May Valley Road

I was quite slow getting out of the house.

I wandered around in circles and procrastinated. I took a long time to get dressed for the chilly weather. I thought about adding a couple of different loops to the ride, but i wasted too much time. A friend lost her bus pass on a bike ride the day before and i considered riding where she thought she lost it, but it was 15 miles
out of my way. I always enjoy riding but i felt very grumpy and tired. I wasted so much time i had to call my friend Nadine and tell her i would be late. She was making me lunch in exchange for fixing some computer problems she was having.

I headed out the door, and out on a residential route out of the city that i take almost every day. Things kept going wrong, my shoes were not tied well, i didn't feel comfortable on the bike, and on and on. I had to stop several times in the first mile or two.

And then i heard my rear brake making a scraping noise. I've been riding in some pretty heavy rain lately, i knew my brakes were in poor shape. I figured that, once again, a shard of metal either from the road, or from my rim, had gotten embedded in the brake pad. That not only makes a noise, but can do some serious damage, so, only 2 miles from home, in a central city area many people would call a ghetto, i stopped again. This was getting silly. When i looked at the brake pad, i noticed that there was NO pad at all, and the scraping was the metal holder hitting the rim. This just wasn't my day.

After staring at it for a minute or two i got out my allen key and adjusted the toe-in so that that the rear portion of the brake, which still had some rubber, was hitting the rim, instead of the front.

My road repair worked and i was kind of proud of myself, but i was still riding slow. I made it through town and out to the floating bridge across Lake Washington. The bridge is attached to a freeway and can be a difficult ride at times with the fast traffic on your right. There was a strong north wind coming from my left creating strange air currents around my glasses. The strangeness was that it was causing my RIGHT eye to water.

I got up onto Mercer Island, which is a suburban town and is quite hilly. I always say that i'm never unhappy to be riding my bike, but i was struggling so much that morning and in such a lousy mood, i actually started to think that maybe this was the one time that it wasn't a good ride.

Through Bellevue the bike trail, still paralleling Interstate 90, goes on a low bridge over a lovely swampy wildlife refuge called the Mercer Slough, and then into the neighborhoods of large lakeside suburban houses. I struggled up the small hills and was really dreading the big hill on Coal Creek Parkway, not to mention the very steep approach to Nadine's house on 128th.

Finally after about 15 or 18 miles i started to get into a rhythm. Sometimes it takes me 7 miles to get warmed up, perhaps today it was just longer, because i flew up the hill in the bike lane on Coal Creek parkway easily, cruising through the strip malls of the sprawland.

When i turned onto May Valley Road, less than 20 miles from home, i was feeling strong and moving fast. May Valley was gorgeous. Crisp and beautiful with forest on my left and farms, mostly horse farms, on the right. It's a narrow valley that comes down out of the mountains and there was a fresh, chill wind coming down the valley. But even with the headwind, i was flying.

There were no cars. All the way from home i had traveled via bike lane or bike trail, May Valley Road was the first time i was actually on the road. One car passed me in the entire 7 miles. It was amazing to me that in less than 2 hours i could pedal from the center of the city to the hills and horse farms in the country. Maybe not that unusual in Europe, but almost unheard of in the US.

The ride up May Valley was one of the most glorious i've ever had, riding strong, wind in my face, snowy mountains far at the head of the valley, gliding along the smooth, quiet pavement, with only horses and bald eagles for company.

I was actually a little disappointed when i came upon the turn off to cross the valley. As i crossed the valley i noticed the strong, cold wind out of the mountains to my left. I powered up the incredibly steep, short hill on 128th without stopping and made the corner.

Two miles later, skirting the edge of Lake McDonald i was only a quarter mile from Nadine's house when it suddenly started snowing. It was a solid pellet type of snow, and there was a lot of it. I loved the feeling of it on my face as i rounded the last curve. It wasn't thick enough to obscure the view of the house, but close to it. I rolled up and hopped up on the porch.



