My first New England fall wowed me the way young love hits everyone. I’d left home mere weeks before and carried the primed disposition of someone champing for their crack at the world. When the electric oranges, reds and yellows conquered the trees my retinas swooned. In all the years since, no place I visited impressed me with the same degree of startling beauty … until Seattle. Last fall I recall commenting to anyone who would listen, “I have never seen a place that’s still beautiful when it rains.”
It’s with this backdrop in mind that I accepted Cascade Bicycle Club’s invitation to join them for an event they held last weekend, the Emerald City Ride. Seattle’s nickname is the Emerald City, due in large part to just how green all of the things are. Moss-covered roofs substitute for Southern California’s ever-present Spanish tile. The Emerald City Ride starts just south of downtown in the Chinatown district, near the big sports stadia. It’s an unusual place to hold a bike ride, but starting there allows Cascade to do something that cyclists can’t otherwise do, like ever:
The ride commandeers Hwy 99 before heading over the West Seattle Bridge, which is also closed to cyclists every day of the year, except for this ride. When I spoke with people doing the rides as well as friends who were aware of the ride, but not doing it this year, they all commented on this detail. Riders revere Cascade Bicycle Club for the sheer fact that the organization has enough pull with the city to get Hwy 99 and the West Seattle Bridge closed to cars for even a minute.
When we rolled out, temperatures hovered in the upper 40s, while a brilliant blue sky shown overhead. For April in Seattle, all the participants seemed thrilled with the weather. And with a length of 20 miles, the ride brought out fathers and mothers with kids, people on ebikes, folks on their daily commuters, casual road riders with flat pedals, even people on mountain bikes and eMTBs. I saw any number of tandems and cargo ebikes laden with offspring.
We hadn’t ridden even a mile when we steered onto the on-ramp for Hwy 99. The turn seemed normal enough until we got to the bit where we merged with the highway and my sense of my surroundings suddenly seemed weird. I don’t ride on elevated highways on my bike. Soon enough, though, the West Seattle Bridge came into view and you could see hundreds of people on it, some pedaling away, some stopped to take in the view—the nearly half-mile-long bridge soars more than 140 feet above the Duwamish River—and still others snapping selfies with friends.
To our left, views of the port gave way to the Seattle skyline, with the Space Needle piercing the blue on the left. To our ride, the rolling hills of Seattle barely registered because all I could focus on was the looming mass of Mount Rainier. In the morning light, it was still somewhat backlit, and clouds clung to its slopes, but with the air so clear, the view of the mountain would have wowed any curmudgeon.
My companion for the ride was Steve Gluckman, a bike industry veteran. If you purchased a Novara or Co-Op bike from REI in the last 30 years, there’s a fair chance he was the product manager behind it. He’s been away a few years and in that time done some worth with ebike maker Tern (he was responsible for the fat-tired Oso). Steve lives in West Seattle and was visibly excited to ride Hwy 99 and the West Seattle Bridge.
I’ve done plenty of rides where I wasn’t a local and reveled in seeing a place with fresh eyes, one others know intimately. This was different. The gravity of everyone’s excitement reversed roles and it was the locals who were seeing a place they know intimately, but with fresh eyes. And that gave me a ringside seat to the enchantment of others, but with no bias of my own.
The ride along the water and around Alki Point was similar to many coastal rides I’ve done, with seven and eight-figure homes looking out on unobstructed views, but with one significant difference. Views took in the winding coastline of Bainbridge Island and the crossing ferries. I’m not sure that seeing a ferry will ever stop being novel for me.
We saw no orcas, but the view of Alki left little question in my mind why the first white settlers would happen upon and it decide the view was worth sticking around. The weather forced a move, possibly the first time white settlers were humbled by a Seattle winter.
With our southerly run along the West Seattle coast complete, we turned left and climbed a succession of hills that demonstrated just how strong even casual Seattle riders are. But it was the final run on a bike path that paralleled the coast of the harbor that had Steve and another rider we encountered giddy with the improvements Seattle had made for cyclists. The path, hapharzardly decorated with wild California poppies made passage through the shipping hub a breeze.
At just 20 miles, the ride wasn’t challenging the way your average fondo is, but its brevity was more than offset by views that justify vacations. And I wasn’t alone in this assessment. More than 1600 people turned out for the event and this one, thanks to skies clear as Windexed glass, offered views that an experienced Seattle cyclist would know better than to bet for. I can sum up the combined experience of good weather, terrific company, unparalleled views and once-a-year course design in a single word: Boxcars.