Category / Biking

by Adron

A Re-introduction to Transit Sleuth via Link Light Rail

Today marks about the ~20th or so day I’ve ridden the light rail from Redmond to South Bellevue, and then transferred to the Sound Transit Express 550 from there to downtown.

My commute priority has always been about functional use versus speed or other criteria. When I write functional use, what I mean is can I use the commute for something besides just wasting away rotting like one might do in a cage (i.e. a car). Even when I have used a car in the past, the focus still remained exactly that.

Simply put, I despise the idea I follow the modern American tradition of plopping myself into a car, that I’ve worked a job to buy, to sit in traffic – often stop and go or just stopped – to go to a job that I work to do shit like buy a car. I prefer my job funds go to strategic and tactical things like living life. Travel, exploration, games, beer, good food, racing cars, bikes, more bikes, and other entertaining and enriching things vs. buying a car, maintaining a car, paying rent, and all that rat race bullshit.

So now that I’ve written this, I hope to be back soon on a regular basis writing on this blog. If for any other reason, because I enjoy it. But also to document my commuting adventures and related things. Hopefully I’ll conjure up the energy to also start putting videos together again, ya know like this one, this, or this.

Back to the Link Light Rail

With the opening of the Redmond Station, the commute – even in spite of it being 2 parts still – has dramatically improved. Largely because I can take a significant part of the trip via light rail. That means listening to music, getting some code written, videos watched, maybe edited, AI’s vibe coding, views observed, maybe a snack, some AI models processed, or simply enjoying my coffee while en route to the office.

Sometimes, shockingly, I’ll even meet someone and we’ll have a good solid kick ass conversation while en route! But why am I riding the light rail these days?

How Did I Get Here?

Ok, somewhat dreadfully, based on the Seattle area leadership’s inability to deliver on much of anything promised, the Ballard Link Light Rail didn’t look like it was ever going to happen in my life time (i.e. the next ~20-40 years at least). The house I lived in also wasn’t cutting it, so family deemed a new house was in order and we began to search a few years back.

It was hard going. Forget money even, which is it’s own problem with housing these days, houses just weren’t available. Not with the basic – for us – that put a house into qualifying. The characteristics of the house we wanted, in order of importance;

  • being on a trail(s) or dedicated bike infrastructure
  • being near park(s) and woodland space
  • being away from any primary interstate or highway arterial (preferable to stay away from carcinogens)
  • being near transit options to get into and out of Seattle downtown
  • being near transit options to get to King St Station and SEATAC and/or other airport with area departure options.
  • being away from any primary roadway arterial
  • being most quiet
  • being walkable (i.e. do sidewalks exist, do business exist?)
  • being low crime (honestly, only sort of important in certain ways)
  • minimum number of rooms for remote/home work in addition to kiddo space
  • no HOA cuz forget that shortsighted self-fascistic nonsense
  • MAGAt density is no more than 1 out of 10 (super easy in this area, since low crime areas have very low MAGAt density) **
  • minimum ~1600 square feet
  • enough land to use for a victory garden (i.e. something like ~200 sq ft minimum, more is better)

Redmond? What? Not intuitive!

Naturally we assumed we could only really get something that would have maybe ~3-5 of these items, and then maybe part of another 5-10. We searched and searched and searched and finally, after offers put in, offers turned down, we finally expanded our search outside of Seattle to some east side locations and landed an offer in Redmond. Somewhat shockingly it has a multitude of these things in full and all of them to a partial degree.

The only things Redmond, outside of its downtown core fails on is a few things;

  • Walkability to do anything useful outside of Redmond’s downtown core is questionable and often requires other modal options to complete. However, that said, almost everywhere in Redmond has sidewalks, clear paths, and ways to get places, it just might take 15-45 minutes depending on where one lives.
  • Transit options are spectacular if you are in the downtown core. However leaving the downtown core it becomes immediately questionable whether you will have good transit options.
  • The light rail, as this post is about, massively changes the dynamic into and out of Redmond, Bellevue, and in about a year – theoretically – into Seattle for the east side. Even without the bridge into Seattle being open, it’s still changed the dynamic of the east side in a very positive way.
  • Even though we’re away from primary arterials and highways, interstates, and the like. The roadway system is setup in an auto-focused way that leads people to some expediently stupid behaviors. Negligence and obliviousness – as you might expect – reign supreme with east side drivers. The majority do endeavor to be polite and all but people generally just suck at driving. So YMMV in your automotive driver interactions.