I do really love snow; i was very happy to get to ride in it a little bit... but also happy to have arrived. As i stepped in the house Nadine gave me a mug of hot chocolate. Her grandkids were asleep upstairs. We sat and watched as the snow turned into a blizzard of big fluffy flakes. After lunch there was perhaps 1.5 inches on the ground already and we took a walk across the field to look at the lake. It was perfect.

Lake Washington Loop

My friend Auri is fairly new to cycling and she had signed up for a 60 mile ride for charity next month. She was nervous about the mileage, so we had ridden a few times after work. She said she wanted to try a longer ride. We decided to do the south end of Lake Washington on Saturday.

The day dawned clear and windy. Rain was predicted and we prepared for it, but when we departed it was dry. Both hungry, we decided that grabbing breakfast on Beacon Hill was the first order business. Capitol Hill was quiet on Saturday morning, although it wasn't terribly early. As we headed downhill on 12th Ave we both took the lane -- that bike lane is too dangerous.

In the international district at King St we encountered a group of drummers and a couple of dancing Chinese dragons, soon accompanied by half a million firecrackers. It was very cool, although it felt a little surreal. Last week was the lunar new year, so i'm not really sure what the event was, but it was fun and we felt lucky.

Once we climbed the hill to Beacon Ave, Auri picked a Filipino place where we fueled up on a great fish plate. We only had a tiny Kryptonite lock and it took some work to lock both bikes!



We picked up the Cheief Sealth Trail on top of the hill and followed it down the other side -- this is NOT a flat trail. We chose this route partially to keep as sheltered as possible from the strong wind out of the south. The prediction was that it was going to get stronger as the day went on. We did feel the headwind a little as we rode the trail but it wasn't a concern.

We left the trail at Henderson & MLK and zipped a few blocks across the neighborhood to the lake shore. Here the headwind was strong, 15 mph or so, maybe more. Despite fighting that headwind, it was quite a nice ride down to Renton. We explored a little bit where Perimeter road meets Rainier (looking for an earlier possible turn off and not finding it). Then we followed the standard bike route south around the airport on Perimeter road.

The Cedar River trail continues up through the Boeing factory grounds alongside the canal through which the Cedar River is directed into Lake Washington. We followed that to the lake and took a rest and took in the view.



As we pedaled through downtown Renton, into the headwind again briefly, we realized that we were going to ride right passed the giant Fry's electronics super store. I don't drive a car, i rarely get to suburbia. And i almost never shop at that kind of store. But we're both geeks and the idea was appealing. Also i needed to get a small flash drive to send some photos to my mother, so we went in and wandered among the masses for a while. It was a little scary. From there we rode to Gene Coulon Park were we got a big plate of french fries at the Ivars fish & chips. We were joking that it was the Fry's and Fries ride!

When we turned north and headed up the east side of the lake we had the wind at our backs, however it was no longer 15 mph -- we later discovered that it was 44 mph! It was amazing. We were really moving -- a couple of times on the 405 trail we were going uphill with out pedaling! The tail wind was very strong. When we got home we read that there were power outages and trees down right near where we were riding, we didn't see any of that, but we did get quite the push.

When we got to the turn off point for the floating bridge back to Seattle at Mercer Slough Park, we stopped to make a decision. Auri had been stronger than either of us had predicted. The rain had just started, so getting home dry was out of the question, and neither of us was very excited at the prospect of riding across the lake on the floating bridge in this strong wind. We decided to continue around the north end of the lake -- to make it a full circuit.

We continued to have a strong tail wind running up into and through Bellveue, and the rain just got heavier and heavier. By the time we were into downtown it was a serious downpour, much harder than it usually rains around here. I realized i had taken off my front fender to clean the bike the previous day and had forgotten to put it back on. We followed the new bike route signs through downtown Belleuve, but they left us at 112th Ave & NE 12th St with no obvious way to go. I knew there were two ways, a good bike route and Bellveue Way.

