Pacific Northwest - Good road rides in Seattle

Howdy. I'd just moved to Seattle and want some local input on road riding in the area. I'm in lower Queen Anne. I took a spin up through Fremont to Greenlake this weekend and that was pretty nice, but I'm guessing there are more exciting places to ride than doing circles on Greenlake way.

I had been staying with my girlfriend's family on Bainbridge for a few weeks before moving to Queen Anne, so I was spoiled rotten with good riding. I'm looking for 20-40 mile rides. Something I can do after work a couple times a week. Gotta make sure I at least pretend to stay fit before cyclocross season starts.

Thanks for any help you can give.

Excellent library of rides located here:

http://www.seattlebiketours.org/members/library.html

Check out the rides that start from Gasworks Park as a starter.

Another good source of rides are the online mapping apps, like MapMyRide (http://www.mapmyride.com/search)

I like doing rides around Magnolia which is very close to you and you can get some good hills in plus there is some breathtaking scenery.

Get down to the waterfront on Alaskan way. Ride over to Alki beach in West Seattle. it's a great ride. It's virtually all on surface streets but the roads are pretty good save for a couple hundred yard stretch on Alaskan way by the Coast Guard station where you have to pick your way over rough pavement. Take a right at Spokane street and follow the other bikers to see how you get across the water. Once on the other side, you can ride on the road or the bike path down on Harbor blvd.
I ride on the road but you might want to do your first ride on the bike path till you are familiar with it. This will be a 20 plus mile ride for you. I live in Crown Hill and it's a 35 mile ride for me and I do it frequently. There are a couple coffee shops to stop at and once you get good at this you can continue on around and go over to Lincoln park and back adding at least 10 miles onto the trip. Note that there is a back way into Lincoln park. This is definately a worth wile trip.

go 'round the lake. i think you can still get free maps from Gregg's bike shop put out by the county.

I find its easy to get out to Mercer Island from downtown. Make your way to 12th Ave then hook up with the I-90 trail just after the Jose Rizal bridge. I'm on Capital Hill and its 25 miles door-to-door for me, it would likely be just under 30 for you. This is my daily standard.

Any variant of getting around Lake Washington is good too, though I recommend not going through Bellevue. That would also fall outside of the 40 mile range but its good for a day when you have time.

Laps on Magnolia are good if you have time constraints. Get up to the top of QA in whatever way pleases you (Taylor is nice if the Counterbalance fills you with dread) then come over Dravus and ride in circles until you're beat. From there you can either go back up over Dravus (steepish) or come back via the bike trail through Myrtle Edwards.

Living in QA, there aren't really going to be any rides where you don't have to contend with traffic and stop lights at the start. Probably not a revelation, but still worth saying. Of course, the best rides can be those where you just pick a direction and go.

Thanks for all the suggestions. The seattle bike tours page seems like an excellent resource. I think i'll check out magnolia for some weekday post-work laps sometime soon. I rode up the counterbalance the other day just to see what it was like. Damn that's a big hill. Having ridden all 3 variations of Baker Hill on Bainbridge I thought "how bad could the Counterbalance be?" It's definitely a lung and leg burner.

In all my years in Seattle I never even attempted the counterbalance. I think I only rode Queen Anne a handful of time, going up the back way, or maybe up the side. It's been over 20 years so I don't remember the street names.

In a side note, my 16 year old son rode my Davidson today. He loved it. He had only been on a MTB before that. It still has downtube shifters, but modern 10 speed wheels. If I weren't recuperating from a bike fall a few weeks ago with a broken pelvis I'd have gone with him.

I've been seeing quite a few Davidsons. Beautiful bikes.

After 28 years, my Davidson is still a beautiful bike. A few pics of it here (http://www.flickr.com/photos/49759850@N00/sets/72157612371507005/)