Major Taylor Ride

Tonight was the Major Taylor ride, a fun Bike Works tradition in honor of Marshall Major Taylor and other November birthdays. Major Taylor was an amazing turn of the century bicycle racer and the first American World Champion.

I stopped for a milkshake at Molly Moons for fuel and waited to see if any other Capitol Hill folks might join me for the ride south, but no one did. Typically this is a rainy night ride. It was quite cold on the ride down to Bike Works, but no rain.

We gathered in the classroom at Bike Works and visited. Chris is our regular volunteer who lives the farthest away from Bike Works (she lives in Chicago!). She was well dressed for the occasion (circa 1900).

Chris Z & Donald V

I greeted people, finished my milkshake, had a nice conversation with Max, and put on several extra layers as i'd been cold on the ride down.

We herded cats enough to get a nice group photo.

Steve, Asher, Chris, Linda, Frank, Max, Ken, Joe, Donald, Davey and me

And then a few more people showed up.  We were glad to see them!

Andy, Tom, Danny, Catherine

And, what the heck, another group photo out in front of the shop, with our bikes this time. (After we turned off all the lights!  We had 15 people total... Max sat out this photo (actually he took the photo) because was planning on going home after we climbed Beacon Hill.  We all, of course, wanted him along.

Frank, Chris, Andy, Linda, Asher, Tom, Mark, Ken, Catherine, Donald, Joe, Davey, Danny, Steve

Departing Bike Works, Davey took us south a bit and up Orcas Street S where we picked up the Chief Sealth Trail for the rest of the climb and to get across Beacon Hill.

I try hard to let the camera be secondary to the experience, i hate it when the camera becomes the focus (pun intended) and for a moment tonight i let that happen.  On the final climb on the trail near the top of the hill i looked behind me and there were 14 headlights in a close line on the dark winding trail.  It looked very very cool and i sprinted ahead away from my friends, to the top of the hill to get a photo.  Right then the camera battery died.  I quickly changed it, but by then the snaking line of headlights had passed me while i was messing with the camera.

Then we took 15th Ave S up to Holgate and started down the super steep hill to the strange new trail.  The first time i rode this trail back in the summer i was pretty shocked at the horrible... well, ridiculous end, intersecting an arterial in the middle of a very long, incredibly steep hill.  There's really just nowhere to go.  Willie Weir recently wrote a good post on this piece of infrastructure in his neighborhood.  We were going to join this trail at this awkward ending point, still a challenging right turn on the big descent.

The trail itself, once we were all safely on it, was extremely nice.  Wide, smooth and fun, surprisingly well lit, and great views of downtown at night.  From there we cut through the busy International District to the waterfront, where we all cheered the partially torn down Alaska Way Viaduct.

My camera which does well on bumpy roads in the daytime, didn't do great on the bumpy road in the dark, so the photos are more artisitic than informative, but i like them nevertheless. 

Asher carrying a baguette - Grant Peterson style.

Max waves at the camera as he speeds by.

Sweep rider Ken enters the trail from Holgate at speed.

Happy cyclists on the new trail.

Max

Chris

Clearly Asher's reflective jacket works.  

I had the camera so unfortunately there are no photos of me in my wool cap, wool shirt, wool socks and awesome new ($5 at Goodwill) wool knickers.  Despite our fast downhill ride, i felt very overdressed with the leg warmers, socks and turtleneck i added at Bike Works.  I got very sweaty.

On Beacon Hill Max couldn't resist our company and decided to continue the ride.  Good decision!  We continued down the working waterfront to Harbor Island, took the nice bike swing under the bridge and over the lower West Seattle bridge which led us directly to the Pigeon Point trail.  This is a very nice trail, it is an important connection -- it opens up South Seattle Community College, and makes possible rides like ours to White Center.  The entire trail is probably 200 feet long.  It just links the Harbor Island trail with 22nd Ave SW. 

We had a short but quite steep three blocks of climbing, and then a long flat ride along the edge of a ridge on 21st Ave SW.  This is one of my favorite places in the city to ride.  You ride along the knife edge of the ridge for a mile and a half, with middle class and lower middle class houses on either side. It's one of the few places you have a view in both directions (East and West). I don't know why i love this section so much, it's certainly beautiful, it's just one of my favorite rides. Very satisfying.

A final uphill push up to Roxbury and across the city line -- we were out of Seattle and in unincorporated King County.  Half a block later we stopped for Pizza!

After Pizza we took the short, route on arterial with a long fast descent to the 1st Ave S bridge and Georgetown where the group split up to go in different directions towards home.   It was a great night, great people and a really really fun ride.  We rode 16.5 miles together, with almost 700 feet of climbing (which makes it a slightly less hilly than average ride for the Seattle area).

All told, with the ride down, and the return home, i rode 30.2 miles with 1400 feet of climbing.