Yellow Tent Adventures

Last week ribbons were cut and speeches were made at the opening of the new segment of the Mountains-to-Sound Trail. Any additional trail miles that provide needed access for bikes and pedestrians is cause for celebration. Except that the Mountains-to-Sound Trail now officially ends at a blind corner of a very steep hill.

Holgate, which rises to and descends from Beacon Hill, is legendary on this side of the city. It is the type of road that even some seasoned cyclists choose to avoid. If you are descending it from the top of Beacon Hill, you can easily hit 40mph without a single pedal stroke. You just take the lane and fly. The road crosses I-5, and at this point as a cyclist, you need to be hyper-aware as you dump out onto the left lane of traffic. Cars turning from Airport Way S are speeding to make the light at 6th Ave S. Many motorists like to make a left hand turn across your path as they exit the Office Depot. And the road surface is a photo op for the “repave our streets” campaign.

On the way up Holgate you are in a narrow lane with a high curb on your right as you climb over I-5. The thought that a car clipping you could send you catapulting onto the freeway is enough to have many cyclists choose to ride on the left hand sidewalk and then cross over at the blind corner as the sidewalk ends. Sounds fun, doesn’t it?

Can you imagine parents riding their bikes along with their two young kids tackling any or all of this? It sounds rather nightmarish.

And yet it is a possibility. The Mountains-to-Sound Trail is a separated recreational path. The type of trail that is desirable for riders and walkers who aren’t comfortable in traffic. The recently opened extension expands the trail from 12th Ave S to Holgate. The path is a delight and offers beautiful vistas of downtown Seattle. I had a hard time wiping the grin off my face the first time I rode it.

My grin faded at Holgate. The sign simply reads, “End. Mt. to Sound Trail” That’s it. No more information.

What is the family with their two kids going to do? They’ll look at the option of crossing the road at the blind intersection and climbing the steep hill to their left. But what’s up there? They don’t know, because they are visiting from Spokane or Missoula and they don’t know that at the top is the business district of Beacon Hill with a light rail station, bus connections, stores, restaurants, a library, and a huge park. No, to them it’s just a big scary hill to destinations unknown.

Then they’ll look down the hill and think, “The Sound is that way.” They’ll opt to walk their bikes down the sidewalk because the hill is steep and their kids are scared. This is good. Because that sidewalk ends in a flight of stairs. To their credit, SDOT has posted a sign regarding this about 200 feet before impact.

Now our visiting family is stuck. Because to continue forward means having to lift their bikes onto a narrow road with speeding traffic and “take the lane, kids.” Beyond this dangerous move there is no signage letting them know that they are three blocks away from the bike path that runs parallel to light rail.

But I’m guessing at this point our family will opt to turn around and push their bikes back up the sidewalk. The kids will be crying and Mom and Dad will think, “This is unsafe and crazy.” They will finally reach the trail and backtrack from whence they came.

What the family doesn’t know is that the Mountains-to-Sound Trail will eventually be completed. There will be a switchback trail that crosses under the freeway and connects to the bike trail and light rail station at Royal Brougham. But construction of that section isn’t even scheduled yet … so it’s years away.

In the meantime, information needs to be posted that gives everyone an option. Experienced city traffic cyclists can take a right at Holgate and shoot into the Sodo District or take a cautious left and climb to the Beacon Hill business district. Others can backtrack and follow the bike route signs to downtown, or be routed that way to begin with.

The dangerous conditions at the blind curve where Holgate becomes Beacon Ave S need to be addressed. This is now more important than ever! This is one of the few accessible routes up to Beacon Hill and it should be made safe for everyone.

The Mountain-to-Sound Trail extension is great! It will be better when it is finished (South Seattle’s missing link?). But until then, we need signage that explains the current conditions, and improvements that give everyone safe options. Without them, the ride doesn’t end well.

In a little town in Northern Romania, two boys laughed as they wheeled up and down the street. I’m sure they would have been pedaling bikes if they’d had them. They didn’t. But they had a wheelbarrow. It had a metal wheel that squeaked so loud you’d swear a 700-pound hamster was exercising in its cage. They took turns pushing each other around. The smaller boy had quite a difficult time pushing his larger friend up the hill, which only made them laugh harder.

No doubt the ride would have been smoother if their wheelbarrow was equipped with a shock and a top-of-the-line long distance touring tire. No blisters on their hands if they had custom gel gloves. And they could have mapped their progress up and down the street if they had a GPS-enhanced wheelbarrow-ometer. They didn’t.

Their smiles challenge me. Okay Mr. Traveler, can you have as much fun as we do?

