Route: Bellevue - Renton - Maple Valley - Hobart - Issaquah - Bellevue
Mileage: estimated at maybe a little less than 60
Total ride time: 8 hours
Weather: overcast, temperatures in the mid 60s, light winds from the south
I was enticed into this route by some descriptions of the Cedar River Trail
on a local board. "surface was impeccable", "clean", "vacant", "beautiful".
These words were not enough. I think this trail goes through some of the
best scenery available from a bicycle in King County.
Rose and I left our house on the tandem and did the now-familiar route for
us both to the Lake Washington Loop. We rode along Lake Washington to Coulon
Park, and then to the intersection with the Cedar River Trail. Previously, I
had only used the trail to continue on the Lake Washington Loop -- this was
the first time I had gone further.
We lost the trail around the Renton library, and it took us a while to pick
it up again. Once back on, we were on a beautifully green section along the
river, very close to the urban core. Predictably, it was littered with the
sorts of users you find on multi-use trails -- strollers, dogs, skaters --
and we were careful. After this, the trail then pretty much parallelled the
Renton-Maple Valley highway. This section was easy riding, but only
occasionally scenic -- there were occasional glimpses of the river, but
mostly we were just 8 or 10 feet from the busy road.
At Maple Valley we ate lunch at the only place really to eat along the
entire trail -- The Testy Chef Cafe. Since there was little choice, we were
lucky that the food was decent. Since it was Sunday, we only had the choices
off of the breakfast menu -- they only serve breakfast on Sundays.
Shortly after lunch, the trail turned into soft surface -- still very
rideable with our conti top touring tires. This section seemed to take
longer than I would have thought, considering how short it looked on the
map. Maybe it's just the increased rolling resistence of the soft surface
combined with the slight (2%?) uphill grade. It was also very pretty. The
river ran free and wild, and we were riding under the forest canopy. There
were scarcely any other users of the trail.
The trail ended in a parking lot. Since I'm sure the folks that designed the
trail don't think that users might not drive to the parking lot, there was
no indication exactly where we were. Since the trail supposedly forked after
Maple Valley (I never saw it do so), I had to trust that we were on the
proper fork and had come out at Langsford.
We girded our loins and turned left out of the lot and up a hill. Then,
after cresting that one, there was a roller with another climb, and Rose
started to doubt my claim that the next part of the ride would be mostly
downhill. We stopped at a small park for a break, and someone from a pick-up
truck waved to us there -- they recognized us from the Testy Chef!
After that, Rose's doubts about the down-hilliness of the riade were erased
as we came down a big decent, and then another into the town of Hobart. Rose
wanted to know where the town was -- I told her we just went through it.
Small market, gas station, post office -- what more do you want?
There was another fun descent out of Hobart (hoo-yeah!) and then we were on
the Issaquah-Hobart Road. This stretch had a shoulder of variable quality.
Sometimes it was fine, but it often narrowed or was debris-strewn. However,
it was all downhill, and we had a tailwind, and we just were kicking butt
down that road.
We stopped briefly at a cherry stand. Cherries! *The* training food for STP!
Rose was briefly embarrassed while I bargained down the price of a box to
$4. We stood there a bit, spitting out pits, and I crammed a bunch into my
back pocket and the rest went into the plastic "wicker" basket we have
hanging from the handlebars. For the next few miles I could feel Rose poking
around in my back pocket reaching for more cherries, slighly unbalancing the
bike each time.
We rode right into downtown Issaquah, and toughed out the traffic. We then
got onto NW Lake Sammamish Parkway. Rose began to fret about the uphilliness
of the next few miles. I told her that maybe this section would be easier in
June than it had been in February (the last time we had ridden it), even
after 50 miles of riding.
There's a nasty double-switchback on the I-90 trail from the Lake up to
Eastgate, and for the first time I made the first turn on the tandem. I
couldn't quite swing the second one, and we had to dismount. Maybe next time
I'll be able to make them both.
We finally got to the top of Eastgate. The rest is my regular commuter
route, and although Rose was really flagging at this point, its familiarity
made it easy for me to get the bike up to the top of the West Plateau. We
then had an easy drop back down to the house.
--
Warm Regards,
Claire Petersky
Personal page: http://www.geocities.com/cpetersky/
See the books I've set free at:
http://bookcrossing.com/referral/Cpetersky