Biking Seattle

Starting anything new can be intimidating. If you don’t know the culture, the layout or how things are done, getting up to speed in any activity is daunting, especially if everyone you see looks like an expert.

No matter how familiar you are with an area in a car, it is an entirely different place on a bike. The major auto routes become places to be avoided, and the side streets that frustrate in a car can reveal wonderful surprises on a bike. There is also a feeling of vulnerability, especially at first. I know some people who hesitate to ride a bike in a city out of nervousness about sharing the streets with cars and trucks. Most city streets don’t bother me, although I try to stay away from multi-lane arterials if there’s not space for a bike on the side. The feeling is, the faster traffic is going, the less likely they are to notice or make way for a cyclist.

I didn’t expect any of this to be an issue the other day when I wandered outside for a brief afternoon ride. I’d noticed a trail on the Seattle bike map paralleling the ship canal to the south, on the opposite side of the water from the Burke-Gilman, and decided to take a look.

Fremont bike counter

From the map, it appeared to be easy enough to head south over the Fremont Bridge, take the Ship Canal Trail to the Ballard Bridge to get back north across the water and then the Burke-Gilman home. A quick loop on a new trail.

And everything was easy enough to start. I got my first look at the new Fremont Bridge bike counter and made my mark as No. 1,775 of the day. Crossing the bridge and finding the trail was easy enough, even though the trail is well below bridge level there’s an easy access point, then you’re cruising on a slightly isolated trail, biking in the new fall of red, orange and yellow leaves from the overhead trees with the lazy water of the ship canal every-so-slightly rippling to the right.

Going west, the atmosphere of the trail quickly moves from wooded wonderland to behind-the-scenes industrial, as it winds behind heavy machinery parking lots and train track along the canal to the Ballard Bridge.

And here is where my proposed route stopped being easy. The map seemed to show an easy connection to go northbound on the Ballard Bridge. Instead, it goes under the bridge and keeps going for a few more blocks. As I got past the bridge, I assumed I missed a connection and cycled out to where the trail ended at a bus stop, then circled back to the bridge. At which point I became completely confused. Despite the colored connection on my bike map (which failed me for the first time), there is no immediately apparent way to get from the bike trail to the bridge a few stories above. For the first time in Seattle, I felt lost without a sense of how to get where I wanted. Coming toward the bridge from the west, a yellow bike sign seemed to mock me with its complete ambiguity: was it a beacon to bikers looking for the bike path under the bridge? Or a warning to cars that bikes would be sharing the on-ramp to the bridge, an option which seemed to be the only path to the bridge but also a completely uninviting option for me, as the lack of shoulder and steep-enough incline ensured speeded cars would be displeased by my presence.

Eventually I noticed a sidewalk leading up to the southbound side of the bridge, so I took it up to scout, trying to determine if there was a path wide enough to ride against traffic, or perhaps an option to cross to the other side.

Instead, what I found was a terrifying option: not only was there no way to cross, but even if I had, the “sidewalk” was simply an elevated curb which appeared to be about eight inches wide. It seemed like an unpleasant experience to try even to walk next to the traffic with no protection or barrier, much less ride across.

Entering the locks

So instead, I opted for plan B, which happened to be a nice excuse to check out a sight I hadn’t yet been to: the Ballard locks. It’s not an ideal option for crossing the water if you’re in a hurry, as you have to dismount and walk across the pedestrian path, but even after going a couple miles out of the way and walking across, it seemed far superior to braving the Ballard Bridge.

The locks also came with an added bonus. I wasn’t in a hurry, so I got to stop and enjoy the surrounding park and watch a sailboat make its way through the locks east on the canal. The way back meant navigating the missing link to join the Burke-Gilman, which turned out not to be a problem even though I unintentionally found myself on Shilshole Ave. Since traffic was all headed northwest and I was moving southeast, I felt fine even without a shoulder or other bike concessions on Shilshole. A few blocks later I was back on the Burke-Gilman and then back in Fremont.

Before heading up the hill to finish my ride, however, I couldn’t resist one last stop, and found the troll under the bridge.

Fremont troll