warm? You saw a lot of people in the shade in the park and maybe right by the water, right? In the hottest part of the day, would you want to be out on the open trail? It gets more use in the mornings and evenings."

Paul goes on to tell me about the area. "Agriculture and atomic power. People are here, these towns are here, because of the rivers. It's desert here but we've got water. The government put Hanford (the big nuke site) here because mostly there weren't people here but there was water."

"So pretty much all of this got built up after World War II?"

"Yep. And the big agricultural stuff is all post war as well. Pasco is more farming, Richland is more on the energy side of things." Paul is a mathematician and does something involving statistics and lab work.

Paul, his wife Julie and his kids David and Laura are very generous in opening their home to me. Paul and I talk about the local infrastructure and riding conditions. All the bridge crossings are very bikeable and walkable, something I wish I could say about the Seattle area. I ask about things that limit riding, is it the heat or the traffic or what? Paul thinks for a bit and then replies "Wind. The heat you get used to, but you do get smarter about it and you may try to avoid the hottest part of the day. But wind can stop you. I've had rides where I had to call Julie to come pick me up because I couldn't keep the bike on the road. But most of the time the wind isn't that bad, but the other thing is the dust. The wind will kick up the dust and that's just no fun. You can't breathe or at least you don't want to be breathing in that super fine dust."

"Is it like mutant, atomic dust?" I naively ask, thinking of the big nuke reservation north of town?"

"No," Paul laughs, "it's just plain old dust, but dusty days keep me off the bike." Paul goes on to tell me about the great riding, however. "Most days are great and we've got great road riding here." The Tri-Cities Bike Club is very active in the area and they have several rides each week and have mapped out many great loops in the area. Much of Paul's riding is commuting or rides out in the country and he says that tomorrow morning we can meet up with a couple of his pals and we'll get in some riding.

The day's stats: Dst 79.88 miles Ave 11.5 mph Mx 23.5

More riding than writing

This is just a quick post to let everybody know I'm still trucking along. I'm in Naches now, about to head up to White Pass and then down around Mt. St. Helens. I'll be out of internet contact for a while. Good times in the Tri-cities and Yakima. Details and pics later.

Kent

Wander Around Washington - 7-20-07

Colfax to Walla Walla

The motel was serving breakfast at 6:00, so I had some eggs, donuts and coffee before I hit the road at 6:30. My route today is simple, Hwy 26 to 127 and then follow Hwy 12 into Walla Walla.

The weather is perfect, not too hot, 80s instead of higher and while I don't have a tailwind, at least the winds there are aren't slowing my down too much. The hills, on the other hand, can put a bit of a damper on forward momentum. This terrain reminds me of western France, the hills aren't particularly huge or steep but the terrain is constantly rolling. Everything is a bluff or a gorge or a gulch or a ridge and I'm glad I'm traveling with a fairly light load.

An hour southeast of Colfax on the road to a tiny town called Dusty, I see a crop dusting plane spraying the fields, I snap a few shots with my pencam and decide a bit to late that it might not be the smartest thing in the world to stare in slack-jawed amazement as a plane buzzes overhead dropping some kind of insecticide.


At 9:00 AM I cross the Snake River and begin another climb. If I'd gotten an earlier start or if my bike said "Harley Davidson" on the side instead of "Hasten Slowly", I might have been able to knock the hundred or so miles from Colfax to Walla Walla by early afternoon but I'm really just wanting to make it to Walla Walla while the bike shops are still open.


At 12:30 PM I'm 30 miles northwest of Walla Walla. I stop in a town called Dayton for a double cheeseburger washed down with some milk and Gatorade. I've also been following my usual practice of munching M&Ms, cashews, granola bars and other goodies from my front basket as I ride. I have a nice phone chat with Bike Alliance board member Jean Byrne. Jean lives in Walla Walla and even though she out of town traveling today, she fills me in on what shops I should stop at when I get to town.

I roll into Walla Walla around 3:30 PM. Hwy 12 becomes a big, freewayish road here but I spot a parallel bike path and take the first exit that connects me up with the path. I follow the same strategy I did when I rolled into Spokane, I try to follow the signs and the traffic flow towards downtown and I make my first stop at the town visitor center.

The lady at the visitor center gives me a nice bike map of the area and also starts to fill me in on the various wineries and the local Onion Festival. Wine and onions are OK but I tell her what I'm really looking for right now is ice cream. She directs me to a shop a couple of blocks away where I have two scoops of mocha fudge served in a waffle cone.

My next stops are Allegro Cyclery and the Bicycle Barn. In both shops, the guys I chat with say nice things about the other shop. I ask my usual questions to get a vibe of the cycling in town. There is some terrific road riding in the area but there has also been an uptick in cruiser bike sales. And there is a BMX track in town, so I figure I should go check that out. Both Steve at Allegro and Reggie at Bicycle Barn are very generous with their time answering my questions on a Friday afternoon.

