Category Archives: Uncategorized

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.

This week #01233 Tacoma-Port Orchard-Tacoma was revised. The direction of the route was reversed to eliminate some unsafe left turns, and portions were moved to quieter parallel roads.

A control was added to #03387 U Village-Carnation in the Redmond-Kirkland area to provide a more convenient starting point for Eastside denizens.

In other news, reconstruction of the Spruce Railroad Trail portion of the Olympic Discovery Trail along the north side of Lake Crescent is almost complete. It should open to the public this month. This will provide a much safer and less stressful route around Lake Crescent than US-101 along the south side of the lake. https://www.peninsuladailynews.com/news/spruce-railroad-trail-refurbished/

With the growing number of revived permanent routes, it can be difficult to notice recently added routes on the overview maps. Since the last update one route has been added:

• 03387 U Village-Carnation 111 km. Formerly Gary Prince’s point-to-point commute training route, on the occasion of his retirement it has been changed to a loop which should make it more interesting to other riders.

Additionally, controls were added to 03505 Snoqualmie Valley Trail Run in Carnation and North Bend to provide alternate starting locations.