Henry Rose

A balmy 64 degrees here Seattle today, whoo boy! That’s exciting.

This spring is particularly welcome as it brings in the nice weather and also sees me back on my bike with a newly healed collarbone. One truly does not know how good life is until transportation, recreation and exercise are taken from them in one fell swoop.

Last weekend found me walking about on the washington coast with some good friends and great weather (good times and great oldies!). We wandered around Rialto Beach and camped two nights in the sand. I was expecting to be soaked the whole time, but in fact got a nice sunburn. After the previous weekend in Philadelphia it was an excellent reminder of how lucky we are to live on the best coast.

The most interesting thing that happens to me in spring is not my renewed interest in the bicycle, beer on the beach and messing about in boats. It is my renewed interest in the computer. What is it about long warm days that make me want to sit inside and poke away at some new computer project? Anyway, i’ve been messing about with Python. Surely nothing will come of it as we’re running at 110% down at the old bucket shop, but it’s good for the mind anyway.

One last bit: 14 carrot cafe on Eastlake. It totally sucks. More on that later perhaps.

Henry Rose Picture (playing around with the engines of search)

To me by far the most powerful effect of riding a bicycle is the freedom granted to the rider.  I suppose at one time this freedom took a different form as the bicycle provided efficient transportation over distance that previously had none.  Today, in the age of automobiles and mass transit there are lots of options for how to get around within a city. But no other offers the freedom of the bicycle.

I am once again becoming very familiar with the difficulties of living without this freedom while recovering from another broken bone.  Forced to move about by bus, car and on foot I long for the days when i could easily jump on my bike and move throughout the city on my terms.  Every moment spent waiting for a bus or searching for a parking space grows the fruststration inside me.

Even worse than the frustration I feel as I’m couped up on a stinky bus is the palpable physical stagnaton that’s occuring in my body.  My lungs no longer transmit oxygen to the blood the way they used to, my quadriceps no longer ripple.  Waking up is much more of trial than it’s been in years.

Soon I’ll be back on the bike, riding to the water for a picnic or taking the long way home from work.

In the meantime I’ll continue to glare at all the happy cyclists riding past while i wait for route 70.

Last weekend Amanda and I moved to new digs in Eastlake.  The new place is a huge move up from the last two slums we’ve lived in, a one bedroom with brand new hardwood floors in  a cool 1926 brick building. The biggest difference between this place and the last two places is that this one is maintained … wtf?? really? I have to maintain an apartment building?  yes guys, you do.

But that’s not why i fired up the blog-a-log.

Today I rode to work in bright sunshine. It was marvelous. Soon it will be full blown bicycle season, with bike camping, bike picnics and all manner of hippy celebrations on two wheels.

Today on the good old .83 forums there was a typically nasty exchange about bike messengers, coming from a legitimately nice guy that regularly commutes some distance on a bike.  The theme of the rant and some other interactions was basically that messengers are “Dishwashers on wheels”.

Why do all the various segments of the bike culture hate eachother so much?  I guess bikes attract people seeking a counterculture experience.  When they see others experiencing counterculture in a slightly different way, it invalidates they’re own experience slightly. Eh, just a hunch.

I’m no saint myself, i love to make fun of dudes with ridiculous fashion bikes. I’m sure they like making fun of dorks like me, riding crusty old man bikes at the age of 24.

I had something else to write about, we’ll see if i get ‘er done tonight. I’ve got $5 against me.

Tuesday after work I headed downtown on my lightly-loaded Trucker and hopped on the Ferry to Bainbridge Island, the first leg of my journey that would take me from Seattle to Guemes Island to celebrate our nation’s independence with my family.

The Seattle to Bainbridge run typifies the things I love about a ferry ride. You get on downtown, in the shadows of huge office buildings and an elevated roadway. The Seattle waterfront is dense and busy, as unnatural as a seascape can be. The ride away from the city is both a literal and figurative journey away from city life. Watching the city float away and the natural elements (puget sound, mount rainier, the cascades) occupy an increasingly large portion of the landscape is a fitting start to any trip out of town and similarly an excellent way to ease back into life in the city at the end.

Unfortunately I was just a hair late for the 5:30 boat and ended up on a 6:10 ferry, dropping me on Bainbridge a few minutes before seven o’clock. I headed directly up the highway across Bainbridge to the bridge over Agate Pass. The highway on bainbridge is by no means the nicest ride on the island, but the shoulders are wide and the hills are few. Traffic was not bad and compared to my usual rides in the city and the eastern burbs the scenery was not too bad.

After Agate Pass I made the mistake of going off the highway in search of quieter, more senic roads to the Hood Canal Bridge. Due partially to a map of questionable quality, partly to my own navigational ineptitude and partly to the unfriendly nature of the Kitsap Peninsula natives, this portion of the ride was rather unpleasant. I spent much of the time guessing at the proper roads to take. I found that instead of quiet side roads with little traffic I was travelling on small roads without a shoulder and lots of cars (and trucks!) travelling at 50 mph. Two seperate junky old station wagons full of young men went out of their way to yell to me as they passed by. My favorite was the beer-holding yokel who angrily told me to “Put on some fucking pants, ya numb-nuts fucking faggot.”

