Catrikes and Prontos touring the San Juan Islands

My dear friends, Mel and Janet Birge, owners of RecumbentPDX, enjoy throwing a party. Every couple years, they enjoy getting friends together to do some bicycle touring. This year, we planned to enjoy a week in the San Juan Islands!

The party was supposed to start on Sunday, but I flew in on Friday afternoon to help Mel do some route planning and getting things set up. Our first day of riding was on Saturday, and I had the pleasure of riding a Catrike Dumont eCat trike with a Bosch electric assist kit and a Rohloff hub. 

The ferries weren’t exactly running as expected. About 40 minutes into our ferry ride over to Orcas Island, we found out that we were actually going to Anacortes! So it ended up taking 3.5 hours instead of 25 minutes to get to our destination! No problems…we still had plenty of time to ride, enjoy food in Eastsound and find some new roads to ride.

On Sunday, we did a quick ride out to Lime Kiln Point and discovered a great new road - False Bay Road was quiet and scenic!

Everyone arrived on Sunday and I switched to riding my Bacchetta Pronto recumbent. Our first ride on Monday included a run out to Lime Kiln Point, then down through False Bay to Cattle Point. The weather was amazing and the views spectacular!

The Pronto rode flawlessly, with the easiest level of assist giving me more than enough energy for all but the steepest 10.5% climbs (overall, this wasn’t a very hilly route). The battery was easily large enough for this 35 mile ride

The penultimate ride for the trip was at Orcas Island. I was looking forward to the challenge of riding the Pronto up Mount Constitution and we were all looking forward to the beautiful roads and views.

The day started overcast, but soon cleared up to feature beautiful temperatures and clear skies! I brought my charger knowing there were outlets at the top of the climb to recharge the battery on my Pronto. I was the first one to the top, but I admit I rode in the highest level of assist all the way up. As other riders arrived, we set up what food we had and hung out, socializing.

Bombing down was a blast, and the ride back to Eastsound was almost uneventful - I broke my chain when I did a quick U-turn to climb back up for something and forgot to downshift. Oh well…nothing a quick link couldn’t fix - thanks Zach for having tools!

On Tuesday, the weather was chilling and threatening rain. We decided to stay on San Juan Island and most of us rode out to Roche Harbor. There, I discovered the San Juan Islands Sculpture Garden, an outdoor art gallery with some amazing sculptures!

We were scheduled to leave on Thursday. Everyone seemed to really enjoy the trip and we all look forward to coming back here again. There are some definite highlights to see if you are planning on making this trip:

• Ride to Cattle Point on San Juan Island
• Ride to Lime Kiln Point State Park on San Juan Island
• Ride up Mt. Constitution on Orcas Island
• Visit the San Juan Islands Sculpture Garden

There are many other things to do on these islands, but we definitely covered the highlights!