Author Archives: Bill Gobie

This week 00541 Mercer Island-Maple Valley-Redmond, 102 km, was added. This route was formerly known as MI-MV-Redmond-MI. It has been shortened slightly in Maple Valley since The Testy Chef and its successor are no more.

02597 West Seattle Edgy got a few tweaks. Chiefly, warning cues were added for stop signs at the bottom of steep hills. The first quarter of this route stresses your brakes as hard as your legs.

This week at Jan Acuff’s suggestion two longer 100k routes were added to provide an intermediate step between 100 km and 200 km rides:

• 01489 Snohomish-Mt Vernon, 141 km
• 03738 SOL Snohomish-LaConner Out & Back, 157 km

A new route that should interest local Flat Earth Randonneurs is

• 04037 Alki-Auburn Flat Cruise, 100 km, with just 950 ft of climbing.

Two existing Olympia-area routes were added:

• 00801 Tumwater-Mossyrock, 211 km
• 03450 Lacey-Tacoma-Centralia, 303 km

This week Olympia gets some love with:

• 00750 Olympia-Union-Port Orchard-Tacoma, 210 km. This route was formerly known as Lacey-Shelton-Gig Harbor. The start was moved to Olympia and a new control was added at Southworth to make the route accessible to Seattle-side riders. Thanks to Josh Morse for help with updating the route.
  
• 00836 Olympia-Cosmopolis-Olympia, 203 km.

In Tahuya, Seabeck-Holly Rd has reopened after a bridge replacement. Short closures may still occur through February. 01746 Tahuya Hills no longer requires a detour.

Seasonal Route Availability
It has been discovered that the permanents registration system does not check routes’ availability dates. For example, our local routes that venture much above 2500 ft are generally unavailable from late fall to early spring. Currently the system will erroneously let you register to ride them. The RUSA web team is working on a fix. In the meantime be sensible, stick to lower-elevation routes.

Route changes
Thanks to Geoff Hazel for bringing the construction on West Lake Sammamish Parkway between NE 16th Pl and Northup Way to my attention. Since construction will continue for another year, I have incorporated a detour into affected routes. (Perhaps The Alps should have gotten the steepest possible detour.) Affected routes:

• 00517 The Alps
• 02173 Three Bumps
• 02292 Four Bumps
• 02504 Seattle Lakes and Trails
• 02525 The Commons-Renton-Maple Valley
• 03502 Lake Washington Cruise

Route 02525 The Commons-Renton-Maple Valley, 101 km, (formerly named Uncommonly Testy) has been added to the RUSA permanents. This route has been used for the Winter Solstice 100 in recent years. So for you Winter Solstice aficionados and aquaphiles, here you go, just in time for the weekend’s atmospheric river. Blame Matt Kreger for prodding me to get this route on line.

Nick Bull updated 03496 Bainbridge-Point No Point, 101 km.

In other news, reconstruction of the Spruce Railroad Trail around the north side of Lake Crescent was completed.

Registration to ride permanents in 2021 is now open. The registration link is on the Permanents page in your RUSA account.

If you are not registered for 2020, registering now includes registration for the remainder of December 2020. See this page to get started.