I’d read before that crossing the Hood Canal Bridge was one of the scariest things you could do on a bicycle, as such I was intent on arriving at the bridge before the sun fell below the horizon. When I arrived at the east end of the bridge I found the sun just a couple of degrees above the horizon … which was made up of the the olympic mountains cascading down into Hood Canal and the islands spreading north. Gorgeous. The only problem was that the sun was lined up just so that it was point directly into drivers eyes as they headed west. This scared me, but i pressed on. I found the bridge to be a fine ride, you are close to the cars but there is a wide shoulder and the scenery is second to none. I even stopped for a spell in the middle of the span to take some pictures and soak in the golden mountains and intense green of the forest. Lovely.

After crossing the bridge I took a quick rest and checked my phone to find that my friend Denny had called. I knew he was heading out in the same direction via car to do some mountain biking on the Olympic Peninsula and we’d discussed sharing a campsite that night. When I called him back he realized that he was just about to drive past me, a happy coincidence. He pulled over and we agreed to meet at Old Fort Townsend State Park in a couple of hours.

I’ve always underestimated the distance between the Hood Canal Bridge and Port Townsend, even when traveling by car. This time that left me stuck riding in the dark for a couple of hours, which was actually quite beautiful.

Around 11:00 I pulled into site #5 at the park and found that Denny and his friend mike had a delightful little fire crackling away. We sat around the fire for a half an hour before I retired to my bed which consisted of the footprint to my tent, my thermarest pad and my sleeping bag. I had made an executive decision that it would not rain on this trip. I also washed my hands and face with extra as Amanda had asked me to, to prevent bears from eating me.

I woke up to the alarm on my cellphone at 6:30 and took a few minutes to break camp. After riding just a few hundred feet on the highway I saw signs pointing to a bike path. This ended up being a delightful mostly unpaved path that lead through the forest and out along the water, eventually dropping me right at the ferry dock.

I was in plenty of time for the 8:00 ferry and met a fellow bicyclist named Glen who was on tour here from New Hampshire. We talked for the entire ferry ride and he shared with me his observations on the differences between New Hampshire and Washington. The ride was gorgeous with the Olympics and Mount Rainier climbing high above the assorted islands. It was quite comfortable outside on the ferry at 8:00 am, a sign of how hot it would become.

On Friday I set out with my Dad to ride up to his cabin on Guemes Island, north of Anacortes, WA.

Our route led us through three counties and clocked in at just over 110 miles.

I started on Capitol Hill in Seattle. Taking the Burke-Gilman and Sammamish River Trails north to Woodenville where I met my Father who’d started at his home in Beaux Arts. From there we road north to Snohomish where we got on the Centennial Trail.

The Centennial Trail is an old railroad right of way that’s been turned in to a bike path er … Multiuse Path. In this case it seemed to be aimed at bikes and horses, with much of the paved trail having a dirt path paralleling it for horsies.

This trail took us as far north as Arlington where we cut East and proceeded to be foiled by a bridge that was out for construction near Silvana. After blundering around to find a route we were headed north again on the Pioneer Highway, a gorgeous route through the Skagit Valley.

The low point of the ride was definitely when we were stopped by a Park Ranger/Sherriff’s deputy along the Centennial for riding in a section that was marked as “closed for mowing”. The section in question was about a 1 mile stretch in the very middle of a five mile stretch of trail that had no road crossings. I argued that the state patrol would not close off the freeway 2 miles after the last exit without providing ample Detour sinage, he didn’t see my logic. We were told that we’d be receiving citations by mail.

It was the longest bike ride I’ve ever had by about 5 miles. It felt really cool to ride from end to end a trip that I have made countless times by car. Yay bikes!

Yesterday I took the day off work to make some headway on my training for the upcoming STP. The outstanding thing about our route was how many parks we were able to visit and how much of the route was on bicycle infrastructure. I’d estimate that of the 70 miles we were on designated bike routes for about 50.

I’ll always advocate the right of bicycles to ride on the road, but in some industrial and suburban areas there’s still a lot of work to be done. And designated bike infrastructure makes these kinds of a trips a whole lot easier.

Our route was as follows:
North to Kenmore on the Burke Gilman Trail
South to Marymoor Park on the Sammamish River Trail
South on Lake Sammamish Parkway
West (and UP!) on 34th/35th
West on SE Eastgate Way
West on I-90 Trail to Enatai Beach Park, here we met Peter

We then backtracked a bit to Lake Washington Boulevard
South on Lake Washington Trail to Renton … all the way around the airport
South on Rainier to 7th Ave to some small, unnamed trail
We then hooked up with the Green River Trail that took us all the way back to Georgetown and Smarty Pants, which fed me delicious food and beer.