After checking out the shops, I head over to a local coffee shop, planning on using their internet connection to get some work done and blast a report up to the blog. But Laura Stone sees my bike and gear and she's got a question for me, she's touring cross country and wonders if I've got advice on a route to Portland.


Over coffee we discuss her options for routing and her trip. Laura is from Athen's Georgia ("like REM?" I comment. "Yeah, or like the B52s, " she counters.) and she's been riding cross country and working at various organic farms as part of WWOOF (Willing Workers On Organic Farms -- I think I got that right.) Anyhow, we talk about touring, headwinds, my family, her family and a bunch of other stuff. When I ask her if she could change one thing that would make life better for cyclists, she thinks for a minute and replies "shoulders on every road. Wide, clean shoulders."

She'll be looking for work when she gets to Portland and I give her my card. "I know people," I say, "urban chicken people, bike co-op people, foodies...I know lots of people." I'd told her about my indirect route to Portland and advised against it for her. We mapped her a straighter shot, but the wind in the Gorge may be a problem. "But at least it'll be pretty," I tell her.

Laura heads off to her aunt and uncle's place (most of her touring bags are already there, that's why the bike looks so lightly loaded in the picture) and I want to check out the old fort and the BMX track so I head there.

After doing some touristy gawking at the fort and taking some pictures of the BMX kids, I find a quiet spot at the edge of town, roll out the bivy and settle in for the night.

Day's stats:

Dst 114.3 miles

Ave 11.0 mph

Mx 28.0 mph

Pictures from the Walla Walla BMX Track

Walla Walla has a very cool BMX track near old Fort Walla Walla. I took these shots of kids having fun there on the evening of 7-20-07

Wander Around Washington - 7-19-07

It was very nice staying at John's place in Spokane. This morning I had a good breakfast there. I had an interview with a reporter and photographer from the Spokesman review and then John and I rode downtown. We had coffee with David Blaine, a local single speed rider who is planning on racing the Great Divide next year. After coffee John and I went across the street to Two Wheel Transit where I chatted with Jordan Keough. I find that getting the perspective from various bike shop owners and workers gives me a feel for the kind of riding folks are doing in various places. One thing that Jordan said, that I've heard in every shop I've been in on this trip, is that he's seeing more people looking for "useful" bikes. Bikes to ride to work or to the grocery store. It's a trend I find encouraging.

John guided me out of town to the Fish Lake Trail and then he had to head off to a meeting. In every place I've been I been spending time with great people and I'm very grateful to John and his family for opening their home to me.

The Fish Lake Trail is part gravel and part paved. Just outside Cheney I followed the Cheney-Spangle Road to Hwy 195. 195 rolls south over the lovely rolling hills of the Palouse. It had rained some earlier in the day but now it's warm and I'm comfortable in a parting gift from John, a bright orange recycled bowling shirt featuring the logo of John's non-profit pedals2people.

I'd wanted to cover some of the distance to Walla Walla today and at 6:30 PM I roll into the town of Colfax. It looks like Colfax is the biggest town I'll hit between Spokane and Walla Walla. Between the kindess of folks and a couple of frugal nights sleeping by a river and in a ditch, I figure I can splurge a bit. I check out the town and decide to stay at the very nice Wheatland Inn. All motels have showers and cclean sheets but the Wheatland Inn takes luxury to a new level by having free cookies and milk in the lobby from 6:00 to 8:00 PM. I don't think the folks at the Inn were quite ready for the ammount of milk and cookies I can put away after a warm afternoon of riding!

Today's stats: Dst 76.88 Av 11.4 mph Mx 37.0

Another Pencam Action Shot

OK, so one dumb thing I did on this trip was bring two cameras. My "good" camera has spent the entire trip buried somewhere in my pack while I've managed to shoot a bunch of pictures with my pencam. The pencam hangs from a lanyard around my neck and it does a decent job. Today I took this self-portrait by holding the camera at arm's length while I rode down the quiet Cheney-Spangle Road.

Nice Marmot!

Ok, it's not really a marmot but every time I see one of these furry beasties that line from "The Big Lebowski" pops into my head.

What's Wrong With This Picture?

So somebody spent a nice chunk of money to put this drinking fountain alongside the Fish Lake Trail south of Spokane. Now wouldn't it have been just a bit nicer if a person could actually fill a water bottle at this fountain? As it is, the water stream is too low and you can't get a bottle anywhere close to vertical under the flowing water.

Living in the moment vs writing about the moment

Another quick note here. I'm still in Spokane, having a great time and learning a lot. I'm accumulating a pile of notes and when all this is done, I'll post more digested, analyzed thoughts.

Here are a couple of neat things that have already happened on this trip. In Spokane I'm talking with John Speare about his Pedals2People project. What he's doing is very similar to what Kyle Morris is doing at the Hub in Bellingham. "Talk to Kyle," I advise, "you'll learn a ton. Better yet, go there and see what he's doing." In Winthrop Scott Wachler and I talked about issues with chipseal on roads and I told him about some of the places that are doing some simple things to lessen the impact of chipseal on cyclists. And we also talked about motivating kids and getting them riding. I pointed Scott to some of the stuff that Bikeworks is doing in Seattle.

