SneakyDingo
Well-known member
- Joined
- Aug 6, 2021
- Messages
- 1,571
Today we finally had the combination of nice weather and the tulips blooming, so I decided to head out early and beat the crowds a little. For those who don't live in Washington, around this time every year the Tulip farms bloom and attract huge crowds. You can go into most of the places for a fee, but with COVID and whatnot they're implementing different stuff, and sometimes they don't really account for side stands (soft ground + side stand = future emotional damage). In short, I didn't feel like going through all the huge crowds, but I knew that there were a few places that you could just walk into from the roadside.
I took SR9 on the way up (55 mph max). Caught up to a few BMW riders who were doing the exact speed limit, which is great because in WA it's normal for people to do 5-10 mph over the speed limit, and Little Red Slowpoke can't keep up with the traffic at those speeds. It's a bit of a hilly ride until you get up towards Big Lake, where the roads are curvy and slower. Took a left and ended up in Mt. Vernon, filling up at the Shell and then proceeding from there to the tulip festival.
I have been through this area on a bicycle multiple times, so I knew the rough layout of the place without the GPS. There's two big rides that normally go through here, the Tulip ride which was on today, and the MS150 ride for Multiple Sclerosis. Additionally, in the past I have bicycled up from Redmond to Mt. Vernon by SR9 to do these events. So I knew the area without having to rely much on GPS. I saw an opportunity to get a sneaky photo with the tulips and the bike; the sign said no cars, and in my defense, this isn't a car (I presume the reasoning is there was no way to turn around once you entered, which doesn't apply to Little Red Turns On A Dime).
The next area I stopped in was a little more crowded. The instant I pulled over, some old guy walks up, "oh man, I used to have a CT90..." you know how it is. Then a Triumph Tiger rider pulls up behind me, and admires the Little Red Nostalgia. I tried to head to Roozengaarde but too many cars, and the other areas required me walking more than I wanted to with my bulkier protective gear I wear on my longer rides. It sure is comfortable when sitting on the bike, but it sure isn't comfortable when walking around.
The other tradition I have when I'm out here is that there's only a handful of places I try to eat ice cream in waffle cones. One is located in Enumclaw, WA where I haven't been to for several years; La Conner, WA is another location, and there's one or two places in Seattle. Today pretty much started out because I wanted to get some La Conner ice cream, and when I got there it was still too early for the shops to be open. I had to wait for a bit, but I got my fix.
The ride home was less fun, with more traffic. I made a wrong turn somewhere along the way and didn't end up on the road I was expecting to be on, but it didn't matter - it didn't take me long to recognize the familiar roadways and make my way back to SR9.
SR9 runs roughly parallel with the Snohomish to Arlington Centennial Bicycle Trail, which is why it's more rider friendly to bicycle the 100 mi to Mt. Vernon than it is to motorcycle it on Little Red Holds Up Traffic. There's a few places where it crosses over, and at one of those places I saw two bicyclists stopped and changing a flat tire. I had my toolkit with me, which contains a standard bicycle repair kit plus a pretty good bike pump and some extra Co2 cartridges, so I pulled over. Unfortunately it appeared to be a torn valve stem, which can only be fixed with a new tube, something I didn't have. Several people had bicycled past these two trying to fix their flat, but as soon as a motorcyclist parked on the side of the trail, we had some people stop and share their spare tube with them, using my bike pump to inflate it as the mini pump the rider had would... eventually... fix the no inflation problem, but not in any reasonable timeframe. I offered some water and extra CO2 cartridges just in case, which they declined and then went on my way.
I had two tests I was running as part of this trip. The first was what the overall MPG of Little Red Thrifty would be when running at top or near top speed the entire time. I've been getting 112-115 MPG in town, but it dropped down to 92 MPG on an overloaded bike, on hilly wide open throttle, with a heavy rider in bulky gear. Getting 130 mi distance-to-empty under those conditions seems pretty reasonable and will factor into future planning, particularly if the MPG drops even farther with the SR244 tires.
The second was I have a bit of time off coming up, and I was considering whether I needed to invest in a new seat. Yup, this seat blows. I was sitting on the cross bar at one point, partially to duck out of the wind, but also to relieve the sit bones. The person who designed this seat must not have been a rider. It should be mandatory for engineers to use their own equipment for an entire day... or maybe they did. Maybe there's some sort of iron butt Honda engineer out there who thinks this is fine. Either way, I seek a new seat.
