Riding and Races in the Seattle Area?

[KnottedYet]

Hot diggity! There's a ton of active TE'ers in the Seattle area! Let us know when you get here!

[dirtygirl1]

Got here yesterday. Our stuff hasn't arrived so we spent a few hours checking out Coal Creek on our mtbs today ... very fun area! I am hopeing to get back out there tomorrow (work starts next week) and do a longer ride.

Any good hilly options around? To prep for a race in July I need to find a mountainous loop (~2000 + feet of climbing) that is fairly technical. Any suggestions?

[Eden]

Mind you I know very little about mt biking.... but close in there are trails at St. Edwards Park over near Kirkland http://www.bbtc.org/wiki/index.php?t...ard_State_Park

and the one place I've ever ridden a mt bike, Tolt McDonald (the team did a team building / learn to mt bike ride here - there are lots of trails, technical to easy I think) http://www.bbtc.org/wiki/index.php?t...Tolt_MacDonald

If you don't mind a bit of a drive there are lots of options
there's a nice list of trails with elevation info and descriptions here
http://www.bbtc.org/wiki/index.php?t...&namespace=100

just be sure to check out current conditions before you go many of these places - there's been so much snow here this year, and such cold weather as of late that its likely that some of these trails are still buried!

[Irulan]

24 hour race Spokane May 24-25
http://www.roundandround.com/RoundTh...ndTheClock.php

Cascade Creampuff
http://www.cascadecreampuff.com/

[Drtgirl]

Most of the trails in the Seattle area are relatively flat. If you want to work on technical skills you can check out Tapeworm (aka DNA, Parasite, etc.) in Renton, Black Diamond, S. Seatac near the airport or Soaring Eagle in Sammamish.

If you want to climb the closest trail system would be Tiger Mountain. There are plenty of fire roads to climb and some nice singletrack. This trail just opened up for the summer and gets VERY crowded (ie-no parking available) after work and on weekends. I'd recommend an early am ride.

Capitol forest down in Olympia is also really nice.

Eden's right about the snow Last winter's snowfall was really heavy and a lot of the trails are still covered. My hubby and I explored some trails off hwy 18 last weekend and we ran into over 3' of snow on the shady side of the mountain

[Drtgirl]

Eden's right about the snow Last winter's snowfall was really heavy and a lot of the trails are still covered. My hubby and I explored some trails off hwy 18 last weekend and we ran into over 3' of snow on the shady side of the mountain

Yeah....so I tried to ride Tiger tonight. Snow about 100m in from the trailhead. We turned around and literally got pummeled by hail. Riding down a fire road at nearly 30mph is not fun with you add in the ice pellets!

[dirtygirl1]

Thanks Girls,

I also tried Tiger and ran into snow. It wasn't too bad but I am originally from canada

Black Diamond is providing loads of fun for me right now...

Irulan --> are you going to Round and Round? I raced it Solo last year and plan to go again. what a great race. It was my first 24 hour Solo and I loved every minute of it :-)

I am hopeing Tiger will be cleared this weekend - will let you know!