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.