Black Diamond is a coal town that outlived its coal. In the 1880s, a coal company opened mines on this ridge in the foothills south-east of Seattle, and for decades the town sent coal by railway to ships in Seattle and San Francisco. Miners from Wales, Italy, Slovenia and many other countries lived in company houses, and a nearby ghost town, Franklin, was abandoned after a disaster in 1894. The mines closed in the early twentieth century, and today the town is a quiet place of old frame buildings, a railroad museum and a famous bakery.
The bakery is the main attraction for riders. Black Diamond Bakery has been baking bread in a wood-fired oven since 1902, and the smell of fresh loaves and cinnamon rolls drifts down Railroad Avenue on weekend mornings, drawing a steady stream of cyclists and motorcyclists. It is one of those stops where a pastry and a coffee feel earned, and the line moves faster than you might expect. Opening hours vary, so look before you plan around it.
The roads around Black Diamond are the draw. Highway 169 runs through the Green River Gorge, a steep wooded canyon with a good surface and bends that suit a relaxed rider, and the back roads around Ravensdale and Covington wind through forest and farmland. Enumclaw, twelve kilometres east, is the gateway to Mount Rainier and the high country on Route 410. Traffic is moderate except at commuting hours, and deer and logging trucks are the main hazards.
Black Diamond has just over four thousand people, with a small supermarket, a few places to eat and a petrol station, and Enumclaw, with more than eleven thousand, has bigger shops and every service you might need. There is no problem with fuel anywhere around here.
The old Chuckanut Drive, the ride's namesake, is far to the north near Bellingham, and that is a very different scene of cliff roads above Samish Bay. This corner is a gentler, more domestic ending, with the smell of bread in the air.