Monday, April 17, 2017

Is Spring Here Yet? (2017-04-08)

My first of more than 30 miles in a month, due to weather.

More after the break…

Part 1: Outbound

I started this ride at about 05:30 since I was worried about the weather earlier, then headed south on my usual route south out of Seattle, with unrelenting headwinds keeping my progress slow.

It was pretty uneventful until I got to Kent, when I had to switch to local streets because of a trail closure.

When I got to downtown Kent, I went over to the local Starbucks for some coffee before heading south along the trail again.

I had to partially unroll the hoods to alleviate hand pain.

By the time I got to Sumner, a storm started to roll in, with the southerly headwinds blowing rain right into my face. Since I didn't want to deal with that for an hour, I turned around and started heading back north.

Part 2: Inbound

Rather than taking the same route I had taken before, I made my way through Pacific to get to the Interurban Trail, then took that to Auburn and the Green River Cyclery.

When I got there, a large Cascade Bicycle Club group ride was heading out, and they asked me to take their picture. (I later sent the more typical group photo to them, while keeping this more candid one for Flickr.)

And then I stayed a bit for coffee and discussion of handlebar positioning.


I proceeded north out of Auburn along the trail, then followed the 'official' detour around the trail closure…which was a 50 MPH suburban highway. Not sure who came up with that one, but the route I took earlier was much better.

The detour eventually lead to the recent branch added to the trail.

After getting back on the trail and taking it to Tukwila, I rode through Renton to get onto the Lake Washington Loop, which I hadn't been on in quite a while, then stuck to it all the way to Leschi.

Since I'd never been in the area when the Polka Dot Jersey was open, I decided to stop by the shop. As it turned out, the guy who disappeared after the mess with that custom Waterford works there now. I didn't push anything with that, though, since neither of us needed that kind of argument.


After leaving Leschi, I stuck to the Lake Washington Loop all the way to the University District.

Then I took the Burke-Gilman Trail home, with a quick stop in Fremont.

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