I stop at various bike shops to get a feel of the local bike business and from that get a feel for what kind of cycling folks are doing. Some places are more road, some are more mountain. But in every place I'm getting stories of an uptick in utility cycling, folks riding around to get places. I think this is a good trend.

I don't have time in the moment to write all this up, so I'll continue blasting up fragments. When I'm back at home and have a couple weeks worth of stories, pictures and impressions, I'll pull together a larger reflection of what I've seen and learned on this trip.

Wander Around Washington - Pics from 7-18-07

Ride Around Washington - Pictures from 7-17-07

Wander Around Washington - 7-18-07

Ok, this one is going to be a stream of consciousness, "that's not writing, that's just typing" post.

I slept by the river in Winthrop the night of the 16th. I was up at 5:30 AM, waiting for things to open up, jotting notes and doing things like that. Fred Wert, the author of "Bakeries By Bicycle", lives in Winthrop and even though our schedules didn't sync up for this trip, he advised me to eat at the Rocking Horse Bakery, so I did. I also met Scott Waichler there and we chatted about cycling and cycling issues in the area. I also checked out the two shops in town. Gina Ornelaz filled me in on Winthrop Mountain Sports and Joe Brown gave me the story of his shop Methow Cycle and Sport.

I rolled out of town at 11:30 AM, taking the road that all the locals advised me to take instead of Hwy 20. This quiet road lead me to Twisp where I acted on another bit of Fred's sage advice and I stopped at the Cinnamon Twisp Bakery for an iced latte and a couple of choco-peanut granola bars. At 1:00 PM I had a quick interview with Lillian Tucker of the Methow Valley News before heading southeast.

It's clear and hot and I'm following SR153 down the river valley. At 2:10 I stop for milk. I pour some lemonade in one water bottle and some mucho mango drink in my thermos. In warm weather I'm careful to keep well stocked with fluids and I make sure I eat enough salty stuff like Fritos and cashews. At Pateros I stop for more milk and some Gatorade and popcorn chicken. I call home to let Christine know I'm doing OK.

It's right around 10:00 PM when I roll by the huge, shining Grand Coulee Dam. With all the power this thing cranks out, they don't have any problem using a little bit of it to light the whole thing up so it can be seen from space. I roll into the town of Grand Coulee, following the much dimmer beams of my LED lights. I was settling into the city park when an apologetic cop says "you can't camp here, I don't know why." He then adds "there probably won't be anyone back around, though..." and he drives off. To be on the safe side, I roll out of town, just across the county line and find a dark patch of ground in a ditch on the backside of a guardrail. There had been mosquitoes in the park back in town, but here there is only a single persistent cricket and the occasional passing car. It's still very warm, but thanks to my thermos, I have a bit of cool Mucho Mango drink. The thermos has become on of my favorite bits of touring gear.

Stats for the day: Distance 102.4 miles, Average speed 11.8 mph.

This morning I'm up and rolling at 4:55 AM. At first I'm thinking that I'm really feeling sluggish but it gradually dawns on me that I'm climbing a pretty decent ridge up from Grand Coulee. A drop lands on my pant leg and I think, "huh, I'm working up quite a sweat here," and then there is a thunder crack and more drops. It's raining. It's pretty pleasant and then the rain stops and eventually the terrain turns down again.

The sky gets darker and again the booming comes and I'm about a mile shy of the little town of Wilber when big drops begin falling again. My cotton shirt, which has actually been damn near the ideal garment for the past few days, is pretty damp by the time I roll into Sandy's Grocery in Wilbur. It's just a bit before 7:00 AM and this is what hobbits would call second breakfast. It consists of coffee, a cheeseburger, 2 donuts, an apple juice and some green ice tea. One again, remember readers, I am not a nutrional role model.

I layer on my O2 rain jacket and my rain legs as well as my wool gloves and my Buff headband. The fellow at the store looks at the sky and says "I think I'd hang around for a bit." I stay long enough to eat and when the sky settles into just wet and not sparky, I head out.

Eventually, I get ahead of the weather or maybe the sun just pulls the water away. Soon I'm stowing the foul weather gear and the sun and wind are drying the shirt on my back. Now it's stops for cool milk and iced lattes and at 1:37 PM I'm in downtown Spokane. Now I'm settled at John Speare's and it's more chatting about bikes and the bike world here. I gotta stop typing this now.

Today's stats: Dist 88.77 miles, Ave 11.1 mph

More later.

7-16-06 picture above Lake Diablo

Not much time for an extensive update. A Ranger took this picture of me yesterday. BTW, the food at the Rocking Horse Bakery in Winthrop is great and they have free wifi. I'm here in Winthrop for a few more hours then I'm headed off into the heat toward Spokane. The trip is going GREAT!

