Travel Log Archive

April 18, 2009 Laid-Back Lunch Ride Turns Into 3-Pass Blast

When the beautiful and talented Tina, (my some of the time pillion and all of time wife), offered to write a report on the Maltby Cafe RIDE!, I happily accepted. Below is her perspective on a short lunch RIDE! that morphed into something a bit more..... I had been looking forward to this ride for quite a while! I thought it would be a great first ride of the season for a rider like me… From my viewpoint, there are a few types of riders: Fast & Furious- These are the racers, the track demons, the bright-color leather guys- the bikes have numbers painted on them! They go fast for short distances! American Choppers- Their bikes tend to be loud and low. They wear black leather with fringe. If they wear a helmet, it only covers half their head. The speeds are moderate and the distances are short. Long Way Round- These Iron Butt riders have bikes with extra fuel tanks-they may ride where gas stations don’t exist. Their attire can withstand all temperatures and conditions- cold, hot, wet etc. The speeds vary and the distances can be very long. These are, of course, very broad generalizations as most riders fit somewhere in the wide gaps in between. Then there are riders like me. I don’t even ride my own bike- I just sit on the back! The conditions have to be just perfect. My gear has to be comfortable and I need lots of stops for stretching, food and caffeine. My rear-end can handle about 150-200 miles in a day. The temperature has to be between 65 and 80 degrees and the forecast has to say “0% chance of rain.” So the Maltby Café ride seemed perfect for me. It would be about 150 miles round trip, the temperature was perfect and there was no rain in the forecast! The ride was beautiful! The café’s food lived up to it’s reputation. The cinnamon rolls were as big as we had heard! Everything was tasty and the service was good, (Expect about a 30 minute wait for a table on a Saturday). The Maltby Cafe is a very popular breakfast and lunch destination. Hanging out, sipping our Lattes and waiting for our table. Our waitress with one of the Maltby Cafe's freakishly huge cinnamon rolls. We walked outside to the bikes and began talking about where to ride. Well, my riding buddies on this day just happened to be the Iron Butt variety. 3 of them have ridden as far north as the road will take you in Alaska and 2 of those have ridden from Canada to Mexico in 27 hours…so I should not have been surprised when someone said “Let’s ride over Steven’s Pass then come home over Blewett and Snoqualmie Passes.” Everyone turned to look at me! I said “Well if we make plenty of food and bathroom stops, I should be ok- oh, by the way, what kind of temperatures will we have on the passes?”. I was told probably the high 40s. Well my gear is pretty warm and I had dressed in layers, so I was game. Lots of snow remains in the North Cascades. Does this man look cold? Dave and his V-Strom. The passes were gorgeous. I did enjoy the passing scenery while my teeth were chattering! A cell phone pic of US-2, near the Stevens Pass Summit. We stopped at the Leavenworth Starbucks and it was great to get warm again at about 69 degrees and sunny! Back on the bikes and into winter again on Blewett Pass. Warm once again in Cle Elum at our stop at McKean’s for burgers and shakes. Back to the cold again over Snoqualmie Pass…home via I-90 and SR 18…and the warmth of my couch and flannel blanket! We ended up riding a little over 300 miles. It really was an awesome ride. The Iron Butt guys put up with my girly-girl requests, the food was delicious, the views were majestic, most of the time the temperature was around 65 degrees and IT DID NOT RAIN!