Sun, 21 September 2003
Last Cycling Sunday for 2003
The Seattle Parks and Recreations sponsors Bicycle Saturdays and Sundays whereby they close off Lake Washington Blvd. from 10AM to 6PM to motor vehicles and allow only pedestrians and cyclists. I normally don't take advantage of them because the route is a bit short (only 6 miles end to end + 2.5 miles around Seward Park) but today marks the last day for the season. Of course I have ridden the route when motor vehicle traffic is present and it's no big deal (speed limit low, wide street) and it's a favourite route for many cyclists regardless of the day. The route is included as part of the STP as well.
More pictures can be found in my Gallery page but here are some appetizers.
Reminders such as this are placed all over the area in case some errant motorist forgets.
This is the view facing northwest from the path running around the base of Seward Park. You can see the tops of some downtown Seattle highrises and the west span of the I-90 floating bridge.
Mt. Rainier was in "full bloom" today. This is the view from Seward Park facing south. You can see Boeing Field (BFI) at the end of the lake.
Here's a view facing east of the western landing of the I-90 bridge from a lookout point just where the bikepath begins.
Here's a view of the city of Bellevue on the east side of the lake.
Here's another view of Bellevue from I-90 as I'm leaving Seattle.
An over-the-shoulder parting shot from I-90 as I'm crossing eastbound heading towards Mercer Island.
The weather was very nice today... low-to-mid 70s and the sky was clear. The ride was pretty short though (only an hour) but it was enjoyable nevertheless. I only took Lake Washington Blvd. partway on the way back from Seward Park opting instead to cut up through the hillside neighborhood of Columbia. This gave me a chance to pick up some pretty steep hillclimbs which totally kicked my butt. I guess I was just having a bad day or something or maybe it's because I haven't been riding much in the past couple of weeks due to a high amount of out-of-town business trips.
Lake Washington Blvd. is one of my favourite routes in the city and I usually take it as part of the greater Lake Washington Loop. There are also bike races at Seward Park held every thursday night. Seattle offers some really great inner-city cycling.