Wander Around Washington - 7-16-07

7-16-07

Bellingham to Winthrop

5:05 am - 8:30 pm
dst 158.59
odo 569.1
mx 35.5
tm 13.51.36
av 11.4

A very good day of riding. Left Dan's place at 5:05 am with a belly
full of potato pancakes. 6:00 am at Van Zandt. At 7:21 I turned onto
the beautiful little Fruitdale Road. Twenty minutes later I turned
onto Hwy 20 right near milepost 67 just east of Seedro Wooley. At 8:15
am I had milk and Brownie Bites at the Cascade Mercantile in Lyman. At
9:35 I called the office from Concrete and set up to chat with Lillian
Tucker of the Methow Valley News in Winthrop tomorrow. Bought Fritos
and an Orange V8 thing. Rolling again by 10:00

10:45 am 5 min stop to put on sunblock in Rockport.

11:35 am Snickers Pie and orangeade in Marblemount.

Long slog up. Took pictures and a ranger took my picture at an overlook.

Saw a guy on an older Dahon rolling down from Rainy Pass. He was using
one of the old bamboo snow depth poles as a drag brake.

5:58 pm at Rainy Pass. WooHoo!

Half a mile or so from Washington pass a nice couple in a van were
stopped looking at the view. The called out "You doing OK?"

I told 'em I was doing fine.

"It's only about half a mile to the top. Do you need any water or anything?"

"Thanks, but I'm OK."

6:38 PM at Washington Pass. Put on wind vest and rolled down sleeves.

Awesome descent. Just perfect.

8:30 PM in downtown Winthrop. Back in cell service. Messages from
Christine and Amy from the Spokesman review. She wants to interview me
when I'm in Spokane.

Ate a double scoop mocha chip icecream cone and wandered around Winthrop.

Had a very nice chat with Peter Moser phmoser@seattleschools.org. His
family has a place near here and we talked about cycling in the area.

camped by the river. settled in by 9:30 pm.
--
Kent Peterson
Commuting Program Director
Bicycle Alliance of Washington
P.O. Box 2904
Seattle WA 98111
206-224-9252
kentp@bicyclealliance.org

Pictures from 7-15-07

Wander Around Washington - Day 2

Just a very quick update right now. I'm at Dan Turner's place outside Bellingham. I had a super good day today on Whidbey Island, Chuckanut Drive and Bellingham. I'll do a more detailed update when when I've got more time to spend on the computer. Right now I'm going to get some rest. Tomorrow I'm going to get an early start and I'm heading up and over the Cascades toward Winthrop. I may be out of communication for a while but I've got more pics and stories coming.

Wander Around Washington - Packing List

OK, some folks care about stuff like this. Here's a list of what I'm lugging all around the great state of Washington on my old green Gary Fisher HooKooEKoo.

In the front basket I have a small nylon bag. It used to hold a Fox Racing Shock (they send these things to shops in nylon bags, go figure! Anyhow, I'm a scrounger so I have a few of these bags hanging around):

First Aid Kit
Sunblock
Cafe Vienna Instant Coffee
Green Tea bags
a small plastic bottle of sugar (I use sugar in my tea)
3 granola bars
a big plastic bag of peanut M&Ms
2 Tiger's milk bars
Gummy worms
Cashews
(please note, I am not a nutritional role model)

the front basket also has two toe-straps to secure the load, a clip to hold a map and a Princeton Tec EOS headlamp.

The handlebars have a brass bell, A Serfas white front LED light that I often use as a front blinkie, and Ergon Grips.

Within the main triangle of the bike I have 2 28 ounce water bottles. I also have a Cateye Enduro cyclecomputer attached to the downtube. This helps keep me from staring at my computer and obsessing about numbers but I still can track my mileage easily.

The bike's saddle is a WTB Rocket V.

The bike as home made coroplast fenders.

An old Wald metal basket is mounted to a rear Blackburn rack.

On the back of the basket are two Planet Bike red rear flashers

Underneath the left side of the basket is a shortened Z-rest pad held in place by one nylon strap and one toe strap.

Underneath the right side of the basket is a nylon bag containing a Kelly Kettle, a small stash of twigs, matches and a butane lighter.

In the basket is:

2 one liter bottles (I fill these up if I'll be going through dry stretches of country.)

A heavy duty plastic bag containing: a Topeak Road Morph pump, 1 spare inner tube, 1 patch kit, 2 tire levers, chain tool, M8/10 wrench, M9/spoke wrench, Park AWS-10 multi-allen tool, 6" adjustable wrench w duct tape around handle, 8 speed quick link, a small length of spare chain, zip ties, TriFlo, brake cable, derailler cable, fiber fix spoke.

A cable combination lock.

A Seattle Sports drybag containing: 4 tent stakes, a silnylon tarp/poncho, parachute cord, a very old Goretex bivy, a mosquito head net, a Montbell #5 down sleeping bag.

