Riding the Olympic peninsula

Overcast skies greet us in the morning. After a brief test ride yesterday afternoon I felt the seat was hard so I wanted to go for a longer ride early in the morning. If more adjustments were needed they could be done before we left. I was on the road by 6:30 for a 90 minute ride (temps in the fifties with drizzle). I felt the seat was firm but at least I wasn’t getting butt burn/numbness anymore. I thought all was well.

The clouds never went away all day. In fact it drizzled on and off all morning. U.S. 101 was busy – we were doing the RV conga line for long stretches. When I saw the turn off for the Hoh rain forest I thought this might be a less traveled route, providing us a break from the traffic. Hah! Not even. Not only was it pretty busy but they were finishing off the road resurfacing by applying a final layer of ‘oil’ (liquid tar) over the gravel they had put down earlier. Though the road itself wasn’t (very 😉 ) slippery the ‘fresh oil’ signs were somewhat disconcerting and we took it slow. After having some lunch (hummus on bread and tomatoes) and seeing the sun for the only time today, we head back to 101.

This little excursion has cost us some time and a quick look at the map shows there isn’t much in terms of towns and thus hotels for the next 80 miles so we still had quite a bit of riding in front of us. The frequent road constructions – fresh gravel all of them – didn’t help. We finally made it to Aberdeen by 18:00 with my butt on fire after a 350 mile day.

Lesson learned: don’t make major ergonomical adjustments to your motorcycle while on a long trip far from home. Not a very smart decision on my part. Perhaps it will get better over time since the Sargent seat that I had took almost a 1000 miles of break-in. Right now though, I’m kicking myself for not only spending the money but more for making such a major change in the middle of our trip. Again, not very smart.

Todays route.