Friday was just beautiful, really a perfect Seattle day. I'd spent most of the morning and part of Thursday evening cleaning and checking my bike. Shamefully, it's the first such inspection in a couple of months. It's been squeaking and creaking for the last couple of weeks. Cleaning, lubing and, tightening everything I could reach seemed to bring the noise down to a tolerable level.
My rear brake pads were pretty toasted , so I installed some new Swissstop brake pads in the rear. www.helvetiasports.com for info. We may carry them at the shop. I'll report about them soon. It looks like I'll need a new chain pretty quick. I've got an NOS Sachs SCM55 I'll use. I love finding stuff I've forgotten about. Being a packrat pays off sometimes.
It was the first ride this year that I'd ridden in summer kit. But, being a properly cautious rider, I packed along a vest, arm and knee warmers. No hat though. Talk about devil-may-care behaviour. I headed west around 1:30 and rode my big in-town loop. Shilshole, Ballard Locks, Discovery Park, Magnolia, Myrtle Edwards, under the Viaduct (yes, wrong way), Up Main St., to the Klondike Gold Rush National Historical Park and Museum. I stopped in and bought my 2006 National Parks Passport Stamps.
There are three or four things that mark the arrival of dependable,nicer weather to me:
1. I clean up my garage after a winter of carefully throwing stuff into it. I did that last week.
2. I give my main ride a thorough cleaning, put on the lighter wheels and, take off the serious lights. That was yesterday.
3. The wearing of summer kit. Also yesterday.
4. National parks Passport Stamps. Again, yesterday. Hit the link below: http://www.eparks.com/eparks/dept.asp?park=915&category=w
5. The announcement of the various summer concert series we have here. This year, the Summer Nights Concerts were cancelled due to poor planning by the City of Seattle. I covered that story on this very blog some months ago. However, the Zoo Tunes schedule will be announced on May 1st. It's already been made public that Doc Watson will be playing the Zoo sometime in July. I can't recall of ever hearing about him playing here before. We will be there for sure. I hope there are a bunch of good ones this year. We live a 10 minute ride from the Zoo. Love that in-town living.
So, it's all happening in a stretch of 10 days or so. I even welcome the first couple of bug inhalations of the year.
After I left Klondike (the smallest unit of the NPS), I headed over to Bikestation to see if Kent Peterson was there. I missed him the last couple of times I stopped in. Not today, lucky me! Kent welcomed me with a "Hello, Mr. President!" I waved to everyone that looked up. In a presidential manner, I hope. We chatted about lots of things: riding, politics, Pioneer Square, work. Common talk around here.
After about a half hour of talking to me, Kent's work day ended and we took off together. I was headed to Seward Park and he was headed home to Issaquah. We rode through the chaos of the International District and the heavy traffic headed towards the freeway on Dearborn. Once we passed under I-5, the traffic thinned a little. We were bracing for the sprint at Rainier Ave., when I looked across the street and saw the craziest thing. It was an electric vehicle that looked like a 1/3 scale version of a Hummer. At first I thought "How stupid." Then I thought about it a second longer and decided it was brilliant! A truly useful little truck. It cost around $20K. Here is yet another link: www.mcev.biz
These vehicles are the future. I just wish it would hurry up.
To the right we get a nice shot of Kent, the vehicle, my bike, and beautiful South Dearborn St.The guy running the place is Steve Mayeda. He was very welcoming and quite enthused about what he was doing.
They're at 1200 S. Dearborn 206/328-1750.
Back into traffic after a few minutes, just in time to get the full length signal at Dearborn and Rainier. We mused on how often we don't catch this light. It's one of the worst lights in town. And we're right in the middle of it. Sucking up all that lovely exhaust, cars speeding by at 40 MPH. The funny thing is, as soon as you cross Rainier, you're in a very light traffic area. It's like going from rapids into an eddy. We rode up and over the hill towards MLK Way and the tunnel under Mt. Baker. On the other side we talked for another 10 minutes and said our goodbyes. I hadn't ridden with Kent in some time and this time was far too short.
Kent went to cross I-90 and I headed south. It was a lovely spin down to Seward Park, aided by a light tailwind. I rode around the peninsula the Park occupies and headed back the way I came. On longer days I'll usually continue south around the south end of Lake Washington. But, it was already late. So, north I went.
A little headwind now. It can't all be wine and roses, I guess. Still very agreeable riding.
I headed for the shop. My saddle or seatpost had begun to creak and it was making me nuts. Disturbing my revelry. raining on my parade, crying in my cereal. It was creaking really loudly! I got to the shop. It was kinda busy. I went the back bench and pulled my seatpost. Drizabone, as the Aussies would say. A bit of grease and problem solved. Out the door I went.
I took the long way home from the shop. This is about a 15 mile meander around North Capitol Hill, South Lake Union, Fremont and all of the way back to Shilshole and up Sunset Hill. I got home around 8. As I was coming in the back door, Karla was coming in the front. Normally, Friday night is date night for us ands we hit happy hour and have dinner somewhere. Too late tonight. We were both pooped anyway. Besides, we usually do something fun on Saturday.....
Like sleep late. Which I did. Karla got up and had breakfast with friends at 6:30. Madness. So when she got back at 8, she got back in bed. We both got up at 9:30. And no plans at all. It looked like rain. It was cold. by noon it had begun to rain. Hard. It was 45-50 degrees at most. Couldn't be more different from yesterday.
We spent most of the morning looking at cars online. Mostly Subarus and Hondas. The time is near. I welcome and dread a new car. It's nice not having car payments. But, it would also be nice having dependable, capable transportation. I marvel that Kent and his family have been carless for a long time. We've settled on a couple of different cars. Honda Element, Subaru Forester and, if money were no object, Toyota Highlander Hybrid. Now we just have to see how much we can afford. And try not to get totally screwed in the process.
After an exhausting morning of Googling cars, we went out for lunch. We went to the Brooklyn Grinder on University Way. This place has awesome sandwiches. The hot turkey and gravy sandwich on a cold and rainy day is perfect. Go soon.
We decided to head home in a roundabout sort of way. Out to Sand Point and up through View Ridge, Ravenna and Maple Leaf. When we turned for home I aimed for a gas station. Arco on 145th and Greenwood had regular for $2.97. Wow! I haven't pumped gas for a few months. You hear talk but if you don't do it yourself, I don't think you get the full impact. It was the shittiest use of $40.00 I could think of.
We got home around 3:30 and have been loitering around the house ever since. If you've read this whole thing, thank you. For whatever reason, I felt I needed to get this down. It sounds a lot duller than it was. It's really my typical weekend. I had a good time.
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