2 custom bungee cords with carabiner ends.

A Dana Designs Kompressor Stuffsack/Pack containing: reflective sash, 2 reflective ankle bands, yellow nylon vest, Marmot DriClime windshirt, Rainlegs, O2 Rain jacket, legs for REI Sahara shorts/pants, Voler bike shorts, leg warmers, 2 pairs wool socks, 1 pair long fingered wool gloves, Buff headband, short sleeve button down cotton shirt, short sleeve wool t-shirt, long sleeve wool zip-neck shirt, 2 bandanas, 2 plastic bags (for waterproofing inside the stuff sack).

An old Camelbak Blowfish pack holds all my electronics and miscellaneous stuff. It doesn't have a water bladder in it, I just use it as a pack. While riding, it's held on top of the rear basket via two carabiners and a couple of bungies. The Camelbak contains: my 16 ounce Thermos, a Nokia N800 web tablet, a folding Bluetooth keyboard, USB cable a solar charger, an AC charger for the Nokia, headphones for the Nokia, an AC charger for my cell phone, an Olympus voice recorder, a compact AC NiMH charger, an AA based charger for the Nokia, spare AA and AAA batteries, a Kodak C433 digital camera, my passport, maps, ferry schedule, business cards, 2 mesh nylon bags, container of vasline, razor, Dr. Bronner's soap, toothbrush, tooth paste, Wet Ones wipes, chlorine dioxide (H2O purification) tablets, Vitamins B&C stress tabs.

Items worn on person (varies with temperature, this is stuff not covered above and what I'm wearing as I type this): Keen Shoes, wool socks, Voler cycling shorts, REI Sahara shorts, long sleeve cotton shirt, REI cap.

In my pockets: Aiptek Pencam SD, wallet, keys, cell phone, compass, Leatherman Squirt E4, Swiss Army Knife, Inova LED light, sharpening stone, magnesium firestarter w flint, Rite in the Rain notebook, 2 pens, 1 pencil, lip balm

Also Specialized bike helmet with mirror, Princeton Tec EOS headlamp, Bell tail light.

Cycling gloves.


Wow, that's a big list. I don't know how much it all weighs. I can tell you it's lighter and less than most of the touring loads I see out on the road.


OK, that's enough typing for one night. I've got to get up early in the morning to catch a ferry.

Wander Around Washington Day 1 - Port Townsend

I leave home at 4:20 AM. I'm not as rested as I'd hoped, or as organized, but the time has come for going and so I go. My wife is cute and sleepy and sends me on my way with a strong hug, a passionate kiss and stern reminders that I should ride safe and be certain to return.

The green bike is loaded with too much stuff, but I always think I have too much stuff. For this trip, my camp and clothes kit is pretty trim but I do feel like I am carrying too much technology. I have a cell phone, a wifi webpad, a folding keyboard, a digital voice recorder, a couple of cameras, batteries and a variety of chargers. Perhaps tonight I'll have time to inventory it all.

But now it is time to ride. It's a perfect morning, 60 degrees with the lightest bits of cloud in the sky. The streets are quiet as I ride toward Seattle. In the pre-dawn dark of this Saturday the 14th a white cat crosses my path. How can this not be a good omen?

It's growing light as I roll across Mercer Island and on the floating bridge I see bikes on racks on the backs of cars rolling into town. This weekend is the big Seattle to Portland (STP) ride and thousands of cyclists are getting ready to ride south. I'm headed elsewhere.

I roll up to the ferry terminal at 5:47 AM and pay the fare for the 6:10 ferry to Bainbridge Island. I jot some notes and have time for a breakfast sandwich and coffee on the ferry. At 6:50 I roll onto Bainbridge Island.

Another fellow on the ferry had a new Surly Long Haul Trucker tht he's planning on riding to Boston this August. Today he's just out for a shorter shake-down trip up to Kingston.

I roll north up the island and out the top via the Agate Pass bridge. At Poulsbo I move off the somewhat busy Hwy 3 and onto the quieter more scenic Little and Big Valley Roads. I rejoin Hwy 3 and roll across the Hood Canal Bridge. Even on a clear day, the bridge is something to which I pay close attention. I have several friends crash on this narrow bit of concrete, with it's diagonal expansion joints and sometimes slick surface. I'm thankful for today's good weather and my fattish tires.

Few people share my early-rising tendencies and none of my Port Townsend friends were quite up for meeting me on the western side of the bridge at 8:30 AM for the ride up. So I turn up Paradise Bay Road, grateful that I've brought multiple gears and derailleurs and those other optional bits of cycling technology with me today. Paradise Bay Road climbs and winds it's way past it's namesake bay and continues north and west to the "village in the woods by the bay" of Port Ludlow. I strongly suspect that Port Ludlow had some sort of committee come up with that slogan.

