2008 Bike Ride #5: South Lake Washington

[wickedwords]

Ride Length: 30 miles (more or less)
Elevation: 1300
Where: Capital Hill down to I-90, S to Renton then Seward Park, and back up Lk Wa Blvd to Capital Hill
Start Time: About 10:20 am
End Time: 2:40 pm
How long: appx 4.3 hrs ride time. I have no idea what on-bike time was, and we did do several (and longer) stops
Calorie guesstimate: 2000

sherrold, her partner B, and I redid one of our early rides from last year. (I remember it not so fondly as I had a cold, and cycling and wheezing is never fun.) Believe it or not, despite our unhurried speed, we made better time than we did last year. Not by much, I grant you, but last year it took us 5 hours to do this distance, and it was only 4.3 this time; we shaved off a while 40 minutes! That's exciting to me as it's still pretty early in the season.

The ride itself was a little shaky. Sandy and B hadn't managed any outdoor riding lately, and I did the 46-mile loop yesterday and was not at my peak performance. (In fact I took another tumble early in the ride, when I lost my chain going uphill on Mercer Island. I think the left clip may be set too tight, and I need to loosen it before I clip in again. For this reason, I did most of the ride using the platform part of my pedal, rather than clipping in.) Once we got off Mercer Island, though, we picked up a little speed; again, I think we hit a headwind crossing the water. The trip down to Renton seemed to go quickly--for some value of quickly that includes the occasional regrouping chat, small snack, and/or momentarily hanging--and park at Renton is always a nice long stop. Then we just had to find Renton Airport and make our way up S. Rainer and onto Seward park, then around the lake and up the hill and home. We ended up having to push toward the end as I had a pedicure scheduled that I needed to get back home for, but it also meant that we beat the rain.

40 minutes off last year's time. I'm still happy about that. Yay, us!

Comments

[watergal.livejournal.com]

Yay yous!

[wickedwords.livejournal.com]

Thanks!

[mlyn.livejournal.com]

I still don't know how you guys get back up Cap Hill. I'll have to rent a bike and go with you sometime, if it's not too much for a greenhorn to tackle.

[wickedwords.livejournal.com]

If you can find a map, Coleman Park off lake washington blvd has a bunch of switchbacks that take you up to the I-90 overlook and the Mt. Baker Tunnel bike path. You continue on that bike path through Judkins Playground, and exit onto Judkins street. Then it's a hairpin turn, where Judkins becomes 20th, and a steep climb up to Jackson. At that point, it's kind of where do you want to go...

This is someone's capital hill to microsoft bike map:
http://veloroutes.org/bikemaps/?route=5266

if you drill down into the first part of his route, you can see what I mean. He doesn't go through coleman park, but he does get to cross I-90

[wickedwords.livejournal.com]

Oh! And he has pictures:

http://cyclinginseattle.blogspot.com/2008/04/my-seattle-to-redmond-commute.html

He also goes much, much, much faster than I do.

[mlyn.livejournal.com]

Hm, a Microsoftie who started a mapping website service? Who'd a thunk it? *G*

[mercury973.livejournal.com]

Hey- if you get an itch to go the Burke-Gilman trail into Fremont, let me know. We could do coffee.

Yay for the trip. That's a long one!

[wickedwords.livejournal.com]

You'd have to be willing to be seen with someone wearing cycling gear. I look like a real dork when I'm biking.