by Adron

Zoka Coffee

After hanging out at SEAFAB I jumped on my steed and road via the Burke Gilman over to Zoka Coffee. This is a coffee shop I’ve been to a zillion times, albeit before the pandemic broke things. I headed over to the coffee shop and the first thing I noticed was the times on the door are very different than they were when I’d previously hung out at Zoka. The hours now are 8 to 5pm, where as they place didn’t close up until about 9pm previous to the pandemic. Hopefully those hours can come back one day!

Negatives

There aren’t many negatives to this location. There is of course, a street that isn’t busy, but always a bunch of parked cars and kind of – by world standard – a shit street out front. But out back of the place the Burke Gilman trail passes by, which is most excellent for connectivity. The front also has a good width sidewalk too however and there are some staple racks out front for at least ~4 bikes if not more. They’re the funny overly long old school Seattle staple racks, so always a little odd to rack up to compared to a standard length one. Overall a decent store front and good access, but more on that under the positives.

For now, the enumerated few negatives.

  1. I don’t really like the raod, but it’s America and it’s not that bad. By USA standards it’s really low traffic and nice so hard to make this a negative, but I aim for a balanced review of all the places I’m going.
  2. that’s it really… I can’t really conjure up any negatives.

Positives

  1. The top thing I love about this Zoka location is that it is pretty open and has multiple rooms or areas in which you can sit.
  2. The next best thing is they’ve got pretty decent coffee. They’ve also got a number of tea and related options, simple bites to eat, and other items to mix and match as you’d like.
  3. There are numerous wall sockets.
  4. The wifi is more reliable than not, making it a good choice to catch an internet call, just get some work done, or anything that might require a little connectivity.
  5. This coffee shop rates up there with the few I’d rate as having good hygge vibe.
  6. The rest rooms are some of the better rest rooms.

Ratings & Features

  • Electrical Sockets: Readily available with numerous around the entire cafe. Many literally on the top of the counter that rims the windows.
  • Wifi & Internet: I didn’t get the internet working, so I ended up tethering. This did make me depart a little earlier than I would have otherwise. I’ll be back again to check this out.
  • Seats: The where 3 comfy chairs and everything else was modern standard metal and wood. Impressive considering most cafes and coffee shops these days are just hard uncomfortable chairs everywhere!
  • Prices: The prices seemed pretty average, not expensive but nothing cheap.
  • Lighting: Good lighting and good places to shield your laptop from errant sun when needed.
by Adron

SEAFAB Cafe

I took the Sound Transit 542 over to University District today to check out some coffee shops, get some work done, and generally just hang out like I do. The first stop on my galavanting about Seattle today is at SEAFAB Cafe. I’ll start off, first with the negatives and then delve into the positives of this place. Wrap it all up with a rating and features of the shop.

Negatives

The first thing to note, is that the vast bulk of these negatives are just stupid car culture carbrain shit, bad infrastructure, and completely unrelated to the cafe itself. I’ll enumerate:

  1. The sidewalk is parked on. Yeah, that carbrain shit is in full force down here. The really stupid thing is, there is parking down here that is availbe right out front still, since people just park in what appears to be the side of the road that converges into a gravel lot.
  2. The bike infrastructure out on the main road here is decent, albeit dated PBL (Protected Bike Lane) that merges/egresses from the Burke Gilman Trail. This is a positive, but then it dumps you into this heavily parked road which is hellsihly confusing exactly where you should or shouldn’t really be with atrocious street and sidewalk amenities.
  3. Speaking of that, the parking situation for bikes is less than desirable. Which is oddly out of touch considering that Recycled Cycles is right next door, you’d think there would be better bike parking and sidewalk amenities considering, even if they were just kind of non-city standard stuff. But it’s instead this oddball rack and a few sign posts here and there. Of course, Recycled Cycles has some staple racks and such out front but the cafe doesn’t. So no biggie really, just something that ought to be improved.
  4. Ok, this is the only cafe related negative. Their stock of items in the fridge and their ice cream machine were just empty. It’s possibly the newness of things and they’re working on it, but it’s always a little unsettling when the counter space, equipped to hold items, is empty. Kind of gives you the “are they in business?” feeling.
  5. The wifi didn’t have internet access. It seemed a bunch of folks were working away on their laptops, so I suppose someone had internet access or they were just making due.