Port Hadlock is filled with tents today, celebrating some sort of Port Hadlock Days. Perhaps the Port Hadlockians felt they had to do something to compete against the sloganeering community to their south. Showing an iron resolve for which I hope to become famous, I resist the urge to pull over and load my bike up with every Port Hadlock promotional item I see.

I roll through Irondale where the local church advises "No sense being pessimistic, it won't work anyway." A few miles later the quiet Irondale Road joins the busy Hwy 19 which in turn joins the busier Hwy 20. All these roads have pretty good shoulders but my local friend Bob Bryant has given me directions onto the quiet and lovely Larry Scott Memorial. I follow the trail into town and meet up with Bob at the marina.

I've known Bob for years and I've even written a few articles for his wonderful magazine, Recumbent Cyclist News. Today Bob is riding a conventional, upright bike and of course I have to give him a hard time about this. I snap a few pictures with my pencam and promise "this is going up on the blog. You are so busted!" Bob takes this in good stride. Like me, Bob is somebody who likes a wide range of bikes.

It's late morning now, the kind of time when a guy could have breakfast or lunch but the important thing is to have something. We narrow down our options to the Landfall. The tie-breaking items are that they serve good breakfast and Bob's daughter works there. We call Clifford Smith and inform him of our destination. He says he'll meet us there.

Clifford is my kind of guy: car-free, something of a roamer, probably considered a bit eccentric by some. In Port Townsend, he blends right in. Port Townsend has more than it's fair share of unique individuals and my friend Jon has told me that the town slogan is "we're all here because we're not all there." Hey, at least it's better than "a village in the woods..."

Port Townsend is a real gem of a city, a sea port built up in Victorian times that's worked hard to maintain much of it's historic charm. Of course that charm makes it a tourist destination and on a sunny week-end day like this the streets are packed with folks from out of town gawking at the pretty buildings and the quaint crafty things in the stores. Still Port Townsend really is lovely and Christine and I have spent some wonderful off-season days in this town and it's one of those places we could see calling home someday.

But as I was saying about Clifford, I first met him a while back when he stopped by the Bikestation. He was headed up into the Cascades with a loaded bike and when I say loaded, I mean loaded. I was only slightly stretching the truth when I told him that I suspected I had few possessions in my apartment than he had on his bike that day. But he rolled off on that beast that day and somehow he survived the climbs. I know this because he is here today and telling me about this. "You were right," he says, "I travel lighter these days."

Light, but not too light. Today, he shows up at the cafe with an unladen Xtracycle. Clifford explains that after he leaves us, he's headed off to do some shopping.

We're joined at the cafe by a couple more bikish folks, friends of Clifford. Todd is the owner of Todd's Cyclery here in town, quiet fellow with a thoughtful way about him and a damn stylish Surly wool bike cap. Todd's friend Michael is a fellow distance bum, the kind of guy who immediately begins quizzing me about the Great Divide Race. In the course of our conversation I get the feeling that Michael might take to the GDR, he seems excited by the lack of civilization and my description of the Great Divide Basin. And when Clifford and I are discussing weight of gear, Michael wisely adds "I try to travel as broke as possible." Thriving on a low budget is a handy skill to have.

We chat more about cycling and Port Townsend, about making a living and making a life. After a good amount of good food we head over to Todd's Cyclery where he shows me his small but efficient shop. Everybody has places to go and things to do so we all wish each other well and head off on our missions.

My next stop is the Elevated Ice Cream Company (hey, I never said I have a tough job). Here I meet up with Jane Whicher. Jane has been with the Bicycle Alliance for years and has been very active locally in bicycling issues. Jane and I have a great discussion about what's good and bad about the area in terms of cycling. Jane gives me not only a good sense of the geographic lay of the land, but also insights into the local politics and economic realities of the town, county and surrounding area. When my head is just about completely full of Port Townsend bike info and my stomach is full of Port Townsend ice cream, Jane and I part with vows to keep in touch.

I play the tourist in Port Townsend for a bit. I find free wifi at a non-profit youth coffee house but I also know I have high-powered computing resources waiting for me at my friend Jon's place. Jon is actually camping with his family tonight over on Whidbey Island and I'll meet up with him tomorrow. I get to spend to night at his place, typing all this up on his computer and getting a snug place to sleep. And all I have to do is feed his cat and bring in the paper in the morning. It's good to have friends. And I've got a lot of them in Port Townsend.

Pictures here:

http://picasaweb.google.com/kentsbike/PortTownsend

For more information about Port Townsend, this is a good place to start:

http://www.ptguide.com/

And for those of you who care about such things I rode 68.23 miles today at an average speed of 12.2 mph. And yeah, this is a short mileage day and I had plenty of free time this evening to blog. Don't expect reports this big every day!

Press Release

Press release – for immediate release
More information: Gordon Black (206) 224-9252

Bicycle Commuter Specialist Peddles the Case for Bikes

Bicycle commuter specialist Kent Peterson is on a pedal-powered mission to check on the status of bicycle facilities around the state. Peterson, who combines his love of long-distance cycling with a job as the commute-program director at the Bicycle Alliance of Washington, will rack up more than 1100 miles on a multi-county loop.

