Often in pursuit of my goal to ride 4,000 miles during the past year, I took the time to stop and take a few snapshots.
Here are a few from this past year's memorable rides that took me from Lake Washington to Kansas to Snoqualmie Pass.
Let's start on January 1. Although we our share of precipitation in the winter and spring, the first day of the new year was bright and sunny. Here are a couple of chaps riding along Lake Washington in Renton with the Olympic Mountains in the background.
I remember a lot of dreary skies over the next few months leading up to this sunny day in April.
This group of cyclists in red kit heading south on Cedar River Trail told me that summer was on its way. The trees were still bare, but the grass was green and everyone left their rain gear behind.
One morning in May, we headed out for a ride along Lake Washington Boulevard and were surprised by group of 50 or so bicyclists. This was unusual for a weekday so I asked what was up.
“We're riding with Phil Liggett,” one cyclist replied. The “voice” of the Tour de France was in Seattle for a Cascade Bicycle Club ride and had agreed to ride with this group as a fund-raiser. I think that's Phil in the center, scratching his nose.
Speaking of honkers, here's a photo from Honk Fest West.
My son and I pedaled over to Gas Works Park in Seattle for one of our many training rides this spring to get ready for Biking Across Kansas in June.
A slew of marching bands, drum corps, samba lines and more from across the US were performing that day. This is Seattle's Orkestar Zirconium.
Of my thousands of rides over the years, this is the first where I took a midway break to enjoy Klezmer music and Dixieland jazz. The Honk Fest returns to Seattle from June 1-3, 2012.
My favorite bike ride of the year had to be Biking Across Kansas with my son in early June. Early in the week, bicyclists and support crews did what they could to offset some of the monotony of the flat, straight roads. Here's an impromptu jam session at a rest stop on Day 4.
Although I enjoyed the flatness at the beginning of the week, I was happy to experience a return to rolling terrain and curvy roads of the Smoky Hills and Flint Hills as the week progressed.
Here a meandering road on Day 6 leads some bicyclists to a luncheon of pulled pork in Olpe.
This ain't Kansas anymore, but it sure looked like it. After returning, I found myself down at the Flaming Geyser State Park one afternoon. A group of cyclists from the Cascade Bicycle Club Training Series were there as they prepared for the Seattle to Portland bicycle ride, coming up in a couple of weeks.
It was warm and sunny, and the tall grasses and wildflowers reminded me of the Sunflower State.
By the end of July, I was riding more and more miles on my old Rockhopper mountain bike that I used for off-road and touring. Here I'm emerging from the newly reopened Snoqualmie Tunnel on the John Wayne Pioneer Trail with my friend Russell. We rode up there from my house, camped, then rode through the tunnel four times in two days before returning. I just got word that he tallied 10,000 miles this year; no wonder, as he rode me into the ground on this weekend trip.
As summer turned to fall, I kept returning to the rail-trail through Iron Horse State Park to explore further and further east. Here's a scene from the trail through Yakima River Canyon between Cle Elum and Thorpe. Arid, isn't it? Not at all like western Washington.
All in all, 2011 was a much better year for bicycling than the previous year. I got in a long bike tour, did riding with friends and family, and got the hell out of King County. The previous year, I had only ridden outside the borders of my home county three or four times.
I plan to do more of the same in 2012.
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