Alex's Commute

The picture there looks like it was taken deep in the woods somewhere. It wasn't. My buddy, Alex, works in the deep suburbs of Redmond, WA. Through the network of cul de sacs, arterials, and paved landscape of suburbia, he's found a 10 mile commute that contains about 5 or so miles of trails.

It's a great commute. I've ridden it with him a couple times. I rode it again with him today. It pops out right on the eastern edge of the Evergreen floating bridge on 520, where Alex catches a bus into Seattle.

His route, with more pictures is here.

Sign

I like this sign. Good thing it's on a hill, facing the climbing side. That gives you a few minutes to decode it. The sign is on the Sammamish River Trail.

On to the General Election

Congratulations to Richard Rush and Mary Verner, who are both moving to the general election.

Winning the general election will still be a challenge for both candidates. If you're looking to help make Spokane a better place, not just for cyclists, but as a place that encourages people-scale movement and living, you can do so pretty easily.

Get out your checkbook and help these two get into City Hall.

Think of the kids!

Cycle the Bridges

Yesterday was the Cycle the Bridges event. Even with the rain, there was a great turn out. Last year it poured buckets and there no more than 20 people. This year, there must of been more than 50 or so.

Liza had to work, but Maddie and I enjoyed the ride this year.

I forgot my camera and I didn't even take a phone pic. Lame me.

I'll bullet-point the experience:

• Maddie and I had a pre-ride breakfast at Frank's.


• Lots of familiar faces. And I met a couple new folks. Maddie had a couple friends there too.


• I found it curious that my buddy Bill's "rain" bike did not have fenders. His commuter does. Roadies: I'll never understand them.


• Speaking of fenders: I didn't see many. I saw a lot of really muddy/striped riders. And riding behind the non-fendered folk in the rain doesn't rule. But I knew that. It's mostly dry here, and year-round fenders are not required. I took the fenders off of two bikes this summer. But they went back on the RB-T this morning. And they'll go on the fixed in the next couple days.


• Mary Verner has a sweet old (pre-war?) bike. But she could use a more robust/"gearful" commuter.


• The route was really good; only one 1/2 mile or so section where the innies shared the route with the outties. Cops/volunteer cops at key intersections made the route easy too.


• Saw another Bike Friday tandem with father/son team. Cool.


• Maddie is getting strong. She wanted to go fast the entire time. And after hammering the course, she helped grind up the south hill. We're slowly developing a riding language to communicate shifts, standing, hills, etc. It's so cool.

Tomorrow is 3rd Tuesday of the month. BAB meeting. All are welcome.

What's Your Route?

One of the projects I do for the Bicycle Advisory Board is collecting commuter routes. I've been doing this for about 8 months. Clicking on the map there will take you to my site that shows all the routes I've followed. You can then zoom in/out on an interactive map. (If you're running a Mac, you must be using Firefox to make the map control work -- Also, it may be a bit slow and flakey, the application is running off an old server in my basement).

I really like this project. The way it works is that I follow bike commuters (on my bike) and track their route with a GPS. I then load the route into the map.

The main reason I like the project is because I meet a lot of cool folks. In general, people that commute by bike are my favorite kind of cyclists. I like seeing the different bikes they ride and how they kit up for their rides. I also like observing how different folks ride in traffic. Some folks take the absolute direct route regardless of traffic, while others avoid busy streets at all costs.

My hope in gathering the data is to see what kind of patterns emerge. This is one small bit of data to help in building the Master Bike Plan for Spokane. I think I still need about 50 or so more routes before we see stuff. But I am surprised to find that at the moment, we're literally all over the map. Going into this, I figured most commuting cyclists would ride and choose routes as I do.

Instead, I'm finding that each commuter is different. I guess that's not too surprising. Humans are like that.

However, the folks that have been commuting for a long time and who ride most of the year do share similarities in how they ride, how they choose their routes, their speed/fitness, and how they interact with traffic. I guess I find that encouraging.

Anyway, I need more data. If you commute in the city of Spokane and want to contribute please go here.

Oh -- and I realize that you could send me the data derived from Google Maps or some other tool, but the fun is in riding/meeting and the data is much more reliable if I can track it.

Saturday Morning

Maddie and I rode downtown to pick up some tires from someone who posted them on Craigslist. The house was out there by Buckeye in the Corbin Park area. It was a beautiful morning -- about 70F and clear, so we weren't crazy disappointed when the guy was a no show. We poked around a bit, and rode through the alley to the rear of the guy's house and saw this beauty trike. I think that's a bike rack on the back there. That big boxy thing on the handlebars is ballast. Your basic cinder block, bungied to the bars. Nice. I wish this guy was there. Anyone with a rig like that is worth meeting.

Stop #2 REI to check out Maddie's new rig and to learn something new

We paid attention the other day when Maddie rode her little hand-me-down 12"-wheeled bike. It was way too small for her. Poor thing. Even after extending the seat/bars all the way to their safest heights, the bike is too small.


A benefit of Liza wrenching at REI is good deals. So Liza ordered the pink Electra, "Hawaii." Since Maddie and I were on the tandem, we couldn't bring it home with us, but Maddie was able to ride it around the REI test ride spot. It's very pink. It will be completed with pink streamers and a basket. It's a pretty BOB-ish ride, a single speed with full fenders and a chaincase. After the front basket goes on, it'll want a dynohub and full lighting system, but we may wait on that.

One of Liza's co-workers is a guy named John. He's a master mechanic and has forgotten more than I'll ever know about wrenching and fixing bikes. I was staring at his bike and trying to figure out the extra chainring wedged in his chain. I figured it out just as he noticed my puzzled look. It's a chain tensioner. Much more elegant than the old/pseudo derailleurs used on most bikes with vertical dropouts.

The non-descript bike here is actually a Bruce Gordon bike. Cool rig. Cool idea. He said he learned about this method of chain tensioning from a guy in Missoula. Anyone else seen this? John also said the trick is to use the same size chainring, which probably makes sense instantly to most geeks, but has me doing little mental exercises for a couple minutes before making sense.

Nelson Trails and Progress

Quick notes.

I did not ride that ramp on my RB-T. But I did have some fun tooling around the easy single track and the rail trail today on the mountain overlooking Nelson. Yowsa. These Nelsonites are serious about their downhill riding.

And this just in: the SE blvd lines/signs project passed unanimously tonight at the Spokane City Council meeting. I'm still awaiting a report for how it all went down tonight. If you were there, I'd love to hear the story.

Good summer days.