Conference noted::bicycle

    John,

    I was there two weeks ago, and visited a shop in Redmond called Lake
    Sammamish (sp?) to rent an MTB.  There were knowledgeable about rides in
    the area and very obliging.  I didn't ask how much road biking they
    did, but I would guess plenty.  Lots of MTB riders out there.
    
    Have fun,
    
    john

    
    Thanks, John.

    On the south side of Seattle is Angle Lake Cyclery, a major
    builder of recumbent bicycles.

    -Jeff Bell

    Over the telephone, Montlake Bike Shop was very helpful to me just now.
    206 329-7333.  2223 24th Ave East, near the University of Washington. 
    Large fleet of rentals available.

    The Sunday Seattle Times had a rather surprising story today about
    the popularity of Seattle as a biking city.  No electronic arrows,
    please, about the following; I'm just your dutiful Notes Reporter:
    
    *************
    
    "It's a clear statement that this is a big area for bicycle racing. 
    It's not somethjing people are speculationg about.  It's a fact."
    
    For the first time in its history, the USCF awarded the national
    championship to the same city (Seattle) for more than one year.  The
    U.S. Nat'l Cycling Championships will be staged here this week for the
    second of three straight years...Locally sponsored by Microsoft.
    
    There has been some discussion about making Seattle the permanent site
    for the nat'l road race championship or the anchor of a Western cousin
    to the Tour DuPont...
    
    The course that will be used for the nat'l championship - and, for
    the most part, next year's Oylpmpic trials - is considered one of the
    most challenging in the country... (8 laps; 104 miles; killer hill,
    waterfront, city)
    
    "Seattle has a combination of hills and flats that really can't be
    found in many other places.  If you want long hills, you can drive to
    Mount Ranier.  If you want short and steep ones, you can stay in the
    city...
    
    ...(he) believes Seattle has surpassed Colorado and the East Coast for
    accessibility for competitive cyclists....However, to reach an elite
    level, local riders must leave the area, usually for So. Calif., where
    the weather is (mo' betta).
    
    ...while Seattle may lack facilities and amenities...it has cycling
    firmly embedded in its social fabric.  "A lot of riding here happens in
    spite of the physical infrastructure."
    
    Bicyciling Magazine and USA Today have rated Seattle as the top cycling
    city in the country...(with) six legimate trails...expected to be
    integrated...The centerpiece is natinally renowned (??) Burke-Gilman
    Trail (14 miles, with plans for total of 26)...the city has installed
    1,400 bicycle racks...employed a bicycling coordinator since the
    mid-70's....has $7.5 mil. budgeted for cycling projects over the next
    two years...first city in the country to form a Bicycle Patrol Unit,
    now employing 69 full-time and 25 part-time officers.
    
    ...Cascade Bicycling CLyub boasts 5,000 members and been in existance
    since 1970...believed to be the only cycling club to employ a paid
    staff.
    
    ...Seattle-To-Portland ("STP" - 200 miles), one of "top 10 recreational
    rides in the country," has reached its cap of 10,000 riders for six
    straight years.
    
    ...More bicycles than cars are sold in Washington every year...and
    become a beehive of organized rides...."Now you'll find two to four
    events on Saturday and two to four on Sunday."
    
    **********************
    
    Sorry about the speed typing; I'm going to go for a ride.
    
    Comments?  (I'm especially curious about how one can know a trail is
    "nationally renowned"  I'd be surprised if anybody east of Walla Walla
    Washington has heard of the Burke-Gilman trail.)
    
    -Kris/Seattle 
    

>   Comments?  (I'm especially curious about how one can know a trail is
>    "nationally renowned"  I'd be surprised if anybody east of Walla Walla
>    Washington has heard of the Burke-Gilman trail.)

i've heard of it.  and ridden on it while out visiting a friend in seattle.
seattle did seem to be more bike friendly than your typical city.
    
>                  -< Repeat after me: It rains ALL THE TIME >-

i've heard thru numerous people that live there that the reputation for rain
is overstated.  out here (northeast) we got a lot of snow in the winter.  so
out there you get a general, grey wetness.  don't know of this is true, but
someone recently stated to me that the average annual rainfall is no greater
in seattle than in the northeast.  and it was beautiful weather out there
when i was visiting towards the end of last summer.  (well, with the exception
of the one day that we attempted to climb mt rainier...)

- rich

    RIGHT, it's no more rain in the NW than in the NE, just that they get
    their 30 inches at a rate of .1 in/day each day, every day instead of
    1 storm per week.
    
