Seattle - Day 2

Saturday – January 20, 2007

Took the 43 Bus to the Montlake Bicycle Shop, where we rented bikes. Kay rented a sweet Cannondale CAD5 bike with Shimano 105 components. It was red and the shop had just built it up. I rented a Klein that was equipped with Shimano Ultegra, also a very nice rental. The weather was wonderful, with mostly sunny skies and high temps of about 45 degrees.

We met up with a Cascade Cycling Club ride that was led by a woman named Allyson. It was a 25 mile casual paced ride. We started at Gasworks park and went along Lake Washington to Seward Park. Seattle has had some terrible weather lately, and the nice day attracted a lot of riders. We saw well over 100 cyclists, including the UW team. We went along Made the acquaintance of John and Dick on the ride, who were kind enough to ride us out to The Chittenden Locks after the group ride. After bidding farewell and thanks to John and Dick, Kay and I headed up Seaview Avenue NW (goes along Puget Sound) and then climbed up to NW 80^th Street. We took NW 80^th Street (which got a little busy), then NE Ravenna (which had a wide bike lane on the left side of the road that is shared with left-turning autos) to the Burke-Gilman Trail, passed “U-Dub” and back to Montlake where we returned the bike. I am guessing we rode 45 miles, lot of fun.

We had a great dinner at Chez Gaudy at 1802 Belleview in the Capital Hill neighborhood. It was the best meal of the week. Cool restaurant decor, vegetarian friendly, good food.