New Years Eve in Seattle was clear and cool and as I had returned just the day before from a week of visiting family I was itching for a ride. With the limited sunlight and not being able to start until after lunch time I knew I had to do something short and sweet. A loop over the new trail over the new 520 Bridge and back on the “classic” I-90 trail was just the…
The last day of this all too short tour was another perfect summer day. Blue skies, streak with thin white clouds, the temperatures warm but not too hot. It was going to be a pretty short day, so there wasn’t much of a need to rush. However I wanted to be in Bremerton for lunch so while I didn’t rush I didn’t linger too long either. My companion in the hiker-biker site hadn’t caused any…
I missed out on three of the Winter Training Series rides since the last one I did, but made it to Number Six last weekend. I can only make it to the rides that I can ride to, or conveniently take public transit and for this years WTS quite a few of the rides do not fall within that criteria. That included this one, but when I mentioned that to some friends they suggested I use…
Riding Dirty Saturday January 16th I left my place on Beacon Hill a bit after 8am and rode across Mercer Island and south on Lake Washington to Newcastle Beach Park. I was meeting an ad hoc group of SIR and CBC members engaged in the second of six Winter Training Rides. Most of these rides are a bit too far away for me to ride to, thus I’m only dipping into the series. I wasn’t able…
Atlantis at the Ballard Locks It’s rare that these two significant holidays occur on the same day but instead of celebrating either I went for a rambling ride along Seattle waterways. The weekend had been rather grey and rainy and Sunday was expected to be similar but with that spring like character of occasional sun breaks. I’d been hankering for a ride as I’d spent the last weekend (which, of course, had been the nicest…
Ragged lines on grey canvas While I don’t much dig the whole “spring forward” part, I’m always happier when we are on Daylight Savings Time. It means more light after work allowing for these more meandering commutes home. It means that my typically late starts for weekend rides can still be a solid ride before dark. The mornings of course return to darkness for the time being, but it’s already lightening up by 7am and…
Trees on Lake Washington It’s been quite some time since my last point and while there is a backlog of things I should have put some work into there hasn’t been much of interest going on. The winter doldrums perhaps, hindering rides and blogging past glories. There are a couple of events that happened at the tail end of 2013 that I should revisit: we shall see. Anyway the weather this winter has been pretty… variable,…
Atlantis in the Leaves It’s been one of those weeks and as so often is the case there is no better therapy than a nice bicycle ride. I’ve been pining to get back to the mountains and while I set out too late to really get into the Cascades I did make it to the foothills. I ended up following the Mountain to Sound Greenway which is a sequence of trails interspersed with road riding:…
The Mountain as seen from Fay Bainbridge State Park After an unseasonable cool and rainy September the first weekend in October was one of those perfect PNW Autumn days. I’d recently gotten a new camera (a Nikon 1 J2 for you trainspotters out there) and I went out for rides on both Saturday and Sunday with picture taking as a goal but taking advantage of the beautiful weather as my primary motivation. I’ve been wanting…
Shadow Rider January was pretty bleak this year with some quite cold weather here in Olympia. I can’t deny the impulse to hunker down and hibernate in these conditions. The rains came back and it warmed up a bit but while I’m always game to ride in the rain it doesn’t really inspire one to all day rides. As the month waned I began to do a few more lengthy rides including a near all…