DEPENDING ON WHICH VERSION of social media’s “many seasons of the PNW” you adhere to, we might be into ‘True Spring’ now. With either Actual Summer or Third Winter yet to come—making this the perfect time to talk cycling and Kitsap’s major mass bike rides.
It’s not easy being a cyclist on Kitsap.
With worsening traffic volumes and many an important arterial lacking shoulders, it can be tough finding good routes, or finding relaxation and fellowship on the roads. Mass rides can be an amazing place to find those things and kindle, rekindle, or reinforce the many joys of biking. Yes, two out of three of these rides have already happened this year, but there’s still one left in 2025. And it’s never too late to start procrastinating for 2026.
Below: irreverent commentary and a TL;DR on each ride, so you can either reminisce, prepare, or vicariously avoid as you wish.
Any discussion of Kitsap-area mass rides has to start with Cascade Bicycle Club’s Chilly Hilly, which for inexplicable/traditional/sadistic reasons has occurred every February on Bainbridge since 1972. Our region is blessed with a temperate climate and many gently winding roads with broad shoulders.
The Chilly Hilly cleverly avoids these things.
True to its name, the ride is both chilly (average February temps are in the mid-40’s, and the chance of rain is between 50-100% depending on whether I sign up) and hilly (about 2,200 feet of climbing over 33 miles, that’s 2,100 too many in February) with a paucity of good shoulders. Appropriately, the route map is shaped like a creepy high-browed face looking eastward and laughing at you. Yes, there are uncontrollable bouts of shivering, anime-style snot bubbles, angina, and frostbite. But, also, there are 50 years of tradition, friendly volunteers, camaraderie and commiseration over finish line chili with 2,499 other near-hypothermic madpeople. [TL;DR… Ride the route with some friends on a nice weekday morning in July.]
The middle child of this mass ride trio is Poulsbo’s Viking Tour in May. Like most middle children, this ride is relatively stunted and less well known with a 500 rider limit. It benefits Poulsbo’s Rotary Club, which is a fine upstanding group behind many excellent service projects, scholarships, blahdy blah blah…
Really, this ride is about the alcohol at the end.
Immediately at the finish line, a beer and cider garden beckons like Valhalla. Three routes exist before you can drink: the Freya (goddess of Love, Beauty, Fertility, War, Death and Magic–and all of these things can probably be witnessed somewhere along the 17-mile route), the 29-mile Thor (mayhap intended for the body diversity Thor from Endgame to pencil in as part of his return-to-fitness journey) and the 57-mile Odin, as in.. O-didn’t I tell you there was 4,000 feet of climbing?
Poulsbo PD provide a lead-out through town in their charmingly Hobbit-fonted patrol cars for the Viking Fest event. [TL;DR: Not one, but two chances to have the Poulsbo police escort you out of town.]
Our final entry, and the only chance you’ve got left to partake of this rolling feast in 2025, is Cascade’s Kitsap Color Classic. Set for October 12, it’s an excellent chance for your “high-visibility” orange cycling jacket to become perfectly camouflaged against the flaming big leaf maples.
Like the Viking Tour, there are three adventures to choose from.
After escaping bustling metropolis of Kingston, riders elect to turn right and embark on a 26-mile Hansville loop, turn left and venture down to Poulsbo for a 34 mile-loop (without the aforementioned police escort), or eat the full 52-mile enchilada if they’ve been biking all summer long. The full enchilada is more or less the Odin route from the Viking Tour but probably without riders dressed in Viking garb—unclear if this is a pro or con.
There’s about a 30-percent chance the weather will be miserable, and a 100 percent chance the best/only bakery in Hansville will be closed on the day of the ride. [TL;DR: Sign up now, but bail if the forecast is for the Dark Wet to arrive early. And for Freya’s sake go on a day when Greenwoodes Farm Organic Bakery is open.]
Cycling is awesome.
Cycling on Kitsap is… sometimes awesome.
This trio of mass rides are a part of the awesomeness along with your neighborhood streets and trails, rides to or from your local shop, your commute to the ferry or work… or using your bike to grab beer and Twinkies.
Whatever your riding plans are this year and the next, do ride safely, ride assertively, become best friends with your local bike shop, and thank the volunteers, organizers and cycling advocates who make the joy and pain happen. // ERIC LEE
FIND MORE ON The Chilly Hilly and The Kitsap Color Classic thru the Cascade Bicycle Club at cascade.org. More on the Viking aTour at vikingfest.org. And more on Greenwoodes Bakery on facebook @GreenwoodesFarm&BakedGoods
