We had no real destination in mind, but we did have a midweek work trip that allowed us to sample a little food and a few trails in an area that I don’t think I’ve ever ridden, Montesano, WA.
Had a great breakfast/lunch at a place called the Savory Faire Cafe. It must have been kind of a destiny/God thing because we had no idea that this random cafe that we googled had a connection to bikes, it was just close by, open and looked interesting. Then we walked through the door, saw the bike frames on the wall and knew it would be a cool place. It was. Good coffee, good sandwich and a hot tasty cup of soup on a cold rainy day.
Checking on Trailforks, it looked like there were several trail options to ride at the nearby Lake Sylvia State Park, so we just picked what looked like a loop and gave it a try. Like the cafe, we were pleasantly surprised. We made a loop of Downie, Brownie, Sylvia Ridge and the 1600 Connector trail that led back down to the lake. The trails were a mostly a mix of slippery wet peanut butter mud, gnarly wet roots, and pine needle covered trails in the trees. In the clearcut area that seemed to be just outside the state park, the trails look newly cut and so were pretty soft. We just covered 5 miles but in that distance I did a lot of pushing as I wasn’t able to ride all the muddy uphills, which maybe were downhill trails, but we were the only ones around so oh well. All in all, the trails we rode in the short the distance we covered made me want to come back when the weather is a bit better and I have a little more time to explore the area.
