Mike's Bike Blog

Tuesday was a recovery day on the bike so I was the navigator for Jennifer while she ran 5.75 miles. While at Mike's Bikes Mike said a local must do ride was the Olympic Discovery Trail. The trail is a bike/hike and horse trail and goes from Port Angeles through Squim down to the casinos in Blyn. The Discovery Trail will be extended out for 150 miles of paved trail from Port Angeles all the way to the Pacific Ocean in La Push. Further development will continue the trail from Blyn to Port Townsend.

I started out early in the morning to ride from Sequim to Port Angeles on the Discovery Bay Trail with Mark's Motobecane road bike. As soon as I made my way down from my mom's place to the trail it started to drizzle. About 5 miles into the ride it turned into a cold rain. I didn't let it dampen my spirits. It did make me chuckle that I had just taken off the fenders. The trail meanders through the woods and crosses many roads and for the most part was great. The only downside was the roads that it crossed as I was attempting to keep up a long effort (8 min) it would break up my workout as I'd have to slow to watch for cross traffic. Plus at these cross sections the trail was not marked so there were times I'd go the wrong way looking to see what direction I had to go. There were times I wasn't sure if it was the trail or a driveway.

There are beautiful bridges and trussels that cross over the Dungeness River that more than make up for any shortcomings. I would suggest if you are out for a workout find another route the Discovery Trail is better for site seeing and a leasurily ride. As the trail approaches Port Angeles it takes your right along the coast line offering seascapes. Once the trail starts to head in from the coast the pavement ends and it turns to rock and gravel. I rode a little bit on this but the rain had made the trail muddy, I opted to turn around and not inflict too much abuse to my brothers bike.

On the way back to Sequim, along the coast a deer was walking the trail, it looked back at me and gave me the look as it started to speed up. I knew exactly what this meant, but unlike Jan, I took the challenge and sped up. He sped up into a full sprint, I was shifting and accellerating as well. He dashed to the left and off the pavement onto a hill. I was gaining on him as I looked up to see him. He thought he would run down the hill he was on and cut me off but I had made up the ground and he looked surprised to see me right there with him. In defeat he applied the breaks and and ran back the other way.

I didn't ride the entire trail back, instead I got back on one of the surface roads that would take me back. Riding Old 101 Highway was much faster as I could maintain 20+ mph and not have to stop at all the cross sections.

Stats:
Duration:      2:53:02 (3:10:23)
Distance:      43.106 mi
Elevation Gain:        3610 ft
Elevation Loss:       3499 ft
Grade:         0.0 %  (111 ft)
        Min    Max    Avg
Heart Rate:      30    62    37     bpm
Speed:           0    41    14.9     mph
Pace             1:28    0:00    4:01     min/mi
Altitude:        22    406    184     ft