Positives

The positives outweight the negatives significantly.

  1. The music was chill. Albeit dated 70s-90s stuff, but if that’s in your wheel house, then good stuff.
  2. The coffee, very importantly, was good. I ordered a capaccino and a dirty chai, but where a good solid 8 out of 10. Good job SEAFAB!
  3. The vibe in cafe was super chill. Good spacing, seats, and the like, which just makes it easy if you’re going to do some laptop work or if you’re going to chill with some friends and talk, or even have a quick coffee or lunch meeting.
  4. I ordered some salmon avacado toast to spite out of touch right wing financiers spouting clout since I’m a home owner and it was really good! The food seems to be consistent, clean kitchen, and all that good jazz!
  5. Location is great, with lots of connected transit, easy to bike too (albeit the previously stated concerns) and the clientale seemed super chill too.

Ratings & Features

  • Electrical Sockets: Readily available with numerous around the entire cafe. Many literally on the top of the counter that rims the windows.
  • Wifi & Internet: I didn’t get the internet working, so I ended up tethering. This did make me depart a little earlier than I would have otherwise. I’ll be back again to check this out.
  • Seats: The where 3 comfy chairs and everything else was modern standard metal and wood. Impressive considering most cafes and coffee shops these days are just hard uncomfortable chairs everywhere!
  • Prices: The prices seemed pretty average, not expensive but nothing cheap.
  • Lighting: Good lighting and good places to shield your laptop from errant sun when needed.
by Adron

Talking Bakfiets

Recently I was out running errands on my R & M Load 75. I’d stopped by my storage unit to drop off a few crates of things that didn’t need to be sitting around my garage. Then I’d headed over to Village Square Cafe for a diner like breakfast.

Then went about seeing if I could find a plugin somewhere to charge my bike, as my charge was low. I had my spare battery set just for good measure, but I was down to ~35% because I’d forgotten to charge the bike earlier the previous night. So I didn’t technically need a charge but I figured it would be nice to charge up if I could. Albeit, something I’m astutely aware of now, is that there are next to zero publicly accessible outlets in Redmond. Not really surprising, electricity isn’t cheap, but I was sure I’d seen a few I could *borrow* a charge from. 😬

In the end, that would be kind of stealing, but places also let you easily charge your laptop, albeit that’s negligible vs. two monster bike batteries. Still not charging an excessive multi-ton car, but substantially more than I presume most places to want to offer for free.

Anyway, I didn’t find one but I did go rolling into the Town Center and met Nina (Spelling?) as she walked right up to me and inquired about the R&M Load 75. After discussing for a few minutes I hope to see her riding about on a new Load 75 in the near future with her kiddo! It’d be great to have more company over here on the east side in the bakfiets community!

On that note, I’m going to finally get around to setting up a bakfiets meet here on the east side, stay tuned over @ https://bakfiets.bike/ to get that notification (i.e. subscribe for email and you’ll get notified in your inbox). So far this year has started off a bit nuts and with the closure of G&O a few months ago it really threw me off for starting the bakfiets meets!

Eastside Link Light Rail

One of the places I’ve started frequenting to work in, as it’s nice and large, plenty of seats, is the Dote at Redmond Technology Station. Two issues, which is kind of standard for Microsoft, is that they get places like this on campus but then don’t really truly open them up to the public. They don’t offer a public wifi but sometimes have the public Microsoft account that you can use. But that’s a bit sketch, to which hopefully Microsoft sorts that out with the private businesses that they invite onto campus to operate but then make them operate as pseudo private establishments. A coffee shop in this modern era has wifi, so come on Microsoft, let em’ have truly public usable wifi!

