Leinster

Flying up to Seattle for the weekend, family stuff, and might have some time to sneak out Sunday morning for a couple of hours on a bike. Any recommendations on where I could rent a road bike for the morning? Local group rides I could join that would have me back/I could turn around by 11am-ish? Or just a path/route I could explore for an hour or two? We're staying with family near Matthews Beach.

At least one rental place that I've looked up insists that rentals start 10.30am day of, and return by 6pm that day, and you pay for 2 days if you keep it overnight, whereas I'd be thinking more along the lines of picking up before 6pm Saturday and returning it by 10.30/11 the next morning.

Suggestions?

Thanks!

Seattle Forrest

No idea about bike rentals, but Mathew's Beach is just off the Burke Gilman Trail, which is a pleasant ride in either direction. There are too many gorgeous and fun routes in town to list them all, if you're going to rent a bike the best one probably starts near the shop.

Here's a list of places that rent bikes, I don't know how up to date or inclusive it is: https://www.ibike.org/ibike/salish/bicycle-rental.htm

woodway

Check out the Cascade Bicycle Club meetup group for rides:

https://www.meetup.com/cascaderides/#upcoming

Leinster

Ended up not going for a proper ride but got a heck of a weekend in anyway. Wifey's relatives had a bunch of bikes in their garage, so I got up the Burke-Gilman one morning, and the 2 of us went on a tandem ride the other direction today. In the departures at SeaTac now to head back down. Had a great time in Seattle and can't wait to come back!

daihard 

Glad you had fun. My wife and I rode on the Burke-Gilman trail with a friend yesterday as well. We may have crossed paths.

Leinster

Very possible; if you saw a couple on a tandem who weren't really sure what they were doing, that was probably us!


One worrying sight; on Sunday afternoon, driving to the stadium to tailgate at the Hawks/9ers game for a bit, we were Southbound on Eastlake Ave through the Roosevelt area and got overtaken by an ambulance with its siren on; it pulled over in a parking lot on our left and we noticed what appeared to be a cyclist down, being treated by a police officer who was obviously first emergency vehicle on the spot. We were gone before we had time to find out exactly what was going on, but nothing on the Seattle Times website about it. Can we assume the cyclist survived?

I was impressed with the amount of cyclists in the city, and how polite all the Subaru drivers were! If only California drivers could learn to be so courteous!