Articles

Texas Cyclists Take on Peninsulas, Islands of Puget Sound

By Bill Thorness, BikingPugetSound.com

Want to get away on your bike this summer? How about a visit to Fort Worth? It would be a fair trade, payback to the group of Texans who laid their wheels on our trails last summer.

Ten members of the Fort Worth Bicycling Association made a July 2007 trip to the Puget Sound region, on a tour that went from Seattle to Bainbridge Island to Port Angeles to Vancouver Island to Orcas Island to Whidbey Island and back to Seattle.

Ringleader Rick Wilson contacted me about route advice on the areas outside the range of “Biking Puget Sound,” which he purchased to use on the trip. While I had not ridden the exact route they were taking, I supplemented the book’s rides with a few route suggestions to help them on their way. Rick kept me apprised of their plans, then sent me photos and a report last winter of their escapades.

As it turned out, it rained through some of their most scenic sections (they missed that one-week window of Puget Sound summer), but they pedaled like web-footed Seattleites and enjoyed themselves anyway.

“The Seattle to Port Angeles portion was a great, sunny day,” recalls Rick. “A couple of us did the entire distance of over 100 miles, and all did Bainbridge Island.” The group was tracked by its own sag-wagon van. From Bainbridge, they rode toward Port Townsend, then picked up the Olympic Discovery Trail that heads west to Port Angeles. They had some trouble staying on the trail in Sequim due to lack of signage, but a local took pity on them and guided them through town.

After a moderately challenging ride from Victoria to Sidney on Vancouver Island, they ferried to Orcas Island, on a rainy day that ruined San Juan sightseeing. But, “The cycling and food were wonderful on Orcas,” Rick says. “Can't say enough good things about the island.” The same could not be said for the group’s B&B and its owners, whose ears are probably still burning from their actions, so we’ll let them off the hook here.

The Fort Worth Bicycling Association members on board a ferry on their
trip last summer. From left, Paul and Lynne Harris, Billie and Bob Marshall,
Betty Brown, Jerry Trimble (current FWBA president), Kathy Blackmon,
Brad Painter, Rick and Mary Kay Wilson. They don’t look too wet.

However, Wilson gave a big shout out to the woman driving the Orcas Island Shuttle. “She went out of her way to offer to accommodate us and was willing to be on stand-by for standard fare if someone needed assistance after they started riding,” he says. “In fact, she was taking a fare somewhere, saw us riding to the B&B, and told us that she kind of stayed in the area keeping an eye on us.”

He also said the group really enjoyed the Inn at Rooster Hill, a B&B in Port Angeles, that was very bike-friendly and “treated us like family.” They also got great service from Homewood Suites in lower Queen Anne, where they started and ended their tour.

The last leg was a challenging ride down Whidbey Island from Anacortes to Mukilteo. Besides being hilly and long, it was, of course, raining again. But four of the group completed it. On their final day, they took a page out of the book and did some leisurely city riding, along the waterfront trail, out to the locks in Magnolia, and on the Burke-Gilman to the University District and back.

Rick invites Seattle cyclists to try Texas some time. The Dallas-Fort Worth has some nice routes, he says, but the Texas Hill Country down by Austin is a real gem. He’d also steer you toward good riding in the Fort Davis mountainous area, which is at 5,000 feet elevation.

But if you can’t make it to Texas for a ride, perhaps just act like a Texan and get out on your bike for some touring. The ferries, peninsulas and islands await.