solarbird | i did the northlake bicycle yamanote line

I wanted to bike down to look at the construction in Montlake while both Montlake Boulevard and SR-520 were closed and I did and I took a few photos, but not that many because it was super busy and kind of crowded and mostly closed, because construction site, right? But at least I biked on a freeway again and took pictures xD

standing on the offramp for SR-520 onto Montlake Boulevard, while closed down for the week

a big area of tar paper, gravel, and in the back a big decorative cement wall which will all become part of the park over SR520

But then I decided that while I’ve walked across the bridge before it was open for cars I’ve never biked across it, so I decided hey, I’m here, why not bike across it?

DANGER BIKING – a temporary access to the SR520 floating bridge’s bike/jogging/walking trail with a big DANGER sign

photo of the empty and closed SR-520 floating bridge, taken from the bike trail attached to it on the north side. The dividing wall is taller than it looks in this photo and quite sturdy

So then I’m in Kirkland and thinking, “I know they just finished that big bike overpass in Kirkland, so now you can bike the whole way around the north end of the lake… I’m pretty tempted to bike back that way now” and whelp

Lake Washington and the start of the SR-520 trail (eastside, on land) looking back towards Seattle.

I got to the bridge overpass thing, it’s a big spiral on one end and a ramp on the other with a bridge in between. I hadn’t biked this part of the trails before so this was indeed an adventure – I only got confused about where to go at one connection area, and that’s an area they’re already fixing so that should be easier in future.

view back at the kirkland spiral bridge over a bunch of traffic and stuff, taken from a little observation deck halfway down the spiral.

some wetlands in kirkland taken the opposite direction from the observation platform, green and wet with a visible lake in the middle and buildings on the far side

Anyway that’s about all the photos I took, mostly because my camera was low on power, I hadn’t planned on doing any of this so didn’t charge it up last night and I was worried about going out power. But it was pretty fun just winging it and going 27km or so out of my way and on trails I’ve never used before. That feeling when you’re just winging it and you think you know where you are but you don’t really know because everything you can see is totally unfamiliar but then you spot a building and go, “…now I know exactly where I am” and it’s where you wanted to be? It’s a pretty great feeling.

(I don’t get lost. No, really, I don’t get lost. Historically speaking. Even in foreign countries. But it’s nice to know the pandemic didn’t change that. “I saw a map once” is usually good enough.)

Anyway I did take yet another picture of Duck Island once I made it to that part of Burke-Gilman in Woodinville, but that was mostly just proof-of-route more than anything else.

51km, unplanned, making good time (27-29kph) most of the way. Got to ride a lot of new-to-me trails; the hard-packed gravel of Eastlink Trail worried me when I heard about it but it’s totally fine. In some ways better than pavement (no root bumps, so it’s this weird combination of continual smaller bumpiness and smoother), in other ways not as good (louder, dusty) but basically it’s fine. You can pretty much treat it the same as pavement.

And I even made it back in plenty of time for Monsterdon so everybody wins.

Posted via Solarbird{y|z|yz}, Collected.