A different flavor of Washington area bicycling

[PotomacCyclist]

Don’t know any bike shops there but I do know that the scenery in Seattle is incredible. There are also some steep hills, right in the center of the city, from the waterfront to downtown.

[ATTACH=CONFIG]9846[/ATTACH]

View of Mt. Rainier from the light rail station at Seattle-Tacoma airport

[ATTACH=CONFIG]9847[/ATTACH]

[ATTACH=CONFIG]9848[/ATTACH]

Lake Union in the city limits, with tourist seaplanes taking off and landing every few minutes

[ATTACH=CONFIG]9849[/ATTACH]

[ATTACH=CONFIG]9850[/ATTACH]

[jrenaut]

I spent the summer in Seattle. The hills are crazy. But the entire summer it’s 75, sunny, and low humidity. There’s a really strong family biking community on Facebook, and they have some really nice bike infrastructure.

However, they’re big on beg buttons, short walk times, and mandatory helmets.

[Phatboing]

@jrenaut 126279 wrote:

I spent the summer in Seattle. The hills are crazy. But the entire summer it’s 75, sunny, and low humidity. There’s a really strong family biking community on Facebook, and they have some really nice bike infrastructure.

However, they’re big on beg buttons, short walk times, and mandatory helmets.

The mandatory helmets I did find annoying, yes (less so than my wife, who takes a more Dutch-fast-pedestrian-no-helmet cycling approach). And yes, a world where 80+ counts as ‘heatwave’ is a world I need to partake in. I didn’t leave my tropical homeland to deal with more tropical summers, yo.

[Guus]

There’s a bike store there that used to carry some really nice Dutch bikes. Now they seem to focus more on Linus which are fine Dutch-like bicycles also.

http://www.dutchbikeco.com/

[GovernorSilver]

@Phatboing 126273 wrote:

Washington state, that is.

I’m moving!

To Seattle!

At the end of the month!

Holy schnitzels!

Anyone know a good bike shop?

I didn’t get to meet a lot of you, but I did get to meet a lot, and I’m kicking myself for not discovering the forum four years before I did.

Good luck in Seattle! Don’t know squat about LBS’ there but I’ve heard something about “The Seven Hills” – if you want to work on your climbing, you’ll have plenty of opportunity. Lots of 18%-21% grade streets.

[TwoWheelsDC]

Mwahahahaha….

[Henry]

Be sure to support/visit BikeWorks, the stellar youth bike shop and Earn-a-Bike program.

http://bikeworks.org/

[bobco85]

Seattle for me is one of those places that I really want to move to someday (maybe I will in the next 5 years), so I am excited for you!

If you’re looking for a good route that gives you a partial tour of Lake Washington with stops at the Marymoor Velodrome, Microsoft HQ, and more and uses some of the trails in the region you could try this 50 mile route that I did 3 years ago when I traveled there:
[IMG]http://bikearlingtonforum.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=1807&d=1349310651[/IMG]

An important thing to note that I learned from local cyclists there: depending on where you live, if you have to cross the canal that runs east-west through the center of the city, you’ll need to figure out which bridge (most cyclist-friendly ones are drawbridges) to use to cross it and be aware that waiting for the drawbridge to close might be part of your commute.

For LBS, I had a good experience renting from Ride Bicycles http://www.ridebicycles.com/ (6405 Roosevelt Way NE, Seattle, WA 98115), but that is because I stayed in the University District a.k.a. young part of town which has lots of nice little restaurants.

Useful links:
Seattle DOT Bicycle Maps (they have a cool interactive map): http://www.seattle.gov/transportation/bikemaps.htm
Commute Seattle (has info for various transit-options): http://commuteseattle.com/

[ian74]

Fare thee well! We’ll always have FS2014. You were an inspiring teammate!

[Phatboing]

Does anyone have words of wisdom re shipping 5 bikes across the country? I’m looking at Amtrak, maybe, but I can’t see any indication about whether it includes insurance. (we’re shipping everything else using door to door pods, but the bike boxes will take up all the space.

[PotomacCyclist]

They do have a long-term earthquake/tsunami caution for the Pacific Northwest though.

An eye-opening New Yorker article from July and a critique of that article.

http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/07/20/the-really-big-one

http://fusion.net/story/178175/earthquake-tsunami-pacific-northwest/

Then again, the Mid-Atlantic has had a major earthquake more recently than the Pacific Northwest has.

[wheelswings]

@ian74 126317 wrote:

Fare thee well! We’ll always have FS2014. You were an inspiring teammate!

Being teammates with Phatboing was a blast. Often it seemed that his mileage was inversely correlated with the weather. On balmy warm days, sometimes he’d not bother riding much…that would be too easy. But if there was a gigantic snow-and-ice storm you could be sure he was putting in major miles. And often he had hair-raising and painfully funny tales to tell, following these adventures. The guy has guts of steel.

Warm wishes, Phatboing. Be safe. Your Bi-Polar Bear family will be thinking of you. w&w

[Tim Kelley]

These guys are great— http://www.greggscycles.com/

And be sure to check out this: http://velodrome.org/mva/ and https://www.google.com/search?q=marymoor+velodrome&espv=2&biw=1600&bih=1075&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0CAcQ_AUoAmoVChMIiaSV-M_OyAIVBDI-Ch06bQRS

[Author]

Posts