Today's ride

Today's ride was around Lake Washington in Seattle. The plan was to spend the day, take in the sights, have lunch along the route, and just generally have two wheeled fun.  An invitation was posted for folks to join in the fun, but it seemed they wanted to ride a different route, or something shorter, or something faster. No matter, Two of us rode the entire route, one joined us 12 miles into the ride, and two more commuted to and from, plus joined us for about 12 miles near the end.

We started off from Gasworks Park and began our loop counter clockwise.  Here you can see the Hwy 520 floating bridge over Lake Washington in the distance.

We were soon on the STP route and followed it as far as Renton.
 We got a good view of the I-90 floating bridge also.

Before we reached Renton however we detoured slightly to pick up our third rider. Our first social interlude involved a tour of her new home, and a rather lengthy stop at a local coffee shop.  After getting that all out of the way we continued on.

We had a small issue with a "driver" at the intersection of Seward Park Avenue and Rainier Avenue. At this intersection we make a left turn and were riding in the left turn lane as we should.  The two girls were riding ahead of me at this point and Julie, our lead rider, signaled her intention to turn left. A driver was in "must pass bikes" mode and straddled the yellow center line to squeeze around.

 There is a center curb at this location and the driver found herself being forced to make a choice between being caught on the wrong side of the curb, or force the bike over. (or just slow down and wait her turn!) Julie was using her mirror and saw the driver being stupid and moved back over to the right to allow the car back in.  Being a bit more "stand my ground" type of rider I would have figured the chance of getting run over from the back was less than getting run over from the side and would have held my ground in the lane. I would have loved to see the driver caught on the wrong side of the curb and experience a reality check.  As it was, the car got around and proceeded up a few feet to the red light and stopped.  I rode around to the driver side and proceeded to discuss the situation with the driver, a woman likely in her early 40's.  I interspersed questions on why she needed to do that with comments that I hoped she had a nice day.  She looked puzzled and clueless, and never opened her window. We all positioned our bikes ahead of her car and when the light turned green proceeded around the turn and continued our ride without incident.

At the Renton Airport we stopped to take a look at pioneering aviator Clayton Scott's statue.

The three of us continued around Lake Washington, now in a northerly direction.  We arrived at Gene Coulon Park and were enticed by the sunny weather and available seafood to stop for awhile.Here we enjoy some fish and chips from Ivars.

Though an official bike route that is supposedly signed, many of the signs were not to be found.  I would have not been able to follow the route without the services of my local tour guides, especially in this southern segment where much of the route follows streets.

We did keep moving northward however. We arrived in Bothel, on the northern end of Lake Washington, and back on familiar ground for me, since I had ridden this area several times in the last month.  We were now on the Burke-Gilman trail and heading south.

When we reached Log Boom Park we met up with our final two riders. They had ridden in from home and would join us for the last 12 miles or so along the B-G. Steve was on a nice Cervelo TT bike. I understand he does Ironman Triathlons. Today he would have to slow it down a bit and ride at our "social pace".  He did stay out in front most of the time  however. ;-)

We covered the last few miles back to Gasworks and decided on yet another food stop, this time at an Italian place.  I think it was one of the few rides where I ate more calories than I burned. :-)

There is about 4000 ft of climbing on this route but no real hills of note.  We rode today at a relaxed pace and the sun was out, so it was all good.





Today..........53..............0.............0..........0...........53 Jan...........105.............34.............0..........0..........139 Feb...........428............108.............0.........24..........536 March.........809..............0.............0.........22..........831 April........1010..............0.............0..........0.........1010 May..........1000..............0............20..........0.........1020 June.........1500..............0.............0..........0.........1500 July.........1558..............0.............0..........0.........1558 Aug...........531..............0.............0..........0..........531
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