Peterson sets off July 14 on a two-week odyssey that includes visits to Port Townsend, Bellingham, Spokane, Walla Walla and Vancouver. In addition to long days on his bike saddle, Peterson has scheduled visits to bicycle advocates in communities he'll pedal through. Some will be joining him on the road to talk to him first-hand about the status of cycling in their own communities.

“I want to get a sense of what it's like to cycle in a various parts of the state - cities, small towns and little country roads. I figure the people who can give me the best information about these places are the folks who live and ride there every day so I'll be spending a lot of time chatting with local cyclists.” Peterson says. “The issues that might come up in a place like Spokane are very different from those in rural areas like the Methow Valley.”

The information that Peterson collects on his cross-state journey will be used by the Bicycle Alliance of Washington, a Seattle-based group that represents the interests of bicyclists all over Washington. The group lobbies law-makers in Olympia to ensure that transportation plans include provisions for bicycles and addresses safety issues.

"As a state-wide group, it's really important that we know what kinds of problems local communities are dealing with," says Bicycle Alliance executive director Gordon Black. "An issue that is a barrier to bicycling in one city might well have been satisfactorily solved in another community. Kent's trip will allow us to gather information and at the same time strengthen our connections with groups all over the state."

Kent Peterson will be providing the Bicycle Alliance with updates from the road via phone calls, digital photos and blog entries. His trip progress can be followed at the Bicycle Alliance website at: http://www.bicyclealliance.org/

Peterson’s odyssey around the state is in keeping with his reputation as a long-distance bicyclist. He has competed in several ultra-distance cycling events and currently holds the record for completing the Canada-Mexico Great Divide Mountain Bike Race on a single-speed bike. He took 22 days 3 hours and 9 minutes to cover the 2490 miles.

Kent Peterson’s itinerary

• Sat. 7/14/2007 -- Port Townsend
• Sun. 7/15/2007 -- Bellingham
• Mon. 7/16/2007 -- Hwy 20
• Tue. 7/17/2007 -- Winthrop
• Wed. 7/18/2007 -- Spokane
• Thu. 7/19/2007 -- Spokane / Cheney
• Fri. 7/20/2007 -- Walla Walla
• Sat. 7/21/2007 -- Richland/Pasco/Kennewick
• Sun. 7/22/2007 -- Yakima
• Mon. 7/23/2007 -- Mt. St. Helens
• Tue. 7/24/2007 -- Vancouver/Portland
• Wed. 7/25/2007 -- Vancouver/Portland
• Thu. 7/26/2007 -- Olympia
• Fri. 7/27/2007 -- Tacoma
• Sat. 7/28/2007 -- Seattle/Issaquah

Background: The Bicycle Alliance of Washington is a registered 501 c 3 not-for-profit dedicated to improving conditions and access for all bicyclists.

Wander Around Washington Schedule

OK folks, I know I've been quiet on the blog lately but that is about to change. In two days I take off on my tour of Washington state. This post serves a couple of purposes. First, it's a little test of my blogging via my Nokia N800. Second, it'll give people some idea of where I think I'm going to be over the next few weeks. I'd love to meet up with as many folks as possible. So if the route I've outlined below intersects with where you happen to be in this world, send me an email at kentp@bicyclealliance.org and I'll see what we can do to meet up.

---

Washington Trip Schedule.

---

Sat 7/14/07

Early Ferry to Winslow.

7:00 AM -- 12:00 Noon -- Ride 48 miles to Port Townsend

12:00 Noon to 8:00 PM -- In Port Townsend. Local resources Jon Muellner, Jane Whicher, Bob Bryant.

Sat Night. Stay at Jon Muellner's place in Port Townsend.

---

Sun 7/15/07

Early Ferry from Port Townsend to Whidbey Island

7:00 AM -- 1:00 PM -- Ride to 60 miles to Bellingham

1:00 PM - 8:00 PM -- In Bellingham. Local resources: Dan Turner, Ellen Barton.

Sun Night. Stay with Dan Turner in Bellingham.

---

Mon 7/16/07

6:00 AM -- 10 PM -- One big old ride (155 miles up and over the Cascades) to Winthrop or camp partway there and roll into Winthrop on Tuesday AM.

---

Tuesday 7/17/07

9:00 AM to 2:00 PM -- Spend time in Winthrop. Local resources: Fred Wert, Scott Waichler, Julie Muyllaert, Tom Sullivan.

2:00 PM to 10 PM -- Ride partway to Spokane (the "short" distance to Spokane is about 177 miles)

---

Wednesday 7/18/07

6:00 AM to Noon -- Ride to Spokane

Wednesday Afternoon in Spokane. Local resources: John Speare, Spokane Bike Advisory Board, Spokane REI.

Wednesday night stay at John Speare's place.

