The Power of New Routes

I'm pretty lucky. I live in an area with a pretty good diversity of training routes. There's some flat terrain, some good rolling terrain, and of course the Methow Valley is at one end of the spectacular North Cascades Highway and some serious climbs in the mountains. What we don't have here, is a great quantity of training routes. The riding we have is great. What's not to like about quiet country roads and cooperative (for the most part) drivers? It's just that, well, its easy to get that "been there, done that" feeling occasionally when you live here.

Last Wednesday was shaping up to be one of those "been there, done that" type of days. I figured I needed around a 50 mile training ride and with an iffy weather forecast and the thought of my regular routes not lighting a fire under my butt, motivation was lacking. I couldn't do anything about the weather but maybe some new roads would do the trick. I logged on to MapMyRide and searched for likely routes within an hour or so drive of home. Nothing really jumped out at me, so I decided to drive over to Okanogan and ride up towards Omak Lake and then back down to Omak and back to Okanogan on the roads on the west side of the Okanogan Valley. I'd never ridden any of these roads, but on the map, they looked like just the right mix of terrain and distance.

With the weather looking ever more favorable, I parked at the American Legion Park in Okanogan and headed east across Highway 97 and into the hills towards Omak Lake. Soon after, I made a serendipitous mistake. I missed the turn towards Omak Lake and continued up the Cameron Lake Road. This road is a really great climb to nowhere. About 10 miles from Okanogan, the pavement ends on a high plateau. Little traffic and some difficult pitches make it a great climb to file away for future training rides.

After failing to find Omak Lake at the end of Cameron Lake Road (imagine that), I came back down and took Cameron Lake-Omak Lake Rd. over to Omak Lake Road. A sign indicated that Omak Lake was only 4 miles up the road. At this point, Omak Lake Road looked like any other county road in Okanogan County. It was a somewhat narrow, chipsealed two-lane road. Just before reaching Omak Lake though, it changed dramatically, for the better. It became a wide, smooth two lane highway with 2 to 3 foot wide shoulders on both sides. Unlike most highways though, it had almost no traffic on it. The stretch along the lake featured a few short climbs and great views of the lake.

I had expected the pavement to end in the vicinity of the lake, but it just kept going, and I kept following it. I was blessed with almost no wind or traffic and plenty of smooth pavement. I just kept rolling along until I finally had to turn back to get back to Okanogan before dark. It turned out to be a little over 60 miles for the day and one of the most enjoyable rides I've done in a long time. Maybe this road is busier on the weekends or later in the summer, but on a midweek day in late April, it was a nearly perfect training ride. Given my earlier lack of motivation and enthusiasm for my usual routes, it was a day that demonstrated the power that a new training route can sometimes have.