Ride Report - Around North Bend, Carnation, Duvall

Today I took the first of what I hope will be many rides with 3 other guys, two of which I met for the first time today. My friend Dave, who has a Ninja 250, met up with me at Fry's Electronics in Renton. Joining us was the leader of the group, Tim (Ninja 250), and Mike (Suzuki SV650).

Tim knows the roads really well, and led us all on about 5 hours of riding some excellent twisties. Went up Highway 900 from Renton to Issaquah, and then road up to Fall City. Road out to Tiger Mountain, and then to Rattlesnake Lake. Then had breakfast at a place called Gordy's. Not a shabby place for breakfast.

Tim then took us up to some excellent twisties up around Snoqualmie Falls. There was a bit of rain the night before, so some of the roads were a bit wet, but had no major issues with them.

After Snoqualmie, we went further north, all the way up through Carnation and Duvall, and then ended the ride in Monroe. Dave and I broke off from the group and rode back down to Renton so he could get some warmer gloves for our ride tomorrow.

Two close calls, that certainly had the "pucker factor": 1) Locked up the rear wheel on a downhill 70 degree right turn. I was taking up the rear, and had to do some hard braking. I braked in the turn and the back wheel locked and then started fishtailing. I got control back and did not have any problems. 2) While entering a very congested I-405 in Renton, I almost rearended a car that stopped in front of me while I was changing lanes. Got within inches of his rear bumper, but did not make contact.

For all of that, I'm OK, the bike's OK, and I'm looking forward to another ride tomorrow.

Tomorrow - the Olympic Peninsula