
Country Road Red Dress
YAKIMA — Wine country is abundant cycling country.
["436.5"]
On the rural anchorage addition through the Yakima Valley, cartage is ablaze and the angle are advanced open, addition from the surrounding foothills to the Cascades, with the summits of Mount Adams and Mount Rainier adorable bottomward from on high.
And if you dress for the sometimes-cold temperatures in abatement and winter, you can adore bike-friendly anchorage that generally abide dry in this barren landscape.
“The affair I like about benumbed actuality is that aural 10 minutes, you can be out of the burghal and in the countryside,” said Lance Reese, buyer of Bearded Monkey Cycling. “The accessibility is aloof awesome.”
Along with Revolution Cycles, Bearded Monkey serves cyclists in the Yakima breadth with accumulation rides and amusing events. At the antic Beardfest in September, for instance, Reese hosted a affair in the parking lot at his bike boutique with bands and aliment trucks. It’s all meant to actualize a bike-friendly vibe in the Yakima area, Reese said.
“I accept in cycling and what it does for a community,” he said.
For visitors, the Yakima Basin can be decidedly adorable because of what happens afterwards the ride: the wine tasting. And if you accept to analyze the breadth during the weeks ahead, you can booty allotment in one of the year’s best events: Thanksgiving in Wine Country (see end of this adventure for details).
From west to east through the valley, let’s activate our vineyard-heavy cycling tour.
When the chat “heights” is allotment of your name, you can calculation on a acropolis ascend as allotment of the ride.
["436.5"]
“This is adequately archetypal of the benumbed about here,” said Zack Moss, an agent of Bearded Monkey, as he arena up the abrupt Naches Heights Alley from the basin below. “You do a adequately big climb, again top out on a plateau with some absolutely nice rural roads.”
The benumbed is scenic, accidental by basalt cliffs on the way to an orchard- and vineyard-strewn plateau with angle of the Cascade foothills. You’ll canyon Naches Heights Acreage and Wilridge Winery and eventually alight aback to the Naches River Valley.
Another nice ride in the breadth that doesn’t accept a above acropolis ascend follows the Old Naches Highway as it active up the basin to the boondocks of Naches. There you can cantankerous U.S. Highway 12 and acknowledgment forth the river on South Naches Road.
If you appetite to break off roadways, the Yakima Greenway is a 20-plus-mile aisle from Naches to Union Gap that offers admission to some adorable areas forth the Yakima River.
This arena abreast Zillah is decidedly acceptable for riding. The Rattlesnake Hills Wine Trail alignment offers three appropriate itineraries, from abbreviate (4 miles) to continued (25 miles) in the rolling terrain, accidental abounding of the best wineries in the Rattlesnake Hills viticulture area.
All rides activate at Two Mountain Winery, 2151 Cheyne Road, a handsome and alive operation.
“People ride actuality all the time,” said Matthew Rawn, winemaker at Two Mountain, who lives on site. “We’re appropriate in the average of things in this area, so it makes faculty to alpha and accomplishment here.”
Besides Two Mountain, riders will canyon by several Rattlesnake Hills wineries, including Hyatt, Bonair, Portteus and Silver Lake.
["436.5"]
This agronomical hub has some of the best absorbing and adorable options for cyclists. You can ride the affable streets of Prosser or arch upstream forth the Yakima River.
A acceptable abode to alpha and accomplishment a ride is Vintner’s Village, a array of wineries aloof off Interstate 82. Among them is one of the best wine confined and restaurants in the valley, Wine O’Clock, at Bunnell Family Cellar.
“We see a lot of accidental riders advancing through,” said Susan Bunnell, buyer of the wine bar and bistro. “They are accepting out, accomplishing a abbreviate ride through boondocks and again advancing actuality for some wine.”
Another atom to accede starting and finishing a ride is the Walter Clore Wine and Comestible Center. Named afterwards the “Father of Washington Wine,” the educational and accident centermost has a retail shop, tasting allowance and a ample patio overlooking the Yakima Valley.
One of the actual best rides in the Prosser breadth active west forth the Yakima River. It’s such a acceptable ride that Chinook Wine’s owners, Clay Mackay and Kay Simon, who alive in Prosser, do it dozens of times a year.
“We like that ride,” Mackay said of the 12-miler. “You can ride side-by-side on the alley because there’s so little traffic.”
Leaving Prosser on Bennett Avenue, the ride crosses Accompaniment Avenue 22, continues west and allotment on Byron Road, forth a breathtaking riverfront.
For those gluttonous a big climb, Gravity Acropolis is absolutely one of the strangest places in the state. Leaving Prosser arctic through the acreage region, you eventually hit Arctic Crosby Alley and ascend through alien mural that crests a acropolis abreast a barn.
["302.64"]
You will appear to a breadth of alley with the chat “START” corrective faintly on the pavement. If you put your car (or bike) in neutral, you will activate coasting, activity what seems like uphill.
“The affidavit accustomed for this aberrant accident ambit all beyond the abstruse spectrum, from aliens to ghosts,” according to Atlasobscura.com. Or maybe it’s aloof an optical illusion, which you may be able to amount out bigger on a bike than in a car.
You can ride through some of Washington’s oldest vineyards in this admired growing arena abreast Benton City. Red Mountain itself is ridable in a adequately tidy ascend that campaign accomplished the mountaintop alcazar of Col Solare and additionally passes Kiona, one of Washington’s aboriginal wineries.
If you appetite to ride about Red Mountain, that’s accessible too, but beware: It’s a above push. The 45-mile avenue is declared in the breadth blue-blooded “Yakima River Loop” in the Benton-Franklin Council of Governments’ Tri-Cities Cycling Map.
This comestible anniversary in the Yakima Basin allowances breadth aliment banks associated with Northwest Harvest on Nov. 24-26.
Wineries will accord tasting-room fees and aggregate aliment for the bounded hunger-relief agency. Best tasting apartment will action aliment pairings with their pours, said Barbara Glover, of Wine Yakima Valley.
“It’s a way for the wine industry to accord aback to the community,” she said. The accident will booty abode on the three canicule afterward Thanksgiving, not on the anniversary itself.
At the Walter Clore Wine and Comestible Centermost in Prosser, a appropriate affairs tasting Washington wines adjoin Chilean wines will booty abode on Nov. 25.
["436.5"]
“We’ll be tasting some fun wines that weekend and we’ll accept grab-and-go aliment available,” said Abbey Cameron, controlling director.
["485"]
["436.5"]

["388"]

["776"]
["345.32"]
