Namesake?

Here's the answer to the musical question, 'What's a Bleriot?'

Real Life

It's been a tough few days for some friends out there in the Blogosphere.....

Elden is the Fat Cyclist, and Team Leader for Team Fatty, the group with whom I rode in Livestrong.

Lisa is the Wild Celtic Rose, constant Blogger, FB and Twitter poster, triathlete and medical volunteer for Cascade.

Choose life. Cancer sucks. Addiction is a life-denying illness and poison.

Link Light Rail

A fine weekend indeed, finishing with a 40+ mile ride in perfect Seattle summer weather. We've had a string of those in the past week, almost payback for last winter and spring. I've started to use this Airport Way, South Seattle loop as a training run, as the neighborhoods are interesting, there's little traffic on the weekends, Pioneer Square coffee and treats stops are convenient, and the route is somewhat flat. Pleasant alternative to the Eastside loops through Yuppieville.

After an early dinner at the Shanghai Garden, we walked down to the International District station to ride Link light rail yesterday, the first day of service. And, we rode the entire line! Great to ride through the Rainier Valley and see neighborhoods that we just don't get to very often. Plenty of places to explore, restaurants to frequent, now so easily accesible. The line goes all the way to Tukwila, with a shuttle to the airport for now, but by year end the promise is delivery to SeaTac. It will be interesting to see how this rail service changes how people commute as well as what happens to the places around the stops. But for now, we give the service two thumbs up.

Four weeks until RSVP. Should be ready, once the Bleriot gets a little tune-up.

STP - 2009

No, I'm not riding the STP this year, for the 2nd year in a row. Instead, I volunteered for Cascade Bike Club, handing out packets, bib numbers and those funny paper jackets at REI on Friday and then at the starting line, starting at 4:00 a.m. on Saturday. Got to see most of the 10,000 riders cross the line to head down to Portland for 204 miles. They picked a good weekend for the event, with 80+ degree weather and a tailwind.

Great people to work with, and riders were a fun, excited and interesting lot, most adrenaline-pumped and ready-to-go, a few intimidated, and a couple a little surly after not getting the right size paper jacket. Can't please everyone.

The SeaTimes had a writer on the ride, and he posted here. One noteworthy post includes a description of the revenues and profits from the event.

Sunday afternoon, view from Myrtle Edwards Park. One of the behemoth cruise ships headed north to Alaska.

The weather turned back to what passes for normal around here on Sunday, with the old-fashioned Great Northwest marine air-conditioning kicking in Saturday night, with Sunday filled with a southwest wind, rain, thunderstorms for those 2 day riders. I circumnavigated Boeing field, about 30 miles, and beat the downpour home by about a half hour. In retrospect, had I ridden STP, I would have been one of the poor souls who rolled into Holladay Plaza soaked to the bone.

A Good Ol' Fashioned 4th of July

A fine 4th of July, it was! Summer weather, hot and dry, not normal for Seattle, where Independence Day usually is wet and cool. Z came down from Vancouver, bringing three friends. One of them was the Aussie, a chef who had shared their house for a month or two while settling down, and it was his first trip to the States.

So, we ate. Bar-B-Q, corn on the cob, baked beans, strawberry shortcake and a salmon on the grill.

Such a great couple of days of eating that I had to get out on the 5th and put in over 35 miles, this time circumnavigating Boeing Field on a long, relatively flat ride.