We turned on 12th and looked for the bike route in the heavy rain. We didn't find it. We did find Bellevue Way. That was very hard riding, even without the rain it would've been hard. I felt bad for Auri, i was embarrassed that i some how missed the right turn. We were on a very very busy 5 lane street with no shoulder and with cars all traveling above the speed limit and passing very close. In the rain. At the top of the hill we pulled into a residential cull de sac for a break and to try to search for a better route on Auri's smartphone, but there was nothing. The descent was pretty much traffic free, but it was very very wet. On that descent i made the decision to buy a full front fender -- i couldn't believe how much water was spraying up.

I love riding in the rain, i really do. I love the feel of the rain on my face. It feels... REAL. As we rode into Kirkland it was less riding and more swimming, it was, i think, the heaviest steady rain i have ever ridden in -- and that's saying a lot! The bike lane was good and it was a nice ride, but i was quite hungry and we were both ready for a break. Besides, i knew that Kirkland would be our last chance for food for a while. I wanted to find a coffee shop and while we were waiting for the traffic light in the center of Kirkland, Auri pointed out a very nice looking one on the corner. We quickly locked up and went inside to wring out.

Zoka Coffee was warm and comfy and friendly. We each ordered large breve hot chocolates. The extra cream from the breve was necessary, we needed as much fuel as we could get -- we had not eaten enough, only fries, and had been planning on 35 not 55 miles.



We were tempted to stay longer, but darkness was coming. We both were equipped with good lights, but I really wanted to be off of Finn Hill by dark. Auri was very nervous about the climb of Finn Hill. One reason for continuing around the north end of the lake was so she could try out the climb before her charity ride.

The rain let up a little as we approached the south side of Finn Hill. Auri did great, it was a nice climb, but there was lots of debris along the road. The descent however was another story. I'm not a huge fan of descending, i've learned, i've become pretty skilled over the years, but i'd actually rather climb than descend. It's hard, scary, takes a lot of focus and, well, i don't have a need for speed. This was one of the most difficult descents. There was debris on the road, it was raining, traffic was heavy and it was dark. We both did a good job and got down, but it was truly white knuckle time.

From there it was onto the Burke Gillman Trail. At first it looked like we were going to get a nasty headwind, that wind that had pushed us north on the other side of the lake, but it either was blocked or died down because, although we noticed it, we didn't suffer much. We did struggle because we didn't eat enough, but we were both so focused on getting home that we didn't really think to stop and eat. Not great, but it was ok.

Good company, good riding, and well, quite the epic ride!

Weather Whiners

It rains here. It rains from November to July. It's Normal, it's Natural, it's Nice.

I know that people who move here love to play the game of complaining about the weather. It's childish and appalling, but lots of small minded people do it, and they even go out of their way to try to outdo each other, to be MORE pathetic and negative than the other guy. 'I bet I can be more morose than YOU about something that's not that bad and impossible to change!'

There is nothing more pathetic than someone complaining about the rain in Seattle. Are you just trying to PROVE how shallow you are? I try to be understanding, i try hard to ignore the stupidity and negativity, but i actually stiffed a waiter last night because he wouldn't stop whining about the weather! "I can't get out of bed." What a wanker.

GET OVER IT.

We often have cool or wet weather and clouds. It's lovely. We live here. We're lucky it's not Los Angeles.

The weather does NOT make you depressed. Despite how much you like the gloomy image of you that pretend fact presents, it is just an excuse. Yeah, i know it's the popular thing to say, and wow, you've found a doctor who told you so. They're wrong and you got ripped off. It's an excuse. If anything, you are depressed because you decide to put lots of energy into hating the weather, spend lots of time on it, or maybe you refuse to go outside unless it feels like a desert, and so you rot indoors, but probably you just like the excuse.

I have an idea: find something to hate that you CAN change! The weather is EASY to accept and even enjoy.

If the kid inside of you can't enjoy the weather, and the adult you are supposed to be can't accept it, then please move back to LA; otherwise just SHUT UP!