Alki ride
This past Sunday (didn’t I point out I was way behind on my blog posts?), I took a bike ride down to Alki Beach and back. My goal was to not totally ruin myself like I did the weekend earlier (ie – do a shorter ride) and it worked out that way at about 20 miles vs 31 the week before.
Here’s the map. No green numbers this week.
I did have a few interesting things to note, however:
- Driving down Jackson Ave seems like it would be fast, since it’s a fairly steep hill. In fact, it’s very slow since you have to dodge cars constantly and stop at nearly every intersection. Ugh.
- Driving back up Jackson Ave is painful each time I do it. I need to find another (less hilly) way to get to the water. I’m not holding my breath.
- Alaskan Way going south is pretty poor for bikes. The Seattle bike map called it out as a good way to go — and I suppose it’s better than the alternatives — but there was a lot of bumps, cracked sidewalk, and glass. Yes, I said sidewalk. I spent most of my time southbound on the sidewalk once the trail under the viaduct ended. This because there was no bike lane and an even nastier (than the sidewalk) shoulder.
- The northbound Alaskan way is a bit better with a bike path in the road most of the way.
- It’s pretty easy to get lost along Spokane street vs finding the ped/bike bridge over to West Seattle. The signs are far from effective. Short version is you head along Spokane until just after you feel like you might have missed it (but not until you’ve run out of path). Then you cross to the middle, toward the bridge. And voila, there’s a path up and over a smaller bridge (thank goodness, it was steep enough as it was and you’re looking right up at the underside of the bigger West Seattle Bridge!).
- Alki is lots of fun to ride – flat and pretty. But lots of people out walking, running, and roller-blading means lots of vigilance for bike riding. I ended up leaving the nice trail along the beach and riding the road to reduce the hassle.
- I got to bike around the police tape from this crash, which closed off a bit of the road (and the trail) right at the northern point of the beach.
Heart rate was still a bit higher than I had expected, although probably mostly because of the steep hills going up and over to West Seattle and then back up Jackson toward the end.
