Our bus didn’t show to take us to the dental x-ray place today! I had a plan B worked out, but that involved transferring to a different second bus in case the first bus was more than five minutes late. I didn’t even consider biking because the place is next to Northgate Mall and after having biked to the mall once–on my light road bike–I deemed it too hilly to carry kids to. This means I didn’t bother checking that old post for my saved route ideas ahead of time so when I decided once it was clear our bus wasn’t coming, we speed walked two blocks home to grab helmets and bike and followed Google maps directions for this route that wasn’t too bad.

I liked the section along 1st Ave NE between NE 85th St and NE 92nd St because it was flat, but also because it was lined with bike dot wayfinding markings. I love the old bike dots!

It also had speed bumps that appeared to have been smushed flat with age.

And on College Way N by North Seattle Community College I saw the new protected bike lane. This lane used to have the buffer against the curb–I assumed because it tended to fill with debris. This is much better, though I have a feeling it fills with parked cars for drop offs and pickups at certain times of day. Quite a few of the flexiposts were gone, most likely taken taken out by cars.

In the southbound direction there were no flexiposts, but buffers on each side of the bike lane. I don’t think I’ve seen this in Seattle before. I like that it has sufficient space carved out to someday swap the bike lane and parking lane to make it safer.

It was all uphill getting there which wasn’t pleasant, but meant it would be all downhill heading home. One of the many thoughts that went through my head during the 40-minute ride was that if it was too hilly to want to bike home with the kids, I could always leave my bike behind and bus the kids to school and then return to pedal the empty bike home.

One more thing:

Once I had the kids tucked away at school, I brought our tandem bike to R+E Cycles to get the kidback put back on, removed six weeks ago. If we can finish up Saturday’s Kidical Mass early enough, we’ll take the tandem camping.

30 Days of Biking stats:
April 19 miles: 9.9
April cumulative miles: 311.5