With that being the baseline we have ended up over here in Redmond. So far it’s actually pretty sweet, more so than I thought when we first made the decision and landed the house. Simply put, we live a very European style life over here in Redmond and recently I’ve started commuting to a downtown Seattle office.

Back to The Topic At Hand: Link Light Rail Line 2

My commute now ends up being an interesting and enjoyable string of modal options.

1st – To get to the Link station, I come down from the Redmond hills via bike. There I roll into the now open station, swipe my Orca Card, bump the elevator button and up I go to board the Link.

2nd – Upon boarding the Link I rack the bike. Extremely easy to do since this is the originating station and I generally board a train that has few people on it at its start. Then off we zip toward the – current – other end of the line in South Bellevue. During this segment of the trip I take a seat and out comes the laptop. As mentioned earlier in the post the code, videos, editing, or other activities ensue. After the short trip as we leave the stop just before South Bellevue I slip the laptop back into my pack, and unrack the bike for departure. Upon an elevator ride down, I roll over to wait for the arrival of the Seattle bound Sound Transit Express 550.

3rd – The bus fills the current gap while they wrap up construction work on the I-90. The 550 serves the purpose well, and it isn’t overly packed. This puts me in a position to whip the laptop back out and spend a little more time getting shit done, reading, or whatever I may. Upon arrival in downtown I alight the bus, unrack my bike, and then begin the last short segment to the office.

4th – I then enjoy this last segment riding Spacey to the office. It’s always a smooth, seamless, trip around and along various roads and bike infra in downtown. I tend to change up the route just a bit every time I take the trip.

That’s it. That’s my commute these days, and hot damn it’s an enjoyable one! This time of year especially as the weather gets nice and I’m a quick roll – amidst the hilarious insanity of the car oriented commute – to breweries, the epic Seattle waterfront, and other places to chill before the trip home.

More adventures, thoughts, and interludes of written words in the coming days and weeks. Hope your commute rocks, or if you don’t, that you’ve got an enjoyable day to day. Cheers!

** MAGA specifically. Not a fan of confused fascists. I realize this does not include general Republicans or conservatives, especially of the Reagan, Eisenhower, or even Lincoln variety. Since obviously, none of those Presidents were fascists, maybe shitty, but not wannabe fascists.

by Adron

Trying to Save Redmond from Its Auto-Obsessed Past – Exploring the 152nd Street and Overlake Area Projects: A Vision for Redmond’s Future

Redmond and Bellevue, long synonymous with sprawling parking lots and endless highways, vertical spines of suburban hoity toity tasteless strip malls, are finally trying to shake off their addiction to the automobile. The new projects around 152nd Avenue NE, 156th Cycle Track, and Overlake Village Infrastructure are touted as the next big thing in making the area “livable”—because clearly, we’ve all been loving those car-infested corridors so much that it took decades to realize something was off. Here’s a look at the “ambitious” plans to reclaim some humanity from the asphalt wilderness.

152nd Avenue NE Main Street: The Quest for a Pedestrian’s Paradise in Car-Land

The 152nd Avenue NE Main Street project aims to turn a once soul-crushing stretch of road into something “pedestrian-friendly.” Imagine that: walking down a street where you’re not just waiting for a crosswalk signal like it’s an act of divine mercy. This project will roll out wider sidewalks, because, surprise, people do actually walk, and protected bike lanes, because it turns out bikes aren’t just a relic of the past. In addition, they intend to put in place an actual street grid like a real city!

The city planners are throwing in some landscaping and public art—likely to distract us from the decades of prioritizing cars over community. And yes, we’ll get street lighting that’s more than just the sad, dim bulbs that currently light up the vast emptiness of parking lots. It’s a bold move to try and inject some vibrancy into a street where, up until now, “scenic” meant looking at the back of someone’s SUV.

156th Cycle Track: Because Cyclists Deserve Better than Dodging Cars

For the brave souls who dare to bike in a city built for cars, the 156th Cycle Track is the beacon of hope we’ve been waiting for—or at least, it’s supposed to be. This project is designed to give cyclists a protected road of their own in this segment, so they no longer have to rely on sheer willpower and the kindness of strangers motoring around in their cages to avoid becoming roadkill.

The cycle track will connect the SR 520 Trail to Overlake Village, finally giving cyclists a direct route that doesn’t involve navigating a gauntlet of speeding vehicles and poorly timed traffic lights. It’s almost like the city realized that people might choose bikes over cars if they didn’t fear for their lives. What a concept.

