Day 4 – Sequim Bay to Seattle – Safe Return Doubtful

64 miles (103 km) – Total so far: 281 miles (452 km)

Time riding 5 hours 56 mins Average speed 10.8 mph Max speed 32.5 mph Altitude 72 meters asl Left at 7:10 am (breakfast after 20 minutes) Arrived at 4:15 pm

Not such great riding today. The Discovery Trail finishes about 2 kilometres after the campground and from then on its highway, though it always has a good shoulder, but plenty of traffic.

Some days spent on the coast like this can accumulate more climbed meters than going over a pass. I suspect today was one of those. The gradients were gentle in the morning, but pretty much all up and down.

Making good time I was at Kingston ferry for light lunch then the short and free (in this direction) crossing to Edmonds, just to the north of Seattle. The up and downs became much more pronounced now. Seattle is of course, a city on hills, so why did I expect anything different.

With time on my side I rode into the downtown area and back out to the hotel I had booked. This is an expensive city, so my free Hotels.com space didn’t go far, a Travelodge about 4 miles out.

I could easily have avoided Seattle, but I was keen to visit. Compared to some other U.S. Cities Seattle has incredible public transport. The ‘rapidride’ bus from outside the hotel gets into downtown in 20 minutes and costs $2.50 return. I wanted to visit REI and grab some food and local interesting beers in town.