CURVESCOUT / MOTORCYCLE RIDE
The recorded total and the leg detail need reconciliation. Inspect the leg notes before using this record for timing or navigation. Stops, delays, approach and any separate return travel add time. Basis: producer-declared routed record.
Reading history stays on this device. My road watch requires a separate selection; opening it does not subscribe this ride.
Distance and riding time are measured on the routed road. Check local closures and conditions before you ride.
Built for flow, views and useful stops rather than navigation busywork. An 874 km loop that starts and ends near Black Diamond, about 18 h 54 of riding. The stops in between: Scenic stretch near Home, near Sequim and near Darrington. The climb of the day is near Elk Plain. It tops out at about 1,400 m.
Next is High point near Elk Plain.
You top out here; the road stops climbing. Next is Scenic stretch near Home.
Home is a small community on the Key Peninsula, a long, wooded finger of land reaching into southern Puget Sound west of Tacoma. It has one of the stranger origin stories in the Pacific Northwest: in 1896 a handful of idealists founded an anarchist colony here on the shore of Von Geldern Cove, and for a couple of decades it attracted free thinkers, writers and the suspicious attention of the authorities. The colony faded, but the name stuck.
Read the complete Photo stop near Home write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
177 km in you reach Scenic stretch near Home. Next is Photo stop near Sequim.
Photo stop near Sequim, about halfway. Next is Food stop near Darrington.
Food at 354 km, roughly 7 hours into the riding. Next is Seattle / Pacific Northwest return.
Darrington is a logging town in the north Cascades foothills, about ten kilometres from this stop, and it sits at the confluence of the Sauk and Suiattle rivers, in a valley overshadowed by the cone of Whitehorse Mountain. To the east, the snowy volcano Glacier Peak rises to 3,213 metres, the most remote of the five Washington volcanoes, and on a clear day it can be seen from the roads around town. The country is wild, wet and steep, covered in dense forest, and the rivers run milky green with glacial silt.
Read the complete Near Darrington, on the way back write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Seattle / Pacific Northwest return comes up 443 km in. Next is Chuckanut Drive and Islands checkpoint 8.
Across Puget Sound from Seattle, on the eastern shore of the Kitsap Peninsula, the little community of Manchester looks back at the city skyline from a beach of pebbles and driftwood. On a clear evening the view is remarkable: the towers of downtown Seattle across the water, the Space Needle, ferries crossing in the dusk and, on a good day, Mount Rainier floating above it all. It is a quiet, unassuming place, with houses scattered along the shore and in the woods behind.
Read the complete Near Manchester write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Chuckanut Drive and Islands checkpoint 8 closes the day. Next is Back to Chuckanut Drive.
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.
Read the complete Chuckanut Drive write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Back at Back to Chuckanut Drive. That is the ride.
This High point near Elk Plain → Scenic stretch near Home stretch is for rhythm and scenery. Keep your head up, let the view breathe, and resist turning every open bend into a target. Stop once properly rather than half-stopping everywhere.
Scenic stretch near Home → Photo stop near Sequim is the technical section. Hairpins, gradients and mixed traffic can stack up quickly; use low drama inputs, stay wide of centre lines and expect buses or riders appearing exactly where optimism says they will not.
This Photo stop near Sequim → Food stop near Darrington stretch is for rhythm and scenery. Keep your head up, let the view breathe, and resist turning every open bend into a target. Stop once properly rather than half-stopping everywhere.
Food stop near Darrington → Near Darrington, on the way back can flow quickly, but only if you keep village limits and junction sightlines sacred. Fast connectors are where rides get untidy when fatigue creeps in.