Overlake Village Infrastructure Planning: Patching Up the Auto-Dependent Mess

And then there’s the Overlake Village Infrastructure Planning—an initiative that sounds like it’s about fixing the glaring oversights of a car-centric past. This grand plan includes stormwater management (because, who knew, we need to deal with rain too), better transit access (since our existing bus stops on the side of highways aren’t exactly welcoming), and—wait for it—parks and green spaces. Because after all that asphalt, we could use a little green, right?

This plan is also about encouraging “transit-oriented development,” which is urban planner speak for “we messed up by spreading everything too far apart.” They’re now trying to fix it by building closer to transit hubs, a move that might finally give some residents the option to not drive everywhere—because clearly, parking lots as the centerpiece of community life didn’t turn out so well.

The Grim Reality: A Half-Hearted Attempt to Undo the Car-Centric Damage

These projects, despite their promises, can’t quite hide the fact that they’re desperately trying to undo decades of car-centric planning. The efforts to add pedestrian paths, bike lanes, and transit-oriented development feel a bit like putting a band-aid on a gaping gunshot wound, but hey, it’s better than nothing.

If you’re in the area, why not check out these efforts to bring some life back into the auto-dependent wasteland that we’ve built? Take a walk down 152nd Avenue, if you dare, or brave the cycle track. Maybe, just maybe, we’ll see the day when Redmond and Bellevue aren’t defined by their endless stretches of road, but by the vibrant, connected communities they’re trying so hard to become—one sidewalk and active transport corridor at a time!

Here are the key links to the projects mentioned in the blog post:

  1. 152nd Avenue NE Main Street Project:
  2. 156th Cycle Track Project:
  3. Overlake Village Infrastructure Planning:
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

Record Recon Seattle (Metro Area): Mission 1

This post, and VLOG, details the adventures of my first record recon. A set of missions I discussed some time ago and am only now getting around to BLOGing VLOGing them! But hey, better late than never!

This, mission 1, involves traversing the Cross Kirkland Corridor, originating from Redmond and ending in Bellevue so that I can get recon data on Vortex Music & Movies and Silver Platters.

The following video of the logistics, the trip to Vortex, and then from Vortex to Silver Platters along with some thoughts on the pedestrian unfriendliness of the area. Continue reading for maps & more specifics of the trip plus links to the individual record store reviews.

Vortex Music & Movies (Video Review)

Let’s dig in to where this all starts. First, I’ll be departing from home via Education Hill as usual. From there it’ll be a short jaunt down a private road to catch the Sammamish Trail for a distance so short it’s barely worth counting! Next, a turn down 116th to Willow Road, then a turn at the intersection of madness at 124th and Willows Road. There it is the beginning of the hill climb up to the first point to cross over 124th and join the Eastrail Trail onward.

Once you get here, near the Totem Lake Park (Natural Area?), turn and traverse the wetlands on the raised trail. (Check the video to see what it looks like, I show some of it.) Then it’s 120th, to 128th, to 116th (I know, confusing, check the map, it’s actually pretty straight forward.) Then into the strip mall and you’re basically there.

Silver Platters (Bellevue) (Video Review)

The next stop is a local music store chain with locations in Lynnwood and SODO. This involves traveling back down 120th NE and merging back on to Eastrail. From there traveling all the way south to 52nd and dropping down to Lake Washington Drive.

An aside: This section of trail is also referred to as the Cross Kirkland Corridor. However the rail to trails sections that are being converted to trail run from Nakashima Barn in Skagit County, south through to Snohomish, then there’s a big unfinished gap that is in the works, then resumes in Woodinville, merges into the Sammamish Trail through Redmond and into Kirkland, then continues even further south to Renton and beyond. It’s a very very long, and gorgeous trail. Numerous segments aren’t finished, but the Kirkland segment is done and usable to interconnect to many points in the area.

Lake Washington Drive eventually becomes Bellevue Way where Silver Platters is located. Getting to this location via bike was less than stellar. As you can see in the VLOG there were a number of times I ended up traveling in the streets and snaking in and out of cagers stuck at their lights or just sitting in traffic stuck. Mind you, this is just standard daily traffic too, it wasn’t like I was taking this trip at rush hour!

But I digress, made it over to Silver Platters with relative ease. In spite of the less than ideal riding conditions for that last little stretch, the majority of the trip over there was stunningly beautiful. If you haven’t been on the Cross Kirkland Corridor section of the Eastrail you should find time in your busy schedule to get over there. The views of the lake and of Seattle in the distance plus so many other things makes for a very enjoyable trip.

