I met bike touring family extraordinaire, Pedal Powered Family, today! They’re spending a few days in Seattle as part of their year-long adventure through North America. I didn’t get to see their bikes, but had a lovely ten-minute chat with them in the Children’s Museum. They’re amazingly nice and Heidi gamely answered all my cloth-diapers-on-the-road questions. I don’t know why, but I find the diapering aspect the most intriguing part of touring with toddlers. I’d love to take a multi-day bike trip with the kids and feel a bit unadventurous for having waited so long that diapers won’t be part of the equation.

I just had the front passenger along today–his big brother stayed home with a cold. That meant we could take a spin around the International Fountain, which felt quite fitting today given the gloomy weather. Bike Snob NYC called it “a fountain in their velodrome” when visiting Seattle in March. This was my first time riding inside the fountain and I declare it an absolute must for “To do in Seattle on bike” lists.

We took the new buffered Dexter bike lane home. It’s just as nice as the southbound lane we took a few days ago. Interestingly, there are no busty bike lane icons on this side of the street. Several of the symbols at the bottom of the hill are augmented in various ways, though.

Today was the first day I wore Mr. Family Ride’s Endura Luminite jacket. It handled the rain wonderfully and even though it’s much to big for me, it didn’t feel uncomfortable. I should have worn a thin long sleeved layer under it because the plasticky fabric made my arms sweaty. I think I’ll have many rainy days to fine tune my rain outfit.

Today’s miles: 9.6 miles
October cumulative: 178.0 miles
Days missed: 3

The Seattle Aquarium’s octopus bike rack is back! It’s probably been accessible since shortly after our last visit, but we don’t make it down here very often. And since this was our first time locking up to the octopus, I hadn’t previously noticed the overhang. I had our seat-covering rain bags along, but it was nice not to have to use them. Thanks, aquarium!

We headed home through the Ballard Locks and stopped to watch a large barge enter the big lock. That was the exciting part of the return trip for the kids, but I was elated to run into Haulin’ Colin by the train yard. The bad news was all six of his black Rolling Jackass center stands are spoken for, but the good news is it will be six weeks or less before more are ready.

Colin was on his way back from Seattle Powder Coat, which was our next destination. It’s not the most kid-friendly place with colored metal pipes hanging at shortie eye level just asking to be clanged together. Fortunately it was just a quick visit to confirm the swatch I liked on my laptop looked the same in person. Otherwise I may have resorted to plopping the children in the big blue recycling cage to have a few minutes of quiet to study colors.

You may have guessed from the mentions of Haulin’ Colin and Seattle Powder Coat that I’ve got a new bike in the works. I don’t want to jinx things by saying anything more about it just yet, but it’s very exciting and as soon as it’s in my garage I’ll let the cat out of the bag.

Wednesday’s miles: 4.4 miles
Yesterday’s miles: 4.4 miles
Today’s miles: 16.7 miles
October cumulative: 168.4 miles
Days missed: 3

If you like bike lane symbols with boobs, check out the southbound Dexter Avenue bike lane. I think one of them is visible in Seattle Bike Blog’s video of the new lane. I’d been on Dexter northbound once–before the new buffered lanes were painted on–but figured southbound was too steep. Turns out, it’s not. It doesn’t have the train track appeal of Westlake, but the kids were excited to be in a new bike lane. It’s not a divided bike lane, but the painted buffer zone is great, as are the traffic islands for the bus stops. I don’t think I’d ride it during commute hours when it’s crowded with faster bikes, but we’ll use it again.

Today’s destination was Pike Place Market, but we ended up all the way down at the waterfront (had to get some train track viewing in) so I cheated and took an elevator back up. This time I took the elevator on the side of the market parking garage. It didn’t go all the way up to the skybridge so I still had a block of slight climb up Western. I think I’ve hit every elevator other than the parking-garage-to-skybridge one, but that would probably be too crowded for comfort.

We took Westlake home, but we’ll check out the northbound buffered bike lane some day soon.

Today’s miles: 15.4 miles
October cumulative: 142.9 miles
Days missed: 3

We ran a couple Halloween-related errands by bike today: white pants for a costume (similar, but even better than last year’s sharrow) and mini pumpkins to decorate the porch.

After drawing faces on the pumpkins, the boys took them out for a spin in their balance bike baskets. Naturally, we headed for Halloweeny house around the corner to infuse the new pumpkins with spooky spirit.

Yesterday’s miles: 0 miles
Today’s miles: 10.6 miles
October cumulative: 127.5 miles
Days missed: 3

A troll tucked under the Aurora Bridge is nice, but a mountain bike park under the freeway is brilliant. We discovered it on our way to Capitol Hill. I don’t think I found the easiest route, but I was able to make it without walking. The first uphill block, on Roanoke alongside Rogers Playground was steep, but short, and there’s a nice one-block path behind the park.

The path under the freeway was nice and wide and the mountain bike trails were impressive. I didn’t try any of the trails, but I wouldn’t mind going back with the mountain bike to check out the easy Tqalu Trail.

Google maps suggested I take a left on Belmont, but it looked pretty steep and I could see the inviting Melrose Trail straight ahead so we went rogue. I arbitrarily chose Thomas Street as my left-turn hill and instantly regretted it. I think I normally wouldn’t have made it up the steep bricky block, but I was determined to make it to Capitol Hill all in the saddle. Next time I think I’ll stay on Melrose all the way to Pine and see how that works. But hopefully next time won’t be too soon.

