Pucker Factor

This is not a science-based observation; it is fear based reality. The scenery on the Olympic Peninsula is without a doubt some of the best I've ever seen. The roads are, on the other hand, a challenge. It isn't the up and down, curving, shaded, foggy, or even busy factors, although these factors figure into the equation. It is the paved shoulder of the roads!  Starting from Neah Bay and heading east they start at 0-2ft from the white stripe to a rough landing in the blackberry tangles or worse into the side of a huge fir or red cedar. At Joyce the "Bike lane" is from 0-3 ft, leaning more towards: between a white strip and cast off truck/auto parts, tree bark, some really pretty flowers, and a huge log that I would have liked to have seen jumping from the truck, albeit, from several hundred meters behind. At Port Angeles the bike lane is from 2-6 ft, averaging about 3. Then they narrow as you get close to Port Townsend.
So, I've devised a non-scientific rating of bike lanes on the north side of the peninsula: the Pucker Factor. The PF tries to account for the width of bicycle lane, width of the vehicle travel surface between the white strip (bicycle lane) and the SOLID yellow one, the amount of sight distance (which given the fact that trees and blackberries grow to the edge of the road and that the roads hardly have a straight section on them means that drivers can't see squat for more than a really panicked "half-of-a-breaking distance ahead". . .before mass and velocity can be measured on the unit with the smaller mass. . . . kinda like the jackrabbit blotch in the middle of the road!), the amount of traffic in terms of the ratio of cars, pickups, logging trucks, dump trucks, and Winnibeggers, and how much over the posted speed limit these vehicles are traveling.
The highway between Neah Bay and Joyce hardly has a stretch where the speed limit is over 45 so it has a lower score for "speed of vehicles." But the ratio of huge vehicles to small ones (log trucks:cars) is very high and they get paid by the mile so they are in a hurry to haul as many loads as they can per day. And the width of the bike lane is almost zero. So the PF is (on a scale of 1-10, one being no problem and a ten being a good case of an aggravated bowel syndrome) is an 8 or 9. From Port Angeles east, even though traffic is faster and heavier, the PF is about a 6 or 7.

I will develop a table with better criteria later in the trip. Let's just say my rear end has learned how to grip my saddle very well.