But I digress, wifi aside, it’s a really interesting location. Super chill to work there, however I am concerned it stays open over time considering the current state of light rail opening (it’s partially open).

The starter line, as it has been dubbed, runs from Redmond Technology Station to Bellevue South. The key population center it runs through is Bellevue, which provides some anchor to a degree, albeit very few people seem ready to use it in Bellevue and as many in the area know, Bellevue is about as auto-dependent and pedestrian friendly as a parking lot. There are parts of it that are nice but overall it isn’t really acclimate to walking or to using transit, sadly enough. It’ll get there one day, considering the transit center and routes, but overall the people here are a bit myopic about the whole situation – so far.

That’s it for today’s thoughts, back into introspection.

by Adron

Brass tacks review after 416 days of owning and riding the hell out of a Riese & Müller Load 75!

In this VLOG episode I give you a straight up brass tacks review of where I am with my Riese & Müller Load 75, the fun the trials and tribulations and my recommendation on purchase.

  • 0:21 Start of monologue on my Riese & Müller Load75.
  • 1:33 The basic run down of what I bought, back when I bought the bike. Key parts plus additional recent additions, including the trailer and all.
  • 2:00 The trailer and trailer hitch addition.
  • 2:20 Continuing the run down on drive train, battery arrangement, display, blinkers button for helmet blinkers, and hub.
  • 3:40 Even though I don’t have trouble with my hub/gear (so far) my recommendation is…
  • 3:53 The break down of the brake system and the breakage that happened with top reservoir leak.
  • 5:15 Discussing hills, hill climbs, distance, and use of a bike like this among the numerous hills.
  • 6:45 Discussing the front form and suspension, and their lack of rust on mine.
  • 7:22 The puncture in the foot well.
  • 7:30 The impacts on the steering bar.
  • 8:40 Discussing riding at the weight limit, something I’ve done a number of times.
  • 9:20 My main missions: kid hauling, grocery getting, hauling guitar and amp equipment, carrying records, and more.
  • 9:52 Income and suggestion to buy or not to buy an Riese & Müller Load75.
  • 11:44 My recommendation.
  • 12:20 Maintenance, strong maintenance suggestions.

Recorded a VLOG on this topic too, you can watch that here.

by Adron

Riese & Muller Load 75 – Speed Fluctuations Issue & Resolution

Recently while riding home from Seattle a strange behavior occurred. Everything seemed ok for the first few minutes. But then while heading out of the Seattle tunnel over I-90 onto the long I-90 downhill bridge stretch towards Mercer Island, I reached 45kph and was getting speeds displayed that would bounce from zero up to the speed I was going. As this was happening, when it went below the e-assist speed, it would attempt to give me pedal assist at these higher speeds. But just for a second or two. Since I usually pedal going downhill for that extra speed, this was somewhat disorientating.

I wasn’t sure what the deal was, something was obviously off, and as I rode up into the hills I kept getting odd speed fluctuations, even when I was traveling a steady speed. I thought, maybe this is because I’m pulling a trailer this time. Even though that didn’t really make sense.

I rode the 28 kilometers home and set about writing an inquiry to my local bike shop. With a thorough description sent off I went about other activities waiting for a response. In short order I got a response and they asked where the magnet was positioned on the wheel that feeds the speed sensor. I knew what that was, but wasn’t sure how the positioning for it should be. I took a few shots, shown in the grid of images below, and to note – this is the WRONG position.

The informed me where it should be. It should be closer to the sloped from part of the sensor. I grabbed a trusty Phillips and loosened up the magnet and slid it over about 4 millimeters. Back to the trails for a hill climb and decline!

A few minutes later, I’d confirmed, that mere itty bitty little 4mm is exactly what was causing the problem. Whew! Relief. Off to get some more miles in and get some pick ups done! 🤙🏻

Props: Thanks Dandelion Bikes Crew!