The Seattle Area Riders’ Gasworks Park Ride
This ride started out with me wanting to prevent another “Lazy Sunday” because I missed the Seattle Area Riders’ MUni ride last Sunday. I e-mailed all of those Washintonians, and I got a great response with 6 people including me who wanted to go for a nice ride around Seattle.
The drive there from my town, about 1.5 hours away, was really wet but when we got there it was pretty dry (in the air that is; the ground was still wet). The official attendees were Jeff Sloan, Greg Harper, John Childs, Tyler Cox (me), Ruby Sloan (on one of those two wheeled thingies), and Tom Blackwood. I was the only one on a non-geared 29er (Jeff had a Schlumph), but I kept up just fine. In fact, I even led the pack a few times!
We started off from Gasworks park and rode across the first bride, and trust me: you don’t want to look down. The even scarier part is that the rail was low enough that if you UPDed to fast you could go flyind off the multi-hundred foot drop, or into traffic on the other side. Thankfully I did neither! We got to the other side of the bridge and rode through lots of wet, puddley roads and came to a super steep hill.
This hill was no regular hill! It was so steep that even the Coker riders with breaks couldn’t tackle it! Congrats to Jeff who made it most if not all of the way down using his break and Schlumph 29er. I said, “when the people on the forums ask why you need brakes on a Coker, this hill is the answer!” We all made it down with out killing ourselves (walking that is), and rode more.
We came to a dock, and filmed some 29er wheelwalking by Jeff and me and other tricks such as spins by me. I was stupid enough to forget my camera, but Greg, Tom, and Jeff made up for that with their cameras. Speaking of cameras, hurry and make a gallery of those captures! 
The weather was still ok, although it was a little chilly. We traveled over to the lochs and took a video of us idling next to a “Shut of engine, no idling” sign. We pushed the unis through the short route through the lochs, and Greg was a true rebel and rode about 3 feet past the “$2,500 fine for bikes ridden in lochs” sign. 
Let’s just hope no policemen browse this forum! 
After the lochs, we rode through lots of streets (are you detecting the pattern?), and something funny happened: John Childs got stuck between a staggering homeless drunk while Greg, Jeff, and Tom sped ahead with not a clue. 
Thankfully I was able to squeeze past and tell them we had a sandbagger.
When were nearing the end of the ride everyone wanted beer, so we stopped at a brewery. The ones of legal age drank beer while I ate tater tots and a 1.5 shot mocha. When the waitress asked how many shots I wanted, I told her to surprise me and that’s what I got. After we were finished chowing, Jeff, Ruby, and Tom left early while Greg, John, and I waited for the bill.
When we walked outside it was raining, but because of the short ride back it wasn’t too bad. We got back, met my dad, and I headed off!
Great ride guys, I can’t wait to do it again! Thanks for coming, and especially to Harper for paying for my tots and mocha.
Tyler
), so I don’t know what he’s up to these days. 