Slow bicycling discovered — now everyone will start doing it

The latest edition of Bicycling magazine has a feature article on the virtues of slow cycling — “Slow and Sweet: The Quickest Way to Start Having More Fun, Eliminate Aches and Pains, and See More of the World Around You.”

Three deer saunter along a beach at low tide in a Manchester park on the Kitsap.

Now that slow bicycling has been identified as a trend by a major publication, I’m sure a lot of folks will realize that it’s OK to slow down and not turn every bike ride into a race.

I’ve been a pretty strict adherent of this style of bicycling in recent years. Actually, I’ve unknowingly been following the basic tenets of slow cycling my whole life, whether I was trying to or not.

The author’s assertion that you see more of the world around you by riding slow is true.

Check out the wildlife I stumbled across while riding slowly and stopping frequently last month.

Those same three deer running for cover

The two photos above show three deer walking along the beach at the old ferry landing in Manchester on the Kitsap Peninsula. That’s the Seattle skyline in the background. There was a super-low tide that day, so maybe the deer wanted to browse around the sand like the other beach combers. They skee daddled when a little black terrier started chasing them.

Bald eagle at Lake Sammamish

I’m still amazed at the sight of a bald eagle. As I grew up in Ohio during a period when the bald eagle population was on the decline, I never thought I’d see one. Now I see them frequently on my bike rides.

This one was flying to a perch in a tree on the Lake Sammamish shoreline up near Redmond. I heard it screeching as I was riding down the East Lake Sammamish Trail.

Frog and lily pads

Over on Lake Washington, I stopped at the old boardwalk that crosses Juanita Bay in Kirkland. As I was looking out at a bay full of lily pads, I saw this frog looking back at me. It could be the Pacific chorus frog, the official state amphibian. There’s been a lot written about the disappearance of frogs. Even so, this bay certainly has its share, because after I saw this one I started seeing them everywhere I looked. This must be a noisy place in the evening.