I signed up this weekend to take the Park Tools advanced bicycle maintenance course at the REI flagship store in downtown Seattle -- 8 hours over two days. My only riding this weekend will be to and from the class, so I thought my ride report this time would be photos to show what a Seattle ride looks like. 80% of this ride is also my regular commute (my office and the REI flagship store are both in downtown Seattle). So this shows you what my commute is like on a good day. On a bad day in the winter, it looks like the inside of a very cold shower.
I live in a suburb on Seattle's East Side. All of my rides begin by riding up this hill out my driveway. It's always hard to show the angle of a hill in a photo. These first two blocks average about an 11% grade (and steepens to 15% in places); there are another 2.5 blocks of hill past the little summit you can see here; the grade is less steep but it gets one's heart pumping to start every ride this way.
It takes me about 5 miles of riding down pretty quiet roads to get to the I90 bridge over Lake Washington. This morning I left home about 6:45 a.m.; this Prius was one of the few cars I saw until I got to the freeway.
This is the bike lane on the Interstate 90 that goes to downtown Seattle; you can just barely make out a few buildings in downtown Seattle toward the right. The body of water we're crossing is Lake Washington. For two days during salmon season, this lake will be wall-to-wall boats as the salmon come through Lake Washington to reach their spawning streams.
These houses are just off the bike lane...the one in the middle is for sale. (Here's the listing:
http://www.coldwellbanker.com/servle...&page=property) At these prices, I think all of these houses should come with a free Bike Butler.
Three days each summer, these guys show up and fly around over the Lake...this shot is taken from the same bridge where the bike lane is...
Houses on the Seattle side of the bridge...this neighborhood is called Leschi. There is a pleasant, flat road along the lake that is popular with cyclists, and a couple of nice bike shops along the lake. At the very north of this photo is the University of Washington (not visible in this shot).
Looking back toward the east, this is the bridge we just crossed...you can see the Cascade Range in the background. I think the ski resorts are still open this weekend.
This tunnel takes us through the hill on the Seattle side of the bridge...
Looking back at the tunnel we just came through.
