Wow

As I prepare to post today's ride I notice that this is the first ride in a week.  After thinking I would reach 10,000 miles for the year in early October, with riding like this I'll be lucky to reach it at all this year.

Bummer, but at least it was a good ride today.

My friend and I started off from the top of Queen Anne hill in Seattle and made a looping descent down the hill.  The less than direct route allowed us to take a more gentle descent, avoiding the hard braking down a 23% hill with rough pavement.  It also gave us some nice views.

After a wet evening, it was a pleasant surprise to have a dry day to start off in.  I wasn't confident it would hold so I rode my rain bike, and carried rain gear along.

We got to the base of Queen Anne and crossed the Fremont Bridge then accessed the Burke-Gilman Trail.  We had plans to meet another friend at Marymoor Park on the far side of Sammamish Lake so we'd ride the length of the B-G then ride on the Sammamish River Trail to Marymoor Park.  The fall colors, while still evident, are now past their prime.  My riding partner had more fall colors than the trees!

As we neared Marymoor Park we met our friend pedaling back toward us.  At that point the plan morphed a bit.  We had originally planned to ride around Lake Sammamish, but now turned back toward Woodinville to look for reflective dog collars!  Unable to find exactly what our friend wanted we rode back to Blazing Bagles near Marymoor Park and had lunch.  While there another friend who had been trying to catch us all day finally did so.  To be honest, he had his work cut out for him, he had started in West Seattle, giving us about a 15 mile head start.

After scarfing down bagel sandwiches the friend in search of dog collars resumed the search locally, the other three of us turned back on the Sammamish River Trail toward Seattle. We had a bit of a following wind which made the pedaling easier.

We rode back until we got the chance to get back on the Burke-Gilman Trail.  We then pedaled that to the Fremont Bridge.  At this point Eric departed and made his way back to West Seattle, Julie and I began the circuitous ascent of Queen Anne.  As we climbed up the hill a few drips began to fall.  Not rain by Pacific Northwest standards, just a few sprinkles, increasing to a very light rain as we finished up.  A good day on the bikes, especially for this time of year.



  ............road bike.......rollers.........mtb.....lifecycle.....total Today..........73..............0.............0..........0..............73  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 Sept..........730..............0.............0..........0............730 Oct............770.............0.............0..........0.............770 YTD..........8427.........142...........20.........46............8586