On Bicycling: When Weather Is Fine, Seattle Area Is Magic

By Alan Snel of LVSportsBiz.com

Those drizzling May mornings and cold, rainy late November days and the endless gray skies of February are never on your mind when the weather releases a 70-something degree day in late September and bike trails and some roads all around metro Seattle.

For pure. unbridled pedaling joy, there are few places in the U.S. can match the Puget Sound area for wonderful bicycling times when the blue waters, dark green evergreen and white-topped mountains.

The day began in Port Townsend, a Northwest town pure and pure about two hours from Seattle by car and ferry.

The day began before the sun came up.

It’s a rugged city in Jefferson County, with a lovely downtown with great coffee shops and book stores in downtown and some RVs at the section of waterfront land. It’s a nice stop on the way to Olympics National Park.

Just a day earlier, I was visiting my college chum Rebecca Slattery, who has owned a 13-acre organic farm with more than 50 veggies and so many gorgeous flowers for 20 years. It’s on sloping land in a small waterfront community called Indianola in Kitsap County.

Her bounty is sold at the Bainbridge Island farmer market and restaurants, while her flowers are harvested for wedding bouquets.

Rebecca is an an amazing person, destined to own a vibrant farm since her days at William Smith College in Geneva NY in the heart of the state’s Finger Lakes region.

Here’s farm visitor Beth Geohagan enjoying the flowers there.

Beth also checked out the Indianola beach, too.

Later on Monday afternoon, I explored the East Lake Sammamish Lake Trail, and 11-mile trail offering absolutely gorgeous views of the north-south lake.

 

The ferries are part of the bicycling experience in metro Seattle. They offer flexibility is bike routes to places like Bainbridge Island and Vashon Island

There are also bike trails, especially in the Redmond area where I am based. There are so many that in some trail confluences near the Microsoft campus trail direction signs are necessary to show you the way, much like a highway system for bicyclists.

Check out Seattle for bicycling. Make sure the weather is fine. It’s in the 70s and sunny all week here this week and it’s where I’ll be to absorb the joys of bicycling.


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Alan Snel

Alan Snel brings decades of sports-business reporting experience to LVSportsBiz.com. Snel covered the business side of sports for the South Florida (Fort Lauderdale) Sun-Sentinel, the Tampa Tribune and Las Vegas Review-Journal. As a city hall beat reporter, Snel also covered stadium deals in Denver and Seattle. In 2000, Snel launched a sport-business website for FoxSports.com called FoxSportsBiz.com. After reporting sports-business for the RJ, Snel wrote hard-hitting stories on the Raiders stadium for the Desert Companion magazine in Las Vegas and The Nevada Independent. Snel is also one of the top bicycle advocates in the country.