Today’s miles: 10.0 miles
October cumulative: 116.9 miles
Days missed: 2

Oxbow Park was so fun last week we had to go again. I wanted to bike the whole way down, not because I was in the mood for an hour-long ride, but because I wasn’t sure about putting the arm of the bus bike rack on my fender. Unfortunately the kids were really looking forward to the Westlake Transit Tunnel so the bus it was.

I’d been putting the bike rack arm directly on the tire, in front of the fender, but when someone tried to help me last week and wanted to put it on the fender I took to Twitter to ask VeloBusDriver because that seemed easier than checking the Metro site. Now I know that yes, one should put the arm on the fender and not worry about it getting squished, but this morning I hadn’t yet decided what to do and just let the friendly guy who ran up and wanted to help put the arm where he wanted to (on the fender). It weathered the ride just fine and on the way home I noticed the sticker right on the arm of the rack making it clear to squish the fender.

Once we were Hat n’ Booted out, we took the 124 bus to King Street Station again, but didn’t take the long route along the waterfront home this time. Last week we discovered the tree sweaters are gone from Pioneer Square, but today we found a new batch in City Hall Park.

We had to get creative with layers on the way home. I had the foresight to bring a towel along to remove overnight rain from the slides, but I didn’t account for the boys playing in the drinking fountain and getting all wet. Wrapping the big kid in my sweater did the trick for him, but the little kid wouldn’t trade his damp sweater for dry jacket and seemed to be OK with just the addition of mittens. Time to become a better Pacific Northwesterner and travel with more layers.

Today’s miles: 14.8 miles
October cumulative: 106.9 miles
Days missed: 2

I made it up Fremont Avenue with just the front passenger! We stopped halfway up to watch a squirrel and take a picture of a cool mosaic, but I could have made it in one go. Looking at the picture of the bike, I’m feeling tempted to replace the black tire with a red wall to match. Poor sloppy Milano.

I thought we were meeting friends at the zoo for a leisurely stroll so I bungeed the stroller to the bike, but the plan changed to a ramble through Woodland Park. I hadn’t been to this part of the park since last year’s cyclocross race here. Last year we had one entrant in the kiddie category, but we’ll try to get them both on the course this year. I’m contemplating trying it myself, too–eek! I’ve heard beginners can borrow a bike. I’m not so jazzed about the fact that juniors race at the same time as beginners and ten-year olds will lap me as I struggle aroung the course.

This afternoon, we took advantage of the rare sunny day and headed to South Lake Union Park for Floating Farmers Market aboard our favorite boat, the Virginia V. This was our first visit since the fish taco (and other tasty items) vendor joined up. And my other favorite, Hart Coffee is still aboard.

Lunch and frolickng aboard the ship wasn’t enough Virginia V for the boys so on our way home we stopped in the Armchair Sailor on Westlake to admire the $650 scale model of her. Unfortunately, someone bought her and it was the last one. But even the disappointed boys couldn’t fault the sweet story–a man who’d been married aboard the ship (I’m imagining 50 years ago, but it’s probably much more recent) was overjoyed to see the model and had to have it.

Yesterday’s miles: 0.2 miles
Today’s miles: 14.4 miles
October cumulative: 92.1 miles
Days missed: 2

Today was Bike Expo day all over again. A jacket I thought was rainproof proved to be no match for the deluge that hit within minutes of leaving the house. It’s twelve years old and has never faced more than a drizzle. It made for a miserable ride, but at least the kids were dry. Tomorrow I think I’ll trade my ladies medium for Mr. Family Ride’s mens large Endura Luminite Jacket I got for him from Ride Bicycles. Notice the tags are still on it. I got it eons ago and it’s time it got to go on a ride.

Yesterday’s miles: 9.0 miles
Today’s miles: 9.1 miles
October cumulative: 77.5 miles
Days missed: 2

I’m a sucker for oversized landmarks so when I discovered Oxbow Park on Monday, I couldn’t wait to get down there to check out the 22-foot-high cowboy boots and 44-foot-wide cowboy hat. We took it easy and biked to the Downtown Transit Tunnel and caught a bus most of the way there. The monstrous Americana was everything I’d hoped and next time perhaps we’ll bike all the way down.

On the bus back towards downtown, the boys caught sight of the King Street Station and suggested we get off there to see some trains. That led to a spin through Occidental Park where we watched Downtown Throwdown being setup. We’ll try to get down to see a bit of it tomorrow. On our way there we discovered Waterfall Garden Park which the boys thought was too cool, but I thought was rather funny: there was lots of seating and several groups of people in park, but it was SO LOUD I don’t see how anyone could enjoy the place.

We took the long way home through the locks and saw an airplane-fuselage-carrying freight train–one of our favorites. We hit up Dutch Bike Co (from here on out to be called “Dutch Bike Co Beeeenana”) for bananas. But even better, Travis caught sight of me and came running with an allen key to tighten various stuff up on my bike. It seems I’ve successfully demonstrated to him how incompetent I am.

While waiting for the bus north, I saw a tweet by Totcyle about the Hilliard’s Brewery grand opening featuring Skillet Street Food so we crashed the party. The can-shaped glasses (third picture down) were adorable, but I don’t know if the drinkers got to keep them; my root beer came in a small plastic cup. A four pack of cans came home with us (in my bag, not in the kid’s lap).

Yesterday’s miles: 4.2 miles
Today’s miles: 25.4 miles
October cumulative: 72.7 miles
Days missed: 1