We are assaulted with so many choices and upgrade options. How can you proceed until you get the ultimate touring bike? The best digital camera? The lightest tent? The perfect panniers or tricked-out trailer?

Sometimes it’s good to be reminded that you are way ahead if you simply have a bike.

Go out and pedal with as much joy as two boys sharing a wheelbarrow. I double dare you.

Originally posted on the Adventure Cycling Association’s blog.

They are gifts of the road. Nature’s snacks ripened just for you. Their aromas fill the hot summer’s breezes and the late fall’s chill. Roadside trees, far from any home or farm, display these treats more beautifully than any row of sweets in a candy shop. They must have been planted for the benefit of touring cyclists. Why else would their heavily laden branches lean over the road?

Apples in eastern Washington. Tree tomatoes (tomate de arbol) in Colombia. Mangoes in Thailand. Figs. We love figs! You can smell them a half mile away when the wind is just right and they are oozing with flavor.

The fruit that won our hearts in Portugal was the persimmon. Eat it too early and your mouth will pucker up in disgust. But catch this fruit at its peak and the jelly-like interior is a decadent dessert.

So enamored were we with the persimmon, that we planted one in our yard in Seattle. It will be years before it bears fruit; and, due to our cool summers, the taste will probably never match those we slurped in southern Portugal.

But ten years from now, I’ll pick a persimmon and bite into the gooey flesh … and my mind will fly across the ocean and remember a bicycle journey.

Now, that’s sweet!

Originally posted on the Adventure Cycling Association’s blog.

Four years ago I read an article in Adventure Cyclist by Chuck Haney about a ride he had done in southeastern Oregon. It was the Steens Mountain loop.

Chuck mentions that the Steens loop sounded great, but he had always kept it on the back burner.

Well. If you like climbing, vistas to die for, glacial gorges, day hikes to mountain lakes, and don’t mind pedaling off the pavement … put this trip on your front burner.

Your window of time to visit is limited (the higher road didn’t open until mid-July this year), but it is well worth the planning and the wait.

For mileage hounds, this is one of those trips where less is more. How could anyone want to rush with scenery like this?

Check out Chuck’s article (pdf) for more details.

Originally posted on the Adventure Cycling Association’s blog.

Do you remember when neighborhood streets were not just for cars, but for people too? Do your childhood memories include hide-and-seek, kickball and kick-the-can? Did you learn how to ride your bike right down the middle of your street, not in some park or empty parking lot? You do? Then if you live in the United States, you must be close to my age. I’m 50.

Forty years ago Americans were just as much in love with their cars as they are today. But they were also in love with their neighborhoods. They didn’t just commute through them, they lived in them. There had to be 30 kids on my block, and summer’s seemed to be one long continuous kick-ball game. We set up in the middle of the street outside the Heffner’s house. Kids outside laughing and playing. As it should be.

When a car came down the street. It approached, waiting for the mob of youthful energy to clear out, and then slowly passed by. The driver usually smiled and waved.

One day an incredible thing happened. Bruce was about ready to deliver the kickball at a crucial moment in the game, when there was a strange mechanical sound. We looked up and Mr. Cook’s  garage door  magically opened. All by itself! We stood there in amazement as Mr. Cook’s car appeared around the corner, and drove right into the garage. There was another mechanical sound, and the garage door closed.

Whoa.

THAT was cool.

Mr. Cook (he worked at the bank) was the first one in the neighborhood to get a automatic garage door opener.

The next day at the exact same time (we were waiting) the magic happened again.

As a kid, Mr. Cook’s magic door was the greatest thing since spongy loaves of Wonder Bread. But as an adult, I now see that it was the beginning of the end.

We didn’t see Mr. Cook much anymore. You see, before his cool gadget, Mr. Cook had to get out of his car to open up his garage door himself. Sometimes he’d watch our game for a few minutes. Sometimes he’d talk with us. I remember him saying, “You all argue a lot more than you play kickball.” He was right.

Americans were already spending more time in their cars, but the automatic garage door opener allowed neighbors to actually never physically spend time in their neighborhood.

Of course, there were other factors, (jobs further away, two-three-and-four car families, the shopping mall). They all played a part in the demise of the livable neighborhood.

The sign to the left in the photo above is from my street on Beacon Hill in Seattle. It is one block away from Kimball Elementary School. ONE block. That’s the school zone.  Why? Well, in my opinion, it is because there is the assumption that kids don’t walk to school anymore. They need to be safe in that one block where their parents park or drop them off.

Unfortunately that assumption is right. Come fifteen minutes to school time,  our street becomes a mess of speeding mini-vans and SUV’s with parents, rushing to get their kids to “the school zone”.