In the end it was just over 70 miles. I need to ride twice that distance in a single day, less than a month from now.

So a while back I was all hott on the plan to make a bike-centric social network, but the market got crowded and I got lazy. But now that Facebook has opened up to third party developers I think i’ve got an opportunity to do it for real.

Keep you eye out for Facebook Bikes!

Last night i had one of those awesome experiences that reminds me why i ride a bike.

After a Safety Meeting a few of us were riding downtown. A friend of mine (who shall remane nameless to protect him in his lawsuit against his employer, fuck the man!) told me a cop was yelling at us for running a red light, so we took off.

For the first time since i broke my wrist and was off the bike for three months i felt the power that my legs are able to put through to the wheel. The combination of riding every day for a couple weeks with some serious miles, then being out on the boat (resting my legs) all weekend let me really wail on the pedals. We were in Belltown when we started out, and had an awesome sprint up to 5th where weaved betweeen monorail pillars down to Olive. We shot up Olive and were halfway up the hill before we got the phone call saying there were no cops and that we’re just dumbasses.

But those couple of minutes where i was able to power through the corners with my full torque were simply amazing.

Like most of my classmates i operated under the assumption that upon finishing college i’d move on to a job with a comfy salary and start amassing all the wealth that a college grad ought to have. Whilst still in school I spent money and collected belongings at rate that far outpaced the meager income i recieved from my student job. I bought a condo and i spent some money on a credit card.

It was never out of hand. My mortage payments are quite reasonable and i’d be able to pay off my credit cards easily working at most entry level jobs for which i’m qualified. But now I’m wishing i hadn’t spent all that money.

Here I am, out of school for only a couple months, but wishing i had freedom that i simply don’t.  I have a sweet job that pays well and basically lets me work whenever I want. But I also have a mortage payment, DSL bill and credit card that demand my attention every month.
I’m really not the “own a home at 21″ kind of guy. My goals for a given month usually include things like going sailing 5 times, riding my bike 400 miles in a month or having the ability to leave and go skiing when the snow falls. The “own a home at 21″ guy’s goals are more like getting a raise, buying a new car or upgrading his home theater.

Now it’s become time for me to shed some this extra stuff and gain some freedom. First to go has to be the condo. Not having the condo will take a thousand dollars out of my monthly commitments. That thousand dollars is the equivilent of working 4 days less a month, or alternatively it’s building a sweet bicycle that i could ride to to San Fransisco with the next months free time. And that doesn’t even begin to consider the sizable chunk of change that such a sale would drop into my bank account. A sum that could buy a modest sailboat and leave money left over for a rainy day.

Is anyone in the market for a studio in Fremont?

Two years ago i was commuting from my home in Fremont to the University of Washington where i was both going to school and working. I was living an urban dream, a short walk down the hill took me to a bus stop where i had my pick of busses that would get me where i wanted to go.

But then i got tired of waiting. I didn’t like planning my morning around that 8:06 bus which i would frequently miss by just a few seconds, throwing the rest of my day back by 10 or 15 minutes. I got tired of long walks home if i was out after the busses stopped running. And if i ever wanted to stray from my normal haunts, i’d have to find other bus routes.

The bus was dictating where i went and when i’d go there. Sure, i could drive … but parking is a nightmare, traffic is worse and those late night outings? Well let’s just say they wouldn’t have been as fun if i had to drive home.

So one weekend when i was taking care of the parents dogs i went out to the garage and grabbed dad’s old bike. I tried to take it for a spin but the gears just grinded and clicked and through off the chain. Not to be defeated i took the bike in to Recycled Cycles and had them fix it up.

I remember quite vividly walking down to the bike shop after work on the day my bike was to be finished. I’d ridden the bus in but was prepared to ride a bike home, a frightening 2 mile journey. I was honestly nervous, would i make it home? Would i have to stop and push the damn thing up the hill coming home?

Well i got on the bike and started what was, in retrospect, a slow and sweaty journey home. But it was glorious. I’d never travelled through the city with the wind in my hair like that. I could hear people conversations, i could see the urban wildlife and more than anything else i could do it on my own schedule.

I plodded back and fourth on that heavy old mountain bike for a few months (Route from Bikely. I learned some alternate routes and got comfortable moving around between fremont and the university, back and forth.

By summer i had gained the strength and confidence to wander off this path. I started riding father, for fun exercise and exercise.

One day my brother called and told me he was doing the STP and thought i should come along. While sure… i’d learned to move between my neighborhoods of choice, i wasn’t to sure i could move between the cities of the pacific northwest. But i rode and i rode and i trained and trained and when the time came i piloted that big heavy beast the 204 miles between here and Portland. And when i got off that bike it was glorious.

The next fall i sold my car. I rode my bike in the wind, rain and even the snow this winter. I found a group of nutjobs to ride with that took me all over the city.

Next time: Tips for you to Move by Bicycle.