Header photos described at Biking Bis

When I redesigned my Biking Bis blog for WordPress last spring, I activated a feature that rotates through several images for the header whenever someone accesses a page.

Recently, a reader asked me where those photos were taken because she’d like to ride in those places.That’s a great idea.

Photos can be motivating to someone seeking a bicycling goal or destination.

I used to have an old Sierra Club calendar page thumb-tacked next to my desk at work for years. It showed a fully-loaded bicyclist heading down a twisty road in California’s Anza-Borrego Desert. It took years, but I finally made that ride.

Maybe some of you will visit these locations; most are fairly close by:

1. The photo above was taken on the John Wayne Pioneer Trail as it runs alongside Lake Keechulus. I took this last summer, as you can see the lake level is getting low. The section of rail-trail east of the Snoqualmie Tunnel has less use than the western side.

Mercer Slough causeway

2. This photo shows a bicyclist on the Mercer Slough causeway, the rolls through the swampy park on the east side of Lake Washington. The causeway connects Lake Washington Boulevard in Bellevue with the I-90 trail heading to Mercer Island. I shot this on a cold winter morning, as you can see tire tracks through the frost.

Flaming Geyser State Park

3. I caught this image of cyclists riding through the Flaming Geyser State Park near Black Diamond. The bike riders were members of a Cascade Bicycle Club training ride for the Seattle to Portland Bicycle Classic a few years ago. The park gets it’s name from a methane gas seep that sometimes you can light. Pressure has been down in recent years, however.

Rocky Mountains

4. Here’s a photo I took of my friend Bruce as we just started our way up and over the Rocky Mountains on our cross-country bicycle tour in 1984. We had left Pueblo early in the morning and were heading up the shoulder of US 50 toward Canon City. We were both pleasantly surprised that, even though we were heading seriously uphill, the slope had been engineered to be much easier than those in the Appalachians or Ozarks.

It’s time for me up add some more photos to the headers; I’ll be sure to describe the photos when I do.