Originally Posted by pmseattle
Where do you go to ride on the eastside ? The beautiful country roads sound interesting ! Do you know of a good, safe route to get from Seattle to the end of the Ironhorse Trail, for example ?
Best route would be to take the I-90 trail across the bridge into Bellevue. Cut through Mercer Slough Park and you will get dumped out in front of 128th. Then continue straight on across 128th. and pick up SE Eastgate. Take SE Eastgate Way to continue across 148th. You will eventually hit 35th. Pl. Hang a right and it will become 34th. Pl. Take it to 901/West Sammamish. where you will hang a right. Follow W. Samm towards Issaquah where it will become NW Sammamish Rd. and you will eventually hit the bottom of Lake Sammamish State Park. Cut east to stay on NW Samm Rd. and you will eventually hit East Sammamish. Hang a right and follow it for about 1/4 mile and then make a left to go up Black Nugget. Gear down low because this road hits 12%. Take Black Nugget till it ends at Issaquah-Pinelake and make a left. This will be about a 5% climb. The speed on that road is 35MPH but many drivers do go quite a bit faster so be careful. Most of them will give you room though. Take Issaquah Pinelake up to the next major light and continue on through. It will turn into Issaquah-Fall City. You will be greated by a bunch of 5% to 7% climbs along the way. You will eventually reach a fork where you can choose to continue on Issaquah-Fall City by hanging a right or continue on straight where the road turns into Duthie Hill. If you choose to go straight, you will eventually hit 202 in about 2 miles where you will hang a right towards Fall City. There's a high-speed winding descent that's fairly narrow. If you hang a right and go down Issaquah-Fall City, you will 202 about 2 miles further east. Then you take 202 past Fall City and towards Snoqualmie. Near the falls, you will find the entrance to Snoqualmie Valley Trail which you can take towards Rattlesnake Lake. Once at Rattlesnake Lake, you can pick up the John Wayne Pioneer Trail/Ironhorse Trail and take it towards the Snoqualmie Pass.
Yes, the eastside is chocked full of highspeed arterials that connect towns but they are fairly bike friendly. I have had no problems coexisting with 55MPH traffic on Hwy 202 for instance. Also, there are plenty of lower speed scenic routes. You just need to find them. The best route are the ones that follow along the terrain boundaries (ridgelines of the valleys, rivers, etc). Other good routes are the ones that parallel the major expressways just off to the side.