Trip miles: ~165 mi (1.73 gal) +6,515 ft
Total time: ~6.5h round trip from Seattle.
I took SR9 on the way up (55 mph max). Caught up to a few BMW riders who were doing the exact speed limit, which is great because in WA it's normal for people to do 5-10 mph over the speed limit, and Little Red Slowpoke can't keep up with the traffic at those speeds. It's a bit of a hilly ride until you get up towards Big Lake, where the roads are curvy and slower. Took a left and ended up in Mt. Vernon, filling up at the Shell and then proceeding from there to the tulip festival.
I have been through this area on a bicycle multiple times, so I knew the rough layout of the place without the GPS. There's two big rides that normally go through here, the Tulip ride which was on today, and the MS150 ride for Multiple Sclerosis. Additionally, in the past I have bicycled up from Redmond to Mt. Vernon by SR9 to do these events. So I knew the area without having to rely much on GPS. I saw an opportunity to get a sneaky photo with the tulips and the bike; the sign said no cars, and in my defense, this isn't a car (I presume the reasoning is there was no way to turn around once you entered, which doesn't apply to Little Red Turns On A Dime).
The next area I stopped in was a little more crowded. The instant I pulled over, some old guy walks up, "oh man, I used to have a CT90..." you know how it is. Then a Triumph Tiger rider pulls up behind me, and admires the Little Red Nostalgia. I tried to head to Roozengaarde but too many cars, and the other areas required me walking more than I wanted to with my bulkier protective gear I wear on my longer rides. It sure is comfortable when sitting on the bike, but it sure isn't comfortable when walking around.
The other tradition I have when I'm out here is that there's only a handful of places I try to eat ice cream in waffle cones. One is located in Enumclaw, WA where I haven't been to for several years; La Conner, WA is another location, and there's one or two places in Seattle. Today pretty much started out because I wanted to get some La Conner ice cream, and when I got there it was still too early for the shops to be open. I had to wait for a bit, but I got my fix.
The ride home was less fun, with more traffic. I made a wrong turn somewhere along the way and didn't end up on the road I was expecting to be on, but it didn't matter - it didn't take me long to recognize the familiar roadways and make my way back to SR9.
SR9 runs roughly parallel with the Snohomish to Arlington Centennial Bicycle Trail, which is why it's more rider friendly to bicycle the 100 mi to Mt. Vernon than it is to motorcycle it on Little Red Holds Up Traffic. There's a few places where it crosses over, and at one of those places I saw two bicyclists stopped and changing a flat tire. I had my toolkit with me, which contains a standard bicycle repair kit plus a pretty good bike pump and some extra Co2 cartridges, so I pulled over. Unfortunately it appeared to be a torn valve stem, which can only be fixed with a new tube, something I didn't have. Several people had bicycled past these two trying to fix their flat, but as soon as a motorcyclist parked on the side of the trail, we had some people stop and share their spare tube with them, using my bike pump to inflate it as the mini pump the rider had would... eventually... fix the no inflation problem, but not in any reasonable timeframe. I offered some water and extra CO2 cartridges just in case, which they declined and then went on my way.
I had two tests I was running as part of this trip. The first was what the overall MPG of Little Red Thrifty would be when running at top or near top speed the entire time. I've been getting 112-115 MPG in town, but it dropped down to 92 MPG on an overloaded bike, on hilly wide open throttle, with a heavy rider in bulky gear. Getting 130 mi distance-to-empty under those conditions seems pretty reasonable and will factor into future planning, particularly if the MPG drops even farther with the SR244 tires.
The second was I have a bit of time off coming up, and I was considering whether I needed to invest in a new seat. Yup, this seat blows. I was sitting on the cross bar at one point, partially to duck out of the wind, but also to relieve the sit bones. The person who designed this seat must not have been a rider. It should be mandatory for engineers to use their own equipment for an entire day... or maybe they did. Maybe there's some sort of iron butt Honda engineer out there who thinks this is fine. Either way, I seek a new seat.
Trip miles: ~165 mi (1.73 gal) +6,515 ft
Total time: ~6.5h round trip from Seattle.
