A Day on Seattle's Trails
Being in Seattle for work meant one thing was certain: we had to get out on the trails. With Cape Epic training on our schedule and terrain like this on our doorstep, it would have been criminal not to ride 😉
Great to be back
Like last year, we booked our MTB with the great guys from Seattlemountainbiketours.com, and this time Ken Blauvelt was our guide. Was he any good? Well, let’s just say if I’m still that fit when I’m 60, I’ll take it any time of the day!
We booked a full day of riding, and in the morning Ken took us to The Olallie Trail, which drops you straight into the heart of Pacific Northwest forest. Within minutes of leaving the trailhead, we were surrounded by towering Douglas firs and Western red cedars, with sword ferns carpeting the forest floor in every shade of green imaginable. It is such wonderful scenery!
The Olallie trail is classic singletrack - narrow, winding, and completely enveloped by the forest canopy. It’s a two-way trail, but on a Monday it was pretty quiet, so we didn’t have to jump into the bushes to avoid potential maniacs rushing their way down.
The trail is very smooth, not technical at all, but just so beautiful with the thick, almost rainforest like scenery. It is just something you don’t see back home. The trail conditions were spot on - tacky surface with good grip, not muddy (despite recent rain) but just slightly moist, which is exactly the way I like it.
The climbing was 530 meters up, which took us about 50 minutes. An average Cape Epic stage is about 2100 meters up, so roughly 4 times this. It gives a decent gauge for what 2k of elevation feels like, although conditions (terrain, weather) will be vastly different.
The afternoon on Rattlesnake Mountain
After our morning forest immersion, followed by a delicious lunch, we headed to Rattlesnake Mountain for some more proper climbing. In the morning, Ken lead the climing, but this time he let us take the lead. And boys being boys, of course we upped the pace just slightly, to see if he could keep up with us 😊. However, what stood out was not so much that Ken gave away so distance, but it was Ingmar who kept my wheel. Last year, we did this trail as well and back then our guide Erik and I were much faster than him. But this year, he’s clearly in a very different state of fitness (surely, I was making a little plan to hurt him later on.....).
The Descent and Technical Bits
The way down offered its own rewards. The trails are more technical, with higher speed section, but also more roots and little rocks that demand your full attention. I love that state of mind, with a sharp focus on line choice and bike handling - skills we'll need for sure onthe Cape Epic's technical stages. The flowing sections let us open up and really enjoy what these trails offer when: fast, smooth downhill riding :-D.
After descending for a while, we had to climb once more for a bit to connect to another section of the trails for the remainder of the downhills. So far, the riding had been not so demanding, so it was time to throw in some VO2Max work (and ditch Ingmar out of my wheel while doing so). So I opened the gas and started racing up the trail to get that heartbeat up! That worked really well, but I must admit I was slightly disappointed that after a couple of minutes of pushing it hard, it was Ingmar who was right behind me, and said with a grin ‘’What did you think, I’d allow you to ride away from me’’?
Hahaha, a little competition within the team never hurts 😉
Back to work
In the van back to Seattle, I started to feel that we indeed did ride today. Probably the 9 hours time difference also didn’t help, but it was again an amazing day!
Of course Seattle is not around the corner for our mostly European followers, but if you ever happen to be in that area and you’re into mountainbiking, make sure to book yourself a tour with the guys from Seattlemountainbiketours.com. And ask for Ken as your guide (yes, he did bribe us to write this).
Until then, Keep Chasing!
