2022 review - outdoor

I got back into biking a couple years back and this year I got in 1 long ride: Seattle to Victoria BC by way of the Port Angeles ferry. Some friends were going to be in Victoria for a few days, so I used that as a reason to bike about 160km over 2 days.

Day 1

I started out from my home in the Northgate neighbourhood of Seattle around 9am, and biked up to the Edmonds/Mukilteo ferry terminal. Crossing the ferry with a bike is great; you get on and off first, it's cheap, and there are ropes at the front of the ferry to tie up your bike.

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Once on the other side, I biked through Kitsap county for 15km along a busy highway, but soon there's a right turn and the road opens up to the Hood Canal Floating Bridge. It's a wide 180 degree view of Squamish Harbor, and it's the point in the trip that I feel like I'm away from home. I stopped to take in the view and take some picture, giving enough time for a sail boat to beat me to the drawbridge. So I ate a sandwich on the bridge and waited for it to pass.

From there on the roads are less busy but still along the highway. It's not until the last turn into the state park that I was finally surrounded by trees with only the sounds of the forest and my bike chain hitting gears.

There's no beach access at Fort Townsend, but there are hot showers and a hiker/biker camp ground far in the back. It's quite secluded, and when I arrived I saw signs warning of a cougar in the area... I decided to move my camp out of the hiker/biker spots and into the main area. No cougar sightings that night. In the morning after showering there were 3 deer lurking around my tent, maybe eating apples from the tree I'd set up camp under.

The GPS app I was using died right as I got to Fort Townsend. I switched to Ride With GPS for the rest of the trip.

Day 2

I headed out early that morning for Port Angeles. I'd biked to Fort Townsend before, but this was my first time biking from Fort Townsend to Port Angeles. I'd heard that US-101 can be a little hairy - narrow roads and big trucks - but it was entirely uneventful.

The second half of day 2 was quite nice, and early on I realized I wouldn't be able to catch the 12:30pm ferry out of Port Angeles so I slowed down to enjoy the trip. After Sequim I got onto the Olympic Discovery Trail, it's so nice to not have an endless stream of cars blasting past 2 feet to your left. There was a bridge out requiring a 8km detour, but it was clearly marked.

It was fire season, and fires in western Washington and BC were blowing through the region. It didn't bother me much at the time.

I was quite tired and sore the second half of day 2, and I was really looking forward to arriving at the terminal and resting on the ferry to Victoria. There's a part in the Discovery Trail about 6km from the terminal where the path turns abruptly and follows the shore the rest of the way. It's great motivation to see your destination.

This was the first time I rode the ferry to Victoria as a cyclist, but I wasn't alone - there were at least 10 other cyclists also taking the ferry. A lot of really nice bikes too.

The entire reason for this trip was to visit some good friends who were in the area. We were meeting up that night for dinner. But first, after I arrived in Victoria I had another 6km to the Airbnb. It was dark when I arrived, and not what I expected. It was a room in a shared house. On arrival the host asked me about breakfast the following morning, which I declined. The hosts were very nice, and I did stay for breakfast the following morning along with 2 other guests.

Back to that first night, I met up with a friend and we headed to Bin 4 Burger Lounge (I think I had the Plant One On Me). The next day we all met up first for coffee and then drove around Victoria and area. We walked along some beaches, did some shopping and I got a biking jacket that I absolutely love for dirt cheap. That night we ate at Stoked and had some terrific wood fired pizza.

The following day we hung out in downtown Victoria, and of course got something to eat at Fern Cafe and Bakery.

I'd decided to just take the Clipper straight home from Victoria instead of biking home from Port Angeles. I really do enjoy biking, I always look forward to it, and I'm always glad afterward. But I do think about the other things I could be doing in that same amount of time.

The clipper was fast, and uneventful. A Seahawks game had ended just when I arrived to downtown Seattle and all public transit was beyond capacity. So I had more biking to do after all, 12km home.

New bike

Earlier in the summer I got a new bike. As much as I love my Specialized AWOL, and wow do I ever. Sure it's heavy, but it's solid as a rock, superb construction and in great shape. It's drab green with light grey details. I can strap so much gear to it. Where was I going...? Oh ya, the AWOL is more than I need for a lot of biking I do. It was perfect for the bike to Victoria. It's like a pickup truck, but I wanted a hatchback.

I ended up buying a Fuji Cross 2.0 used for around $400. It's an aluminum frame with a carbon fork, 2x10, 9.3kg, with drop bars and smaller tires. It's perfect for short commutes where I can carry everything I need in a small frame back or backpack. It needs new brake lines, and I'll probably remove the secondary brake levers, but it's fast!

2023

This year I hope to get more biking done, and would love if I could pair it with some other goals. Reading more (ebooks on long bike rides is one of my favourite things), or if there was a way to work music composition into it. Maybe just composition ebooks.

I've always dreamed of biking to Santa Cruz (my wife's family has a place there), but wow that would be a big ride. A more attainable goal is Vancouver RSVP or Portland.