Shakedown (or Getting Lost is Half the Fun)

Yesterday, I took the new bike on a 55-mile shakedown ride. That is, with everything I'm going to take with me loaded onto the bike. See picture at left. We sped through the Burke-Gilman Trail around the northwest portion of Lake Washington to where this wonderful trail ended and then attempted to find the Sammamish River Trail to take us all the way down to Lake Sammamish (love that name). The idea was to take the SRT to the I-90 trail, the I-90 trail to the Elliot Bay Trail back to the Burke-Gilman and then to Chris and Mo's house. When the B-G Trail ended I spent about 30 minutes looking for the SRT. Despite asking a number of other cyclists and motorist, I was unsuccessful and found myself staring at the prospect of being lost. Oh well, I said, I'll just head south and will eventually hit the I-90 trail (mind you, I'm not really sure which way is south and the I-90 is about 15-20 miles away). I had been averaging about 18 miles an hour on the B-G Trail and I was feeling pretty confident. Three 25 degree climbs later, I wasn't feeling so confident. Oy, the Seattle area has some unforgiving hills. I finally found my bearings and made my way slowly (due to busy traffic and more hills) through some posh neighborhoods until finally I hit the I-90 trail. I have got to digress for a minute. Seattle is the best city I've ever ridden a bike in. Period. There are so many miles of non-motorized trails and bike paths that it boggles the mind. NYC is making strides, but are still way way way behind in this respect. The I-90 bridge is a lovely ride that goes across Mercer Island kind of the same way that the Queensboro goes over Roosevelt Island--except about 5 times as long and with a trail devoted solely to bike and pedestrian traffic. It was beautiful. The 45 degree climb that was waiting for me on the Seattle side of the bridge was not. I was having a little trouble coaxing the front derailleur to shift into Granny so I ended up pushing my bike up the final 3rd of this climb. Boo! I wandered north from this climb until I found myself at Volunteer Park. Nearly a year ago, Chris introduced me to this lovely spot. I wasn't quite able to enjoy this spot though. I had biked 50 miles so far and it was getting dark. Oh, I forgot to mention that I didn't start this ride until about 3:30 in the afternoon. I made my way to Eastlake Avenue and after crossing University Bridge, was back at casa Putnam in about 5 minutes. Overall, I'm tickled pink with the Surly. It provides an extremely tight ride. I think I may have nailed the weight distribution on the first try, but don't want to count my chickens yet. Because of the front rack, I've got a limited turn radius (the top of the rack hits the downtube if I turn too deeply, I'll need to be careful of that), but the bike seems to handle pretty well. My stopping ability isn't the greatest, especially on the downhill (again, I'll have to be careful here). I went to bed last night sore, but very happy with the initial results. Today, I'm going over to the Bicycle Alliance of Washington to meet Kent Peterson. He's the author of Kent's Bike Blog and someone who knows a great deal about long distance riding. He's also a terrific writer and has an eye for the quirky. I like the quirky too. I think we're going to have coffee and talk shop.