    Then again there are anomalies such as when I was there during the
    drought of 76-77.  :-)
    
    ed

    I've always been somewhat perplexed by the popularity of cycling
    in Seattle given the rain.  But I must say that Seattle manages
    to make the worst use of freeways of any major city.  The ride-share
    lanes interfere with exits/on ramps and shift from one side of
    the freeway to the other, and some other dumb lane designs result
    in major tie ups.  Result: lots of commuters turn into cyclists
    and put up with the [almost constant light] rain to beat the traffic,
    and Seattle and burbs do a very good job of accomodating them with
    bikepaths.  .02 Kratz

When I was in the Bellevue area early last summer, I was impressed
to see a bike rack on the front of each city bus.  I didn't think
the suburban sprawl east of Seattle was all that attractive for
road biking, though.  I don't know if they have the little country
roads we have in New England, once you get out of town.

Redmond has a municipal velodrome - concrete, outdoors - in a 
town park.  They have weekly races under the lights.

I think the weather - percentage of possible sun, amount and 
duration of rainfall etc. - changes drastically depending on
where you are.  As you get into the Cascades foothills, I suspect
it gets a lot wetter and grayer than in the area just east of
Lake Washington, but I haven't looked at the data to back that up.

But the days I was there were days we'd kill for in New England -
dry, clear, sunny, warm in the day and cool at night.  And the
mountain presiding over everything like something out of Tolkien.
My weather experiences in the Seattle area have generally been 
pretty good.

Andy

    It actually gets *dryer* as you head east into the Cascade foothills.
    It's much wetter west in the shadow of the Olympic mountains.
    
    Seattle gets about 40 inches of rain per year.  Contributing to the
    reputation is the fact that something like 200 (or is 300?) days 
    of the year are cloudy.  When it rains, it's light, misty, and as 
    a native, I think "nice."
    
    Re: comment about goofy HOV lane changes and merges: You mean all
    cities aren't like that?
    
    ;>)

    Having spent some time in upstate New York I can verify that upstate
    New York has fewer cloud free days than Seattle!
    
    When my daughter was around 3 she was riding in our car and pointed to
    the sky and said "What's that blue up there?"  The lake effect seems to
    be the main reason for so many days with clouds.
    
    I thought you'd like to know.
    Rick

    From today's Seattle Post-Intelligencer:
    
    Title:  Killer Hill  (*very big* letters)
    
    "From the top of Yesler Hill, looking down, the view is a Seattle
    postcard...From the bottom looking up, Yesler is the Everestt of
    cycling, one of the most intimidating stretches of pavement on any rad
    racing course in the country.
    
    "Yesler is so incredibly steep that it requires a lot of power, almost
    a whole body effort, so early in the race.  One time up the hill is not
    that hard, but it's the continual fatigue, and after three or four laps
    it becomes a nightmare."  (Alison Dunlap, Colo. rider)
    
    The terrain is so steep that Kent Bostick, a Pan Am Games gold
    medalist, refuses to compete in the race...calls it a "death march."
    
    (Competitors will hit the Yesler climb about a mile from start; .3 miles
    long; hairpin turn at bottom; up and down 8 times for men, 4 times 
    for women)
    
    "Visually, just to see the hill is very intimidating." (defending
    woman's champ.)  It rises up there, steep and long.  Just the fact you
    can see it stretching ahead of you makes you think, 'Oh hawd, there it
    is."
    
    "After you've seen the hill several times and you are starting to fatigue
    you realize the pain is going to happen." (member of Montgomery Bell
    team).  "You've just got to grit you teeth and suffer up that hill.
    
    ...the difficulty of the Seattle course gives it immediate respect as
    one of the most severe tests in the country and guarantees a deserving
    nat'l champ...  "This course will show who's who and that's good
    because it's the nat'l champ.  You can't hide.  The winner will be the
    strongest rider...
    
    ...rates the Seattle course in same difficulty class as Pittsburgh and
    Philly..  "They call the Pittsburgh race the toughest one-day race 
    in America...
    
    Most are concerned about safety if it rains..."It's kind of a scary
    descent down Yesler...Last year we were going all out, screaming down
    the hill, and then slammed on the brakes for the hairpin at the
    bottom.  If it's raining, it could be treacherous.  I don't want to
    even think about it.  People would be going crazy..."  ""If I were the
    promoter, I wouldn't willfully want to subject myself to the liablility
    of such a course..." 
    
    In addition to the Yesler climb...course features another demanding
    hill, the long climb up Madrona from Lake Washington....(he) thinks
    Madrona is tougher than Yesler..."You can't fake it on that hill as
    easily as Yesler, where you can grind it out...
    

    Sounds excrutiating...
                            
