Easter Sunday Ride

Thinking of routes to ride I took my phone, brought up the map and found a tentative loop we could do from Michelle’s house and showed her when she asked if I had any ideas. She liked it, time to take out the road bikes.

After a leisurely morning we left after 10am to start our ride by going down John Carlson, the hill Michelle told about in the last blog were I had to walk and she went up no problem. This is true, that did happen and when I told friends and family about it they laughed and said things like good and about time. What Michelle didn’t tell about is that first time we went down that said hill together, that was something. Before this first ride she had told me she was a beginner as a cyclist and that down hill proved it. The rest of the ride, not at all what I expected for a beginner, then she had been training for an Iron Man. She is still timid on the down hills, but now tha she knows about using the drop bars she is much better.

After the short down hill across the 303 we went heading in the direction of Dyes Inlet by way of Fairgrounds Rd. At Tracyton Blvd we took a right and made our way to Silverdale were we stayed on side roads close to the water making our way out of Silverdale by Chico way, which turned out to be a great road to ride on.

Chico way offered a wide safe shoulder, nice houses with great views of Dyes Inlet and very light traffic. One guy working in his yard even had a seat set out with bottles of water for anyone biking or walking that might need it, there were a many people out walking. After leaving the Inlet and heading towards Kitsap lake the road becomes more hilly with ups and downs along Harlow Dr until we wind our way into Bremerton where the COVID Easter Sunday made traffic light to almost a ghost town feeling as we passed by the ferry terminal. We crossed the Manette and started to climb as we made our way for Illahee Rd that offered a nice down hill for me to get up some speed and almost catch the riders that passed us on the up hill.

Turning off of Illahee Rd onto Third st gave us on last short steep climb that made both of us say we need to start riding more, my legs were shaking from it. All in all it was a good short ride of 22.4 miles with 1,731 feet of assenting.