Another (metric) Century

Just dropped in to pick up the mail . . . 

Last Thursday we had a spring downpour and I stayed home in the evening to do a little yoga-therapy. It was nice to crack my windows open a bit to listen to the rain and smell the fresh air while going through a gentle routine. Friday the weather cleared up a bit and I did a ten-mile ride in the afternoon, and an easy thirty-mile ride on Saturday. Which all turned out to be just the right way to work up to another 62-miler on Sunday, when I rode a loop from the Silver Reef Casino on Slater Road, to the town of Blaine.

The most memorable feature of this route is that it truly felt like more downhill than uphill. It seemed much easier than the Chuckanut-Colony Road 62-miler I rode two or three weeks ago. (That is a pretty hilly ride.) Possibly I got lucky in preparing for the ride, or maybe the wind was at my back all the way around. There are also a lot of pretty views, and an interesting change of scene in the border town of Blaine.

From my apartment I rode Ferndale Road, to Slater Road, then on to the casino. There is a well-known bike route up a steep hill climb on Slater to Lake Terrell Road, but I turned off early to Elder Road. Partly I wanted to skip the steep climb, and partly out of curiosity, because Elder Road is marked as a tsunami evacuation route. It's a narrow two-lane road with little to no shoulder, but very fun to ride, straight with gentle waves tending downhill all the way to Douglas Road. I turned left there, rode up a short hill to Lake Terrell Road, which becomes Rainbow Road, and then Kickerville Road, which I followed north until it t-bones at Loomis Trail Road. I turned left there and continued north all the way to Blaine, where I toured around the harbor and marina and stopped for a snack break.

I believe this used to be the Canadian Consulate - or the Customs House.
Mail services are big business in Blaine.

Heading home I took the long, scenic route around Drayton Harbor, Semiahmoo Drive, and Birch Point Road in to Birch Bay Village. There is one shortish but steep climb up from Drayton Harbor to the Semiahmoo Parkway intersection, followed by a nice downhill stretch on Semiahmoo Drive.

From Birch Bay I followed the familiar route of the Coast Millenium trail, riding Aldergrove Road to Kickerville, Rainbow, Lake Terrell and back to Slater Road. There I tore down the steep hill I'd skipped climbing at the start, maxing out at 38mph and holding above 17mph as far as the Haxton Way stoplight at the intersection by the Silver Reef Casino, only stopping because the light changed to red. Then I rode Slater Road until it crossed the Nooksack River, where I went left across the road to the river trail through Hovander Park, and on to home.

Nice spot for a coffee break