Traffic doesn’t kill a neighborhood. But speeding traffic does.

Mr. Cook never sped down our street at 35mph. Not even close. If he and others had done so, our parents wouldn’t have let us play kickball … or kick-the-can. Many of us wouldn’t have learned to ride a bike.

I recently spoke to a crowd of 200 adults. Most of them my age or older. When I asked them to raise their hands if they had walked or biked to school, almost every hand went up.

A couple of years ago I spoke at a junior college and asked the same question. One hand went up. We are quickly losing our collective memory that neighborhoods are safe places to live and play.

It’s time that we reoccupy our neighborhoods. Forget useless, pathetic one-block “school zones.” We need neighborhood zones. Places where cars are allowed, but slowed to a speed that is, well, neighborly. 2omph.

“It can’t be done!”, I hear the cries. Well. It already has been done. Portland’s Greenways program aims to reduce traffic speeds to 20mph. New York City is getting its first 20mph zoned neighborhood in the Bronx. In England they cut it to 20 too! I won’t even bother to list the gobs of examples from the Netherlands and Denmark.

In Seattle, we don’t have to be leaders in this (unfortunately, we usually aren’t). We just have to follow the great examples already in process.

There is a problem. We can’t legally do this in Seattle right now. The Bicycle Alliance of Washington introduced a bill (HB 1217)l earlier this year that would make it easier for local jurisdictions in Washington to set lower speed limits in residential and business districts. It died in committee.

Do you prefer the modified traffic sign on the right of the photo? Let your representatives know that you are in favor lower speed limits in neighborhoods. Do you want to reoccupy your neighborhood? Then get involved in these groups who are fighting to allow you to do so.
Bicycle Alliance of Washington
Cascade Bicycle Club
Feet First
Seattle Neighborhood Greenways

(Kudos to StreetFilms and the Seattle Bike Blog for great bike coverage)

For the last two years I’ve been writing posts for the Adventure Cycling Association‘s blog. My column is called “Sights and Sounds” and I’ve been given the freedom to dig through photos (slides and digital) and recordings (cassette, mini-disc, and and digital) from my (our) travels by bicycle throughout the globe. Some I’ve re-posted on this site, many others I have not.

The photos below link to those posts. If you see a photo that intrigues you … click on it. It will take you on a little mini-adventure. You could find yourself on the dramatic coast of Portugal or up in the highlands of Lesotho. You could end up listening to a impromptu violin concert or the final seconds of a rugby match. And you just might find yourself dreaming of your own travels.

When you do travel, I’d suggest you do it by bike. But that’s not necessary. Even if it’s been decades since you’ve pedaled a bike, I’d bet you could still find beauty and inspiration buried in these links. Browse, click and travel. Enjoy!

After a long, hard, wonderful slog pedaling the back roads of Colombia south from Bogotá, we took a break in the beautiful city of Cartagena.

I woke up early and grabbed my camera and wandered the streets of this World Heritage city. The colors were incredible. The architecture sublime.

I came around a corner into a square and there was a man dusting a sculpture created by the world-renowned and Colombian-born artist Fernando Botero.

I’ll let the photo speak for itself. Sometimes a photo is worth a thousand words, and sometimes it’s worth a thousand laughs.

Originally posted on the Adventure Cycling Association’s blog.

If you are an avid touring cyclist and want an unending supply of beautiful roads with little to no traffic … negotiate the month of September as your vacation time for the rest of your working days. Then, when you retire, simply continue this travel pattern until your legs no longer spin.

September is my favorite month to travel. There isn’t a single place in the United States (or the entire Northern Hemisphere, for that matter) I’d avoid in this glorious month.

Summer vacation is over and the summer crowds and traffic that go with it have faded. The sun is angling lower in the sky, which your eyes and camera will love. The days are getting shorter, but the lack of blistering hot afternoons surely makes up for the loss of daylight hours.

Add to that the availability of camping sites and lower prices for airfare, hotels, restaurants, and just about everything else.

May might be Bike Month, but I’d like to nominate September as Bike Travel Month.

Alert the media!

Originally posted on the Adventure Cycling Association’s blog.

Last week I confessed my obsession of photographing house numbers during our bike journey in Portugal.

I realize the short “video” might have had a certain entertainment value, but probably fell far short of convincing the viewer that they should hop on a bike and tour there.

I now present “Countdown Redux”. Twenty-one images that should whet your traveler’s appetite and have you dreaming of your own bike trip through Portugal or somewhere, anywhere on this incredible planet.

Originally posted on the Adventure Cycling Association’s blog.