When someone posts an "enough tech talk! show me your riding photos" thread, usually I just quietly lurk and enjoy the scenery. With a toddler at home I don't have often that much of my own to add. But last month my family and I spent a week on Washington's Whidbey Island, and I brought a 29er.
The island is very popular for road riding, but this time my interest was of a more off-road variety: not just mountain biking, but beach biking. A 29"er is no Pugsley, but its beach capabilities are still impressive. With several hundred miles of beach, Whidbey is the perfect place to explore. Sadly, much of the beaches and tidelands are privately owned (Washington, like California, lacks Oregon's open-beach laws), but significant stretches are either publicly owned or not posted, and therefore open for exploration.
Clinton to Langley
My first endeavor began with a 6 mile beach ride from the Clinton ferry dock to the picturesque (and chi-chi) hamlet of Langley. Fortunately I had lots of sunshine and a morning (high-)low tide.
The terrain was quite varied, encompassing soft sand, firm sand, muddy patches, lots of downed logs and beach rocks of various sizes.
After about an hour, the suburbs of Langley came into view. Success!
Heading out, I wasn't sure the beach would be passable, but it was. I rode at high-low tide and ended up having to climb over a lot more downed trees (and occasionally skirt into the water a bit) than I would have had to at low-low tide.
I should probably add, for anyone considering beach exploration, that it can be extremely dangerous if you aren't careful. No headlands on this ride, but most of it was along the base of 200' high bluffs, and the beach logs are piled right up against the bluffs. If you got stuck here at high tide, you could find yourself in very, very serious trouble. Never explore an unknown beach without knowing the tide forecast, always go out on a receding tide, make sure to allow enough time to either get through to safe harbor or backtrack before the tide comes back in, and be extremely careful venturing out onto tideflats.
Goss Lake Woods
Just a couple of miles outside Langley is the Goss Lake Woods trail system, a nice system of tight singletrack on rolling terrain.
Here's the MTBR trail review of this system: http://trails.mtbr.com/cat/united-states-trails/trails-washington/trail/PRD_170887_4586crx.aspx
And the DNR trail system that connects with it: http://trails.mtbr.com/cat/united-states-trails/trails-washington/trail/PRD_170873_4586crx.aspx
After that nice off-road treat, it was back to Clinton on quiet paved roads, one nice section closed off from auto traffic. All told, 25 miles of riding done before lunchtime!
Don't get the idea I spent most of the week riding though. Most of the week was spent doing stuff like this.
Fort Ebey Trails
At over 50 miles long, Whidbey offers a lot of exploration potential. Next up was a late afternoon trip to Fort Ebey state park, home to the Cedar Hollow/Kettles trail system. The west end of the trail system connects in with the Bluff Trail.
Long way down to the beach.
The terrain on this system is quite hilly, with lots of strenuous ups and downs, and varying tree cover and trail conditions.
Cedar Grove and Kettles are actually the same trail system, reviewed on MTBR under both Cedar Hollow and Fort Ebey State Park:
http://trails.mtbr.com/cat/united-states-trails/trails-washington/trail/PRD_170858_4586crx.aspx
http://trails.mtbr.com/cat/united-states-trails/trails-washington/trail/PRD_170880_4586crx.aspx
Ebey's Landing
With daylight fading, I hopped in the car and drove a couple miles to Ebey's Landing National Historic Reserve for a quick beach exploration.
One Last Point
A couple days later and one more beach exploration. From one of 50 parks on the island, it's just a couple miles of beach riding to this lovely point:
A major highlight of this trip, to me, was having two close encounters with bald eagles. Both on the Langley ride and on the Ebey's Landing ride, I came within 30 yards of eagles, easily the closest I've been to an eagle not in captivity.
Geek Out
29er and Singlespeed tech bike content: I left the Leviathan at home because I didn't want to subject it to salt spray. The Vulture may have been a better choice overall, but with gearing strictly limited to 34x22 I knew it wouldn't be suited to any pavement riding. So it fell to the Karate Monkey, fully rigid with 36x23 and 38x20 (dinglespeed) gearing. I used the 36x23 (same as 34x22) for all the beach and MTB riding, and the 38x20 for the connecting road sections. With horizontal D/Os and a QR, it's a very quick operation (usually about 30 seconds) to switch gears. Tires were Specialized Resolution in front and Panaracer Rampage (mounted in the faster "front" direction) in back. This combination rolled fast on pavement, gripped well on wet stuff, and floated well on the beach -- both sand and rocks. I haven't done any "real" offroad riding on the KM in a while, and I'd forgotten how well it handles. Good fun.Return to top of page | Home