10.8 miles today and the kids biked all but 1.2 of those! (That was a quick solo trip to the vet for a doggie prescription. Oh, and I carried the seven-year old the steepest half mile in the middle while his little brother rode off ahead with the rest of the group!)

We started our big day off by negotiating our way along the now-bigger-and-more-confusing Burke-Gilman Trail detour.

I think we missed the first turn-off for the Montlake Bridge, but coming from this direction was probably better for biking kids. When that pedestrian/bike bridge we’re heading towards is finished, things will be great.

Our first stop was the newly redesigned Montlake Playground. It’s huge! And the kids did fine on the route over…though it may have been a bit too uphill for them had we retraced our route on the way home. But we’ll do a test reverse run and think about bringing a Kidical Mass here once the trail detours are done.

I was particularly impressed with this big climbing structure, though I worry it’d be too enticing for kids too small to use it (actually, more worried for their parents who’d try in vain to convince them to play on one of the many smaller play structures).

We hung out at the park for an hour or so and then headed to Montlake Elementary for Silly Hilly (yes, that’s me on the poster), a route finding scavenger hunt extravaganza for Central Seattle Neighborhood Greenways. Here we are lined up with the Blue Team, one of four teams.

This was our route. I kind of cheated choosing Blue Team…I’m leading a Critical Lass ride to Pedaler’s Fair in a week and used this as route testing for that, too.

We documented many potholes and problem intersections (and some good stuff, too), but the best was the required three silly team pictures. First up: “I see Sasquatch!” at the end of the car-free portion of Interlaken Park:

Blue Team silly picture number two: passed out and waiting for the bus at the top of Interlaken Park:

And Blue Team silly picture number three: throwing shakas because we just successfully crossed busy Aloha:

We followed the signs for University Bridge through Interlaken Park on our way home and since I couldn’t remember how busy the route was, I let the kids ride on their own. And it was pretty busy! But they were having a blast riding in the road so we didn’t resort to the sidewalk until Harvard Ave E.

Which turned out to be a good call because as soon as it joined Eastlake, we were met with a taxi in the bike lane.

But just after the taxi we got back in the street so they could cross the University Bridge in the bike lane. It was a little nerve-wracking for me, but they did great. It is very hard to adjust to both kids riding separately when I’m so used to getting to carry them everywhere. It’s a lot easier when one is tired and on the bike and I only have one to focus on.

Of course a big, wide bus drove by us as we were passing this sign in the bike lane. Wouldn’t it be nice if the city had construction signs that attached high up on light poles?

The construction indicated by those bike lane signs was a little confusing, too. I had just convinced the kids I should load them and their bikes onto the cargo bike when we saw a biker take the closed road with the blessing of the construction works who had been gesturing something at us that I couldn’t decipher (I guess it was, “Come on down, the road’s fine!”). So I unloaded the bikes and we took the empty blockaded road that brought us back to familiar territory.

Today worked out OK, but we need more Silly Hillys–and the resulting Neighborhood Greenways from them–so these little guys can really ride all over town.

Today’s miles: 10.8 miles
April cumulative: 379 miles

Bikes ridden: 1
April cumulative: 7

Dogs: 0
April cumulative: 17