Today Zoë got a long-awaited washing. Not much worth describing here, except that I bought one of those spray-on-and-rinse-off Wundercleaners, and it's crap. She's really not that much cleaner than she was beforehand. Next time, something that requires some scrubbing will be tried. Anyway, I'm not much of a neatfreak; I just want a bit of the road dust off, and the hose may be enough for that.

Cleaning included cleaning the chain. Since all instructions on chain care say that it should be "warmed up" with a ride after cleaning but before re-lubing, I broke out my Destination Highways book and found a quick little run nearby; more of what the book calls "Twisted Edges," which are shorter than the titular Highways but kind of fun. For those following around at home, the route shown below is what the book refers to as SEA TE-G and SEA TE-H.

Some nice curves here, the occasional surprise where the suggested 15mph limit really meant it, but mostly an easy meander along the Snohomish River, through farmland and very rural surroundings. I noticed an interesting dichotomy between sprawling new houses, built no doubt for folks from Seattle looking to run to the exurbs and buy a nice big place, and the small and run-down places that no doubt stood there long before dot-coms and Redmond money, when the farms were still the moneymaker in the area.

Not much traffic at all, and not a single police sighting, for which I'm grateful. I still ride rather slowly and conservatively for fear of tickets, and even 10 over feels creeping on these roads, where I know I could be comfortable quite a bit higher. I spent the time instead focusing on smooth braking technique, and smooth throttle-to-brake transitions. Zoë is a little choppy in the low end of the rev range, but I find it a lot easier to be smooth up around 5500-6500 RPM and try to hold her in that band. That's not really the "powerband" per se, as the juice keeps coming on up to about 11k, but it's a comfortable place to ride.

I tried to retrace my steps on the way back without looking at my maps, and so managed to get lost in a warren of rural roads. I eventually guessed my way back to Hwy 2, which drops back into I5, and followed that home. All in all, a nice 50-mile ride on a lazy grey Sunday.

These rides always leave me hungry for longer trips. Soon...