Summarized Ride

In this VLOG and blog I’ve shared my experience of my first mission in the record recon series, where I explore local music stores. Starting from Redmond heading to Totem Lake, then I embarked on a journey along the Cross Kirkland Corridor to Bellevue, aiming to gather recon data on Vortex Music & Movies and Silver Platters. The video captures the logistics of my trip, highlighting the pedestrian-unfriendly areas and the scenic beauty of the route. Despite the challenges, the trip was visually stunning, especially the Cross Kirkland Corridor section of the Eastrail, showcasing breathtaking views of Lake Washington and Seattle. Hope you enjoyed the ride about, and if you’re interested in the record store reviews, and summary of what albums I picked up here is a list to those posts with VLOGs.

by Adron

The Early Week in Pittsburgh

The day after arriving, I headed out into the city for a day of work. On this day I wanted to try out Gasoline Street Coffee. With a short ride up over the bridge from South Side Flats into the city I arrive at Gasoline Street. One of the excellent things about the South Side Flats, is if you’re commuting into downtown Pittsburgh you could literally walk and beat most commuters into the city. The commute from this area is wildly easy to get into and out of the city.

The week that I was in the city, the weather was absolute perfection every day I was there. I kid you not, perfect temperature, perfect visibility, zero rain (until literally the last few hours while I was departing), zero fog, no smog, it was just spectacular!

Once I cleared the bridge into the city from the South Side Flats I made a kind of zig zag through several blocks, on one I went the wrong way not realizing it was a one way, and eventually passed under tram station shown below, which looked pretty nice and modern. As I was rolling along too there were a ton of police all over this part of the city, which I realized the station was over this way and it all made sense.

As I rolled up to Gasoline Street Coffee, it wasn’t an street nor was it related to gasoline, but there were plenty of private vehicles parked on the literal *public* sidewalk in front of the place. Which, as usual for this sort of behavior, makes for a very unpleasant approach to any type of establishment.

I strolled inside for my morning brew and was greeted by – contrary to the outside – a pleasant hello and a spastic and cool interior! The inside of the place definitely had more of an street feel to it, and overall had a bunch of cool seating, tables, and other amenities. But being the weather was absolute perfection, I opted to have my coffee outside at one of the tables.

After fueling up with caffeine, it was time for the remaining commute – all of about 6-7 minutes – into the downtown office building city core.

Car Free Core? Pedestrian Focused?

As I finished up the last 2 blocks, I realized that these last two blocks were heavily, VERY heavily focused on pedestrian oriented activities. This first one, is this park in between these gleaming cavernous glass lined towers. It’s an open space park where people often sit and eat during the day, or just meet for discussion or whatever else may be going on. I made several visits to this area and it was nice, a great way to get some air and get out of the building environments.

The next space, which is literally just the next block over, is another square but lined with restaurants, bars, and other eating establishments, along with a rim of trees that adds a great aspect to the whole square. Again, just like the other park(square?) I ate here several times during the week and it was rather splendid.

Just for the detail, here’s where the two blocks are in downtown Pittsburgh.

Anyway, watch the video, and see it as I travel through the streets and narrate it all for you!

Pittsburgh Day 5 Part 1 – “Daily Commute” & a stop at Gasoline Alley

Millvale & Attic Records

Later in the day, after all those working hours, I headed back to South Side Flats and then headed out with my pack to go explore Attic Records. Attic Records is just outside of Pittsburgh in a small town called Millvale. Just on the northeast side of Pittsburgh along the north side of the Allegheny River.

This next episode is all about that trip back out of the South Side Flats, across the city core of Pittsburgh, and along the north side trail along the Allegheny River. It’s a stunning route, and one – for those visiting – I highly recommend riding!

Once I rolled into Attic Records, I wished I’d brought another $5 grand to spend on records and a larger pack to carry it all in! Attic is a jack pot of albums! I could have just stayed in this shop checking albums out all day, but alas, I managed to keep it to about an hour of perusing and then purchasing only 2 albums at the time! Just crazy!

Overall though, an absolutely great shop, so if you’re into or getting into vinyl and live around the Pittsburgh area just go ahead and put their address in your “places to go regularly” list!

For a full review of the record shop, plus a few other details check out my record shop review on Vicious Shred here. This trip and visit marks the start of Mission 2 of my record recon missions for Pittsburgh.

Pittsburgh Day 5 Part 2 – Attic Records in Millvale! CHECK THEM OUT!

Finally I wrap up day 5 of this trip, with a visit to Government Center Records, Randyland, and The Government Center. Wrapping up record recon mission 2! I’ll leave you to watch the VLOG instead of elaborating however. Enjoy!