    How steep - how long ?  

    yeah, adjectives are cheap, .3 mi long, how much climbing?
    
    ed

    yeah, what Ed said... Cough it up!  :-)
    
    Chip

    1. Yesler's Hill:
    
    I walked the hill 2 years ago - it's about 8-9 blocks from the 
    waterfront to the ridge, maybe 1/2 mile - mile or so, but what a 
    grade!  
    
    The grid must've been planned by someone who never saw
    a topo!  The roads go straight up the steepest part of the hill, with
    some deflection at the cross streets.  I remember handrails and non-slip 
    pavement patterns or stairs on many sidewalks.
    
    The pitch compares favorably with those of roads going east-west in 
    Vermont, like Thetford Hill's 9+%.  Not something I'd willingly do, over
    and over, in either direction.   
    
    2. Cycling Seattle/Puget Sound area
    
    I recommend cycling touring the area.  The book "Riding the Backroads
    Around Puget Sound" has many suggestions.  I rode the Burke-Gilman from
    end-to-end during the week - it's well-planned; weekends get really 
    crowded, though.
    
    I think Bicycling magazine made it 'nationally renowned' when it
    profiled Seattle cycling and bike cops in the late 80's.
    
    The B-G hooks up to a lot of other paths that are nice, even on
    weekends. The Seattle city bicycling department has a comprehensive map
    of bike routes all over the city.  Fortunately, most of the hills are 
    gradual, except near downtown.
    
    The airport makes it fairly easy to avoid using a car on vacation.
    
    There's a bike path from the baggage claim area to downtown.  Nothing 
    fancy - a 2' marked shoulder on each side most of the way, but far more 
    bike-friendly than older airports in the east.  The city bike path map
    makes route planning easy.  Unfortunately, it's about 7 miles from the
    airport to downtown.  It felt like a long ride after flying for 6
    hours.
    
    Outside the city, the secondary road infrastructure isn't as well 
    developed as in the east, so there's a good chance that rural rides 
    may require some sharing the road with semi's and cars going 50mph or 
    more.  
    
    This is especially true on the Olympic Peninsula where the roads tend to 
    be in fairly narrow valleys.  
    
    3. Weather
    
    I usually visit in late August-early September, typically
    the driest/sunniest time of year.  One year I remember waiting for a bus
    downtown and listening to some of the local blue-hairs complain about
    all the sun.  Funny thing, I agreed with them.  It's a really
    penetrating sun when it finally comes out.  There were lots of fires in
    the Olympics that year, things got so dry.
    
    Another year it rained once while I was there, but the rain was so light 
    we could ride without ponchos and not get wet.  A guy from Portland
    told me he'd never seen rain like we have it in the east...
    
    The Olypic Peninsula gets more rain than Seattle, making for some fantastic
    slugs.  These are serious road hazards here! I nearly flipped on one that 
    was 6" long x 1/2" high). "Brake for slugs.  It could save your life!"
    
    If it _does_ get rainy, then head downtown and grab a ferry for
    Victoria or Vancouver BC, where it's sunny over 300 days each year.
    I think B.C tries to outdo Seattle in bicycle-friendliness, but that's
    another topic.
    
    /Bob

    The steepest part of the Yesler hill is - get this - a 16% grade, and
    about .3 of a mile.  There's two other hills of a lesser grade leading
    to Yelser and a slight run-out at the crown.  I watched the riders
    climb yesterday from the sidewalk about 10 feet away, where you really 
    got an appreciation for the brutal strength and conditioning of these
    atheletes.
    
    But the most impressive part was watching from the base of Yesler as
    they screamed downhill, at speeds up to 55-60 mph, straight at you 
    before they slammed on their brakes for a hairpin turn.  One racer
    was quated as saying, "If it was pouring rain, it would have been
    death."
    
    After the group of riders would pass, I rode along the course with 
    some friends (the cops and volunteers did a good job of keeping us
    on the sidewalk  ;>) and thought the other *major* hill was worse.
    The Madrona hill was about over a mile long and started on lake level
    and finished about 2 miles from the crown of the Yesler hill.  It was
    long a sustained.....maybe 9% grade?
    
    Rain was in the forecast, but instead it was beautiful and sunny.
    An estimated 40,000 people watched along the 13 mile course.  Winners:
    Montgomery-Bell teammates Nate Reiss and Clark Sheenan, who won by
    2:19.  Time for 104 mile course was 4:4:36.  Jeanne Goulay of Colo.
    won the woman's title (52 miles; 2:13:58; 3:01 ahead of 2nd place
    rider.)
    
    161 men started, 41 finished; 72 women started; 41 finished.   
    
    A Seattle writer used as her theme for her article the difficulty and
    exhausting task of *riding in the Saab pace car* and trying to hang on 
    during the corners and decents.