Olympic Mountain Loop
May 29, 2005
We had three rides planned for the remainder of our trip to
Washington. My thought was that we'd start simple (and close) and work our
way to the harder rides as the week progressed. Olympia sits very close to
the Olympic National Park, I wonder if they knew that when they named the city. This was an easy choice since the ride would literally start
right outside our hotel, wind around the mountains, the sound and even the
Atlantic
Ocean before returning us back to our front doorstep that evening.
At the base of the hotel is a 7-11, which was our morning stop for gasoline and
what-nots. We took a minute to gas up, get a few shots of the bikes and then
roll out.
The ride around the Olympic National Park was just amazing almost from the minute we pulled out of the hotel. First we took some twisty little roads that seemed to wind uphill for a while. The traffic was (not surprisingly) a little thick at first until we got maybe 30 minutes outside of Olympia. The canopy of trees was really nice, the roads were mostly clean and traffic was accommodating enough. There was some minor construction that had us backlogged for a while, but we figured out that the best thing to do was just pull over, let the majority of traffic just pass us by and then get BAQ on the road to enjoy the ride.
The loop around the Olympics is picturesque to the point of
annoyance. I tend to be on the 'sport' side of 'sport touring' so I look
for the next turn entry / exit / entry combo so I can further abuse the sides of
my
tires and annoy the hell out of other people on the road. This route was so pretty that riding at that pace is just missing
the point. The better thing to do is slow down, enjoy the twists and
turns, but be prepared to stop and pull over for
some pictures and terrific views. Once I figured out that this wasn't a
race I enjoyed it much, much more.
I did take the time to try out Garrett's CBR600rr through some twists. Garrett's bike is absolutely amazing at turning - the biggest performance constraint on that bike is the rider. As fast as you can think is as fast as this bike can respond. Because of that, rider concentration is crucial. Let your concentration waiver for a moment, or have your confidence slip or even where your vision is focused, and you can find yourself in hot water very, very fast. There were a few sets of switchbacks that had changes of elevation between and even during the turns. I applied myself ~60% through a couple sets of these and then immediately pulled over to give Garrett his bike back.
