Tool Sale!
If you are reading this, then I would HOPE you are already aware, but Saturday, 5/31, is our big spring tool sale! As with last year, it will be at the Shoreline Tool Library, and our recent blog post can give you all the important details. As for the Bike Shack, we are going to be having a more official bike-related area than we did last year, down behind the main building. We will be selling all sorts of bikes and bike-related stuff. We were planning on having more, but our recent sales this spring went so well that we are working harder just to keep up with demand! We will have public info about our efforts to get more used bikes soon, but in the meantime, we still have plenty of bikes and bike parts that will be up for sale. If that interests you, come around back and say hi on Saturday!
New workbench!
Next Wednesday, we will be building up a new and improved workbench at Shoreline for the Bike Shack. This has been a long time coming. Our current workbench is actually just an old door André and I cut up and attached some 2 by 4s to. It has performed admirably over the last year, but we need a bit more surface area (and one that isn't so wobbly…). If you want to help out, Colin and I will be working on the new workbench and reorganizing a bit next Wednesday, June 4th.
We have more bike classes coming up!
Obviously, we will continue to offer our regular basic maintenance classes at NESTL and STL, so keep a lookout for those if you are interested. They fill up quickly in the summer! The next class at NESTL will be June 9th, and the next class at STL will be June 17th. Great time to get your bike ready for riding season!
Plus, due to a generous grant from the City of Shoreline, we will be offering two discounted classes this summer. One will be a roadside repair class, which will focus on keeping your bike running even when it breaks down away from home. The other is our “how to buy a used bike” class, which will be a discussion on how to find a used bike in the Seattle area, keep the cost reasonable, know if a bike fits you, and assess the condition of a bike quickly. These new classes have not been scheduled yet, but will be going up soon. The classes will be offered at a reduced rate of $10 to all community members.
New Seattle Bike Paths!
There is a lot of construction in the Seattle area (as always…), but in the last few years, there have been huge improvements to our bicycle network! I wanted to highlight a couple that you might want to check out this summer.
First of all, the new waterfront bike path is finally open. It runs from Pier 66 all the way to T-Mobile Park (I almost just typed Safeco Field, wow, I’m getting old). Later this summer, construction will be completed connecting the south end of the trail to the Spokane St trail and the north end to the Olympic Sculpture Park.
I’ll admit, I was skeptical of the design of this path when it first started getting built. I was worried that all the tourists along the waterfront wouldn’t realize it was even a bike path at all and just walk along it like another sidewalk. As someone who bikes on this path every day as part of my commute to work, I can happily announce that I was proven wrong. Sure, a stray family or lost couple will wander into the bike path occasionally, but it is so rare that I barely notice it. I was holding off on making a final judgment until cruise ship season started, but I can report that it really isn't a problem. The path is beautiful, well lit, and really shows the effort that Seattle is putting into making downtown more biker-friendly. And it CERTAINLY beats trying to bike through the crowd by the piers, or trying to weave through the 24/7 traffic jam that Alaskan Way becomes every summer. I could write a whole article about how confused I am that drivers even try to drive on Alaskan Way during rush hour, but I am trying to keep this brief!
All in all, I would recommend that every biker in the Seattle area take a ride on the new waterfront at least once this summer. Don’t treat it like a race track, and watch out for stray pedestrians. Just soak in the great vibes, the beautiful mountain views, and appreciate just how much better the waterfront is without the Viaduct!
(Credit: Seattle.gov)
The other new Seattle bike improvement I wanted to point out is the Cheasty Mountain Bike Trail project in Rainier Vista. This one has really gone under the radar, but I believe it deserves high praise. If you don't know, Evergreen Mountain Bike has been working with Seattle to build a network of mountain bike trails *within* the city limits. And this isn't just a pump track or a few small jump features. It’s actually 2 miles of trails that zigzag through the Cheasty Greenbelt with both beginner and intermediate routes (the blue trails aren’t quite open yet, but are set to open in June).
I think this is awesome for a lot of reasons. The PNW is legendary for its mountain biking, and Seattle is doing a great job of cementing itself as a mountain biker-friendly city with these great new trails that are so easily accessible. We technically already have an urban mountain bike trail in Eastlake under I5, but this new trail network is much larger, more beginner-friendly, and doesn't have the “under a super loud and polluted overpass” problem (however, the I5 Colonnade is getting a revamp this summer as well!).
And the best part? The Cheasty mountain bike trails are *literally* a 5-minute walk from the Columbia City light rail station. It doesn't get more convenient than that! This is a great opportunity for adults and kids who want to get into mountain biking, people who want to get some practice in before hitting the big trails this summer, or just those looking for a good time outside without having to drive through hours of traffic into the mountains. More info about the trails can be found here.
And what's that you say? You don’t have a mountain bike, and new ones cost like $5,000? Well, you're in luck! Because used mountain bikes at the tool library are nowhere near $5,000 and are more than enough to get started and rip up some trails!
Hope to see you all this Saturday!
- Ryan
