Sara has gotten really into biking after she got a new bike from her Grandma for her birthday - so we took advantage of some great early May weather to go on some “adventure” bike trips. I don’t usually write about day trips, but Sara was so excited about these trips and we are working up to an overnight bike trip - so I thought they would be worth writing about. The first ride was just a little under 17 miles on a mostly gravel trail and the second was a little under 18 miles on mostly paved trail. Sara proclaimed after the first one - “This was the most Awesome Bike Trip Ever!!”.
5/11/2024
|
|
Our first trip was to the White Horse trail running from Arlington to Darrington along an old railroad way. It’s mostly gravel, but some asphalt. The trail runs for 27 miles (so 54 round-trip), but we only did a small section of it from Trafton to Oso.
Sara rides her bike the 3-4 blocks to school every day, but this was only her second time riding where she could really open it up and get some speed going. She loved it. We were riding at maybe 7-8 miles per hour, chatting away, all morning. The route was quite beautiful, it went alongside the road, but it was far enough away that you didn’t really hear it. Sara informed me that it was quite dangerous to take selfies while we rode, but I couldn’t help it.
Sara was very proud of her new bike, it was actually the perfect bike for this trip with the extra wide tires. Sara is growing into the bike, so it was a bit hard for her to get onto, especially when on an uphill, but she was amazing once she got on.
We stopped at the general store in Oso for a water break, lunch, and ice cream. We ran into another biker who had rode 75 miles to get here (on the road) and was grabbing his ice cream before tacking the 75 miles back home. I got the impression this was a normal weekend ride for him impressive. The cork board at the general store had a flyer about piglets for sale - it was that kind of town.
The ride back was a great one, although the transition from the asphalt back to gravel for the last 3 miles was not particularly fun for either of us… :) We ended up covering just under 16 miles in total, with only minor complaints.
5/19/2024
|
|
|
The following weekend we rode the Burke Gilman from Fred Meyer up to Magnision park and back. The Burke is a much better trail, paved the whole way and easy to ride, with the downside that it’s very busy. We saw 2 ppl on our ride the prior weekend, and it was easily in the hundreds on this ride. We stopped at the Magnison park cafe for lunch and Sara really surprised me by ordering a Caesar salad for lunch. I had a felling this wasn’t going to be enough after riding 8 miles so I ordered some mac and cheese for the “table” and didn’t get a bite.
Sara, proud as always of her accomplishments, finished her 17 miles with a smile on her face.