---

Thursday 7/19/07

Thursday Morning -- Spokane & Cheney.

Thursday Afternoon & Evening -- Ride partway to Walla Walla. (Spokane to Walla Walla is 148 miles)

---

Friday 7/20/07

Friday Morning -- Ride to Walla Walla

Friday Afternoon -- Walla Walla

Friday PM -- Stay in Walla Walla

---

Saturday 7/21/07

Saturday Morning -- Ride from Walla Walla to the Tri Cities (65 miles)

Saturday Afternoon -- Tri Cities

Saturday Night -- Stay in Tri Cities. Local resource: Paul Whitney.

---

Sunday 7/22/07

Sunday Morning -- Ride from Tri Cities to Yakima (69 miles)

Sunday Afternoon -- Yakima

Sunday Night -- Stay in Yakima

---

Monday 7/23/07 -- Ride from Yakima to Mt. St. Helens (116 miles)

Monday Night -- Camp near Mount St. Helens

---

Tuesday 7/24/07

Tuesday Morning -- Ride to Vancouver (65 miles) via Battleground. Stop at bike shop in Battleground.

Tuesday Afternoon -- Vancouver. Local resources: Joe Gruelich, Todd Boulanger

Tuesday Night -- Vancouver or Portland.

---

Wednesday 7/25/07

Wednesday All Day -- Vancouver/Portland area. Spend night in Portland.
Local resources: Michael Rasmussen, Beth Hamon, Jonathan Maus, Ira Ryan, Joel Metz

---

Thursday 7/26/07

Thursday Morning and Afternoon -- Ride from Portland to Olympia (124 miles)

Thursday Evening -- Stay in Olympia

---

Friday 7/27/07

Friday Morning -- Olympia

Friday Afternoon -- Ride from Olympia to Tacoma (32 miles).

Friday Night -- Tacoma.

---

Saturday 7/28/07

Saturday Morning -- Tacoma

Saturday Afternoon -- Ferry to Vashon. Ride Vashon. Ferry to West Seattle. Ride West Seattle to Issaquah. (48 miles)

Saturday Night -- Sleep at home in my own bed.

-----

Total = 1107 miles

--
Kent Peterson
Commuting Program Director
Bicycle Alliance of Washington
P.O. Box 2904
Seattle WA 98111
206-224-9252
kentp@bicyclealliance.org

A Very Vague S240

This weekend I went on a sub-24-hour overnight (S240) trip with my friends Alex Wetmore and Mark Vande Kamp. We all believe in the premise that "the key to adventure is a lack of information." This doesn't mean that we don't plan or are not prepared to deal with a wide range of circumstances, but it does mean that we prefer our trips to include some element of discovery. And one of the best ways to ensure adventure is to be a bit lax in our understanding of the geography of where we are supposedly headed.

Ideally you have a hand drawn map, something sketched by a drunken man with an eye patch, who you met once in a bar in a town you stumbled into by mistake. In the absence of such a map, a vague reference from an old book is a good starting point or perhaps your uncle's recollection of a fishing spot his father told him about years ago. In any case, the lack of precision is the key element of the adventure.

In the case of this adventure, we had a lake with a funny name and Alex and I had Mark's assurance that he'd been there year's before. We actually had some kind of map, not quite drawn to scale. Since we live in an age of Google and satellites and GPS units, we figured we'd find the place. Alex had a GPS unit, a route somewhat mapped and we had Mark's memory of the location of the lake with the funny name.

I am pleased to report that there are still places in this world, places not all that far from my home, where tiny dirt roads look just like other tiny dirt roads, where the GPS tells you that you may or may not be where you think you are, where your compass tells you that the tiny bit of blue you glimpse through the trees may or may not be the lake with the funny name.

And if you are like me you will ride on these roads with your friends and it will be a beautiful warm day and you'll drink through your water and reach a point where you'll say, "I'd really just settle for a place with some drinkable water." And within a minute you hear running water and off to the right is a clearing in the trees and a clear, fast running stream and waterfall. And there are trees for Mark and Alex to hang their hammocks and plenty of space to lay out a bivy sack and twigs to fuel the kettle.

And you'll spend the evening chatting with your friends and making dinner and exploring around and debating weather or not the blue you saw earlier was in fact the lake with the funny name. And you will sleep in the dark woods and wake at dawn and see deer and make coffee and breakfast and then you will all break camp and roll around some more on roads that look just like other roads, roads that look like roads Mark is sure he saw years ago and a bit later you and your friends will each roll to your own homes, back less than 24 hours after you left.

And you'll post some pictures here:

http://tinyurl.com/39wo7v

And maybe talk a bit about the trip on your blog. But you'll keep things vague. There is no need to name the lake with the funny name, to give too many details of the campsite with the wonderful waterfall. Some roads are best when they are the roads less traveled by.

And the key to adventure is a lack of information.

Alex Wetmore's blog entry and pictures can be found here:

http://tinyurl.com/39lw9x