My new commute from Issaquah to Seattle is a bit under 18 miles each way. I leave home around 6:00 AM and get to work a bit before 7:30 AM. It's a very nice ride. This time of year it's dark when I start outbut by the time I roll through the I-90 bike tunnel sunlight is starting to touch the Olympic mountains in the west. On the ride home the sun is also at my back and I get a view of the snow-capped Cascades as I roll over Mercer Island.
On the rides in this week I've been keeping count of the number of other cyclists I see. At this hour of the morning, I'm guessing that most of them are bicycle commuters. Here are numbers for the first four days of this week:
Monday 12/5/05 -- 40 degrees (F) and overcast -- 18 cyclists
Tuesday 12/6/05 -- 40 degrees (F) with light rain in Issaquah -- 11 cyclists
Wednesday 12/7/05 -- 33 degrees (F) overcast -- 13 cyclists
Thursday 12/8/05 -- 26 degrees (F) clear skies -- 20 cyclists
Of course this is too small a sample to draw any big conclusions. But I do know this: I'm not alone out on the roads and trails. There are other folks out there with their bright yellow jackets and flashing LED lights.
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5 comments:
Kent,
My commute is about the same length
(17 miles one way) and I leave the house at the same time as you so apart from the differences in latitude we have the same daylight/darkness to deal with. I could never do an accurate count of other cyclists for a few reasons but mostly I couldn't do that because I have a habit of getting into my own little world when I ride. I can't count the number of times I've arrived somewhere and realized I can't remember having ridden portions of the route I *know* I had to have ridden. Yikes. Anyway, good on ya for having a clear head at that early point in the day.
rob hawks
unfortunately in metro-west Mass if I see one other commuter on my ride it's a good day.
Those are pretty good stats I'd say! Hey, today, I ran almost as far as your one-way commute! And it was GOOD :)
We're practically neighbors now... I just moved to Bellevue - just off 148th close to BCC.
Caio! Good luck at the new gig, Hope to see you around.
There are definitely more commuters the closer I get to Seattle. I may see a couple as I roll toward Factoria and then more as I cross south Bellevue and over Mercer Island and the I-90 bridge. Part of it might be that I'm just seeing more riders after 7:00 AM than I do in the early part of the commute because of timing, but I do think Seattle has more commuters than the Eastside.
I basically ride Newport west to just before 150th (cut right down the hill after you pass the church that looks like a mushroom) and then parallel I-90 past the Honda dealer and into Factoria. At the bottom of the hill I catch the I-90 trail and follow that over the Bellevue Slough and Mercer Island and then over the floating bridge, through the tunnel, across MLK and 23rd and then down to Hiawatha and then go into downtown via the Dearborn and the International District.
The best map is the King County Bike Map available here:
http://www.metrokc.gov/kcdot/roads/bike/map.cfm
Kent
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