Last Kidical Mass was a big one! 4.5 miles doesn’t look big in pixels, but U-District to Central District is hilly. Even when you take extreme care to use the flattest route possible…which we always do! Here’s a link to our route in Google maps and my smartphone lock screen map image with BIG easy-to-read streets in case you’d like to recreate our ride.

After picking up a dad and baby shortly after heading out and picking up another dad and kid at Miller Playfield, we numbered 29 by the time we arrived to Chuck’s Central District Hop Shop. That’s a lot! Especially for this time of year, with such an early start time (9:30 a.m.), and such a long ride. The forecast looked OK, but it started drizzling during the ride and didn’t let up the rest of the day.

See all the pictures from the ride here: Flickr album: Kidical Mass to Chuck’s Hop Shop CD – January 10, 2015

Here’s one of the rare steep downhills (most everything else was moderate or steep uphill) on our ride over, through the parking lot of the St. Demetrios Greek Orthodox Church in Montlake. Don’t worry, it was followed by a steep uphill to climb out the other side of the parking lot. I hear there are plans to complete the alley adjacent to the church, connecting 19th Ave East which will hopefully be less up-and-down.

My seven-year old biked the entire ride, there and back, and my five-year old only wanted to hitch a ride twice–first for a few blocks and the second time he changed his mind and hopped off before the others had finished stripping extra layers and watering their passengers. This worked out well because he’s a beast up through Interlaken Park and just like during last April’s Silly Hilly ride, he charged ahead while I hung back with his big brother. I think once my seven-year old gets proficient at using the gears on his Islabikes Beinn 20 Large, he’ll be much faster, but right now, the single-speed CNOC 16 is impossible to ride slow uphill. Fortunately, a couple other Cascade Bicycle Club ride leaders had come along for fun, so I swapped spots and brought up the rear for the hard part.

Another bonus was that my empty deck meant I could scoop up two sisters so their mom could have an easier trip up on her new Xtracycle. And since my five-year old was far out of sight by this point, he couldn’t see the interloper in his seat and insist on taking it back.

South of Interlaken, we ducked into the alley between 19th and 20th…where we encountered a ROAD CLOSED blockade. I patted the new cement and determined it dry so we picked our way through. Can’t stop Kidical Mass!

That’s the family that runs Spoke & Food heading through first. It’s one of our favorite events and we’ll bike to a participating restaurant on July 29th–save that date!

Chuck’s was packed! I had hoped arriving near the beginning of the all-day/all-night celebration would mean we’d have the place to ourselves, but that wasn’t the case at all. I think we should repeat this ride in the summer where there’s nothing special going on. With a playground pitstop included.

I leave you with a blurry photo of my five-year old and a heart-shaped puddle–just before he took over ride leader duties and led the fast crew through Interlaken.