A stylish French-themed cruise from a cheese shop to a wine shop to a baguette shop and, finally, to Gas Works Park for a picnic? Count me in.
Hub & Bespoke (a SBB advertiser) hosted a Bastille Day ride Saturday, just one of of MANY events on what might be among the bikiest days in Seattle history. I was not able to make it to everything myself, so if you have stories and/or links to photos of your adventures, add them in the comments below.
Of course, the biggest event of the day was the start of Cascade Bicycle Club’s annual Seattle to Portland ride. About 10,000 people departed Saturday morning for the 202-mile trek. Biking Bis was on Lake Washington Boulevard in the morning and got some good photos of people in the first miles of their journeys.
Here are some good tweets from the road:
Mile 0: let’s do this! #bikeSTP twitter.com/jordanrickard/…
— Jordan Rickard (@jordanrickard) July 14, 2012
1st rest stop in the #bikeSTP twitter.com/erinbudzius/st…
— Erin Budzius (@erinbudzius) July 14, 2012
Centralia! Official halfway point of #BikeSTP and home to thousands of bikers/campers! twitter.com/ppatulot/statu…
— patrick patulot (@ppatulot) July 15, 2012
The ride was not without some crashes, though. Brad got some of the worst of it in the final miles just north of the Portland finish line:
Right hooked by car @ m199, 4 hrs in ER, walked across the #bikeSTP finish line Sat. 7pm & they gave me a 1 day patch. twitter.com/ZappoMan/statu…
— Brad Hefta-Gaub (@ZappoMan) July 15, 2012
The ride was even visible from the air:
Just looked down from 6000′ in the airplane and saw bicyclists near Scapoose on their way to the finish line! #BikeSTP
— Jeffrey Mirsepasy (@WestSeattleLaw) July 15, 2012
Comments
3 responses to “STP, French Revolution Ride + more: How was your bike-filled weekend?”
My bike-filled weekend was spent walking, then driving from bike-shop to bike-shop in Wallingford/Green-lake to find a replacement derailleur-hanger for my weird frame.
Then, on Sunday, buying a utility-bike to ride while Performance orders the part (still don’t know when I’ll get it).
Lesson: don’t buy bikes not made by real manufacturers (Scattante doesn’t count)
Bummer!
There’s always the Craigslist bike-renting system: Buy a bike on craigslist, ride it for as long as you need, then sell it for the same price…
Once again I loved STP. Riding in pretend pelotons, yelling goofy jokes, and the amazing variety of cyclists on the road. One dude did the whole thing with a New Belgium Brewing cruiser and flip flops. I also saw lots of little kids on their own bikes pumping away at the miles. Mind boggling. All around a great and awesome event. Really inspiring.
Now I’m departing to tomorrow for an 11 day bike camping trip on Vancouver Island and the San Juans. Life is good!
Unfortunately, I did witness one bad crash in Portland. A guy went down (don’t know why, maybe he was tired) and his two riding buddies crash into him. It was horrifying to watch for behind, but nobody was seriously hurt. Physically anyways, since it must have been upsetting to crash badly at mile 202. The bike I pulled out of the middle of the street was totally trashed. Incidentally, I was telling my riding buddy the day before that my greatest STP fear is getting caught up in someone else’s crash. There was also a section early on day two that a lot of people seemed to crash on. I saw at least two casualties in a mile. It wasn’t a tricky part, just a straight section of road on a five foot berm that people seemed to fall down. Weird.