Tag / biking

by Adron

Beginning The Pittsburgh Adventure!

Back in April I took a trip to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. It is easily one of the best trips I’ve taken in a few years! Far too many years! Obviously I had to write up the adventure and that dear readers is what you have here, the log of my entire trip to Pittsburgh. I hope you enjoy following along with the adventure!

Along with the trip, which I’ll write details about here on this post and subsequent posts here on Transit Sleuth, another branch of posts will be on Vicious Shred concerning the record shops (Attic Records, etc) and music related peculiarities. So if you’re into the metal, and other varietals of music I partake upon, navigate over to Vicious Shred for a whole host of posts about that.

Day 1 – Departing Seattle via the Empire Builder

Day 1 involved departing Seattle. What did that involve? Well let me tell you!

The very first event involved me biking down from home to downtown Redmond. There I caught the Sound Transit 545 out of Redmond heading to downtown Seattle & King Street Station. The bus arrived timely, I got the bike mounted up and off I went.

Shocker of shocker, as we got into the city there was a back up on 520 coming onto I-5, which is part of traveling on I-5. It’s always been backed up here and likely will always be. If someone is stupid enough to think they’ll resolve this poorly designed mess they don’t understand how cars work – and in that sense I am seriously looking forward to the day I can just on the tram (light rail) Link into the city!

Once I arrived downtown, I didn’t even attempt to ride the 545 all the way across the downtown core. There are two reasons I did got off the bus to travel this last few miles:

  1. The main reason is I like to, as I’ve made it a tradition, to always stop at Monorail Coffee and get a cap before departure. For many – if not most – destinations in the United States it is likely the last time I’ll get a decent cap until returning. The espresso standards in the USA have improved to a degree so it isn’t as frequent I go without as it used to be, but I still don’t trust most cities.
  2. The other reason is I actually like to ride through the city – I love cities, love em’! Some folks don’t get that from me but I see so much more than the mere concrete and fumbling crushed souls of the city and more the wealth generating heartbeat of America that US cities actually are. Albeit they’re severely damaged and have a severe quality of life issue compared to European cities. Largely evident in the vast warped subsidized American socialism experiment gone awry called “the suburbs”. But hey, they’re holding together the country in spite of all that!

Anarchist Jurisdiction

As the “Dear Leader” designated our poor fair destroyed obliterated city of Seattle, it is indeed destroyed y’all! Nobody come to Seattle, look at all that smoke and fire and burning, nobody is left! It’s all zombies and those lost in the riots. /s

Comedy aside, the ride through Seattle was rather pleasant. The roll – emphasis on roll because it takes almost no energy to pedal downhill from Monorail Coffee down to the train station – to King Street Station was smooth and effortless.

King Street Station

I arrived, got my bike tagged for the trip and headed off to the baggage car to hand off my bike. The only two things I brought with me was my Mission Workshop ARKIV Backpack and the bike (bounce back to this post for details on why she’s named “PDX Orange”).

Tragedy Struck!

Chubby DOWN!!! You’ll have to watch the video for that bit of tragedy (time point @ the tragedy), it was already too much to write about the remnants of the destroyed city of Seattle! So with that bit of narration lagniappe, enjoy the video.

My Pittsburgh Adventure day 1 departing Seattle via King Street Station on the Empire Builder!

Day 2 – Eating on the Empire Builder

Day 2 can be summarized as eating day. There isn’t a lot to see or do on day 2, so it’s 3 meals and complete uninterrupted relaxation. In all seriousness it is one of my favorite days of the trip – even with the somewhat boring scenery – because I just do nothing. Maybe read, but mostly just thinking and introspecting against a repeating scenery. With that, I detail some of day 2 via VLOG for you dear reader!

Train Life, Day 2 on the Empire Builder from Seattle to Chicago, en route to Pittsburgh.

Day 3 – Empire Builder Transfer to Capitol Limited in Chicago

When I got into day 3, Chicago was the central action of the day. I needed to arrive on time or close to on time in order to make my connection to the Capitol Limited. The Capitol Limited route runs from Chicago to Washington DC. It makes a bunch of stops but my stop would be around 5:23am in the morning in Pittsburgh. If I had my preference, I’d have take another train that would have had me arriving in Pittsburgh at a more reasonable hour, but this being America we have a severe lack of transportation options between major cities!

The great thing about – in my humble opinion – coming into Chicago is getting into the urban fabric and watching the urban core and its skyscrapers start to rise out of nothing. If you’re privy, you get to see a lot of history as you roll into the city too. If you find that kind of thing fascinating Chicago is a city worth looking into.

In this episode I wrap up things by showing the path and process – for my brave fellow cyclists out there – of getting your bike stowed in Union Station. If you’re in the sleeper or 1st class like I was, you get to hang out in the awesome lounge at Chicago but you need to stow your bike in the meantime.

Pittsburgh Adventure Day 3 – Part 1 – Arrival in Chicago & wondering around Union Station.

In the 2nd part of day 3, transferring in Chicago I provide a tour of the 1st Class Lounge and then wander aimlessly around Chicago for a short while. Then I show boarding, which is a bit of an adventure in fumbling since I have a bike. Even though this is actually an easy process, you need to stay on top of things in order to make sure the bike does end up where you end up. Follow along in the VLOG to see more of the chaotic fun as I wrap up the Chicago transfer to the Capitol Limited!

Pittsburgh Adventure Day 3 – Part 2 – Transferring in Chicago & wondering outside Union Station.

That’s it for the Empire Builder part of the trip, in my next post I’ll delve into arrival day in Pittsburgh and the ongoing adventures!

by Adron

Mission: Record Recon in Seattle “Metro”

I’ve given myself another transit and biking mission in addition to the upcoming posts on the Pittsburgh “Record Recon” missions. Find and recon the record stores in the Seattle “metro” area (obviously right, because I live here!). That includes a lot of territory and I’ll break down with maps and logistics where each of these record stores are and in the coming weeks I’ll be producing a series of videos on each of these shops.

The “Eastside” of the Seattle “Metro”. (Click for larger viewable map)

Now if you’re more interested in just reading about my music collections, reactions to new music, reviews, and all that then check out Vicious Shred. Between that blog and this blog, I try to segment my music specific things from my transit, transportation, and traveling adventures. With that said let’s roll on the record recon!

The Eastside (Seattle “Metro Area”)

Bellevue, Redmond, and the east side in general. This includes the area in the giant pink area. One could generally say “the area between the two major lakes of the area and the wooded northwestern lands of Redmond and Woodinville”. Not that a lot of that area is relevant because the east side simply does NOT have many record stores. However, there are a few, as you can see, which we’ll dive into.

The three record stores (garages?) on the “Eastside”. (Click for larger viewable map)

If we zoom in on the available record stores for the east side they’re all in two places, one is in north Bellevue and the others are in the Totem Lake area. There are only two efficient ways to get to these two area: 1 drive to either of them or 2 bike to either of the locations. Neither are walkable without multiple hours of free time to get to and from them unless you’re located directly inside of these specific areas. Fortunately in *these* suburbs I’ve got some excellent bike route options to get to both locations.

The second option, “Frank’s Garage” is literally Frank’s garage located in a suburban single family home off of any commercial corridor. This is super cool, but also I’ve noted that Frank’s “store hours” are only 1-5pm on Sunday. So that might have to get nixed if I can’t make this trip on a Sunday.

Mission 1

UPDATE: Recon Mission completed on June 14th, 2023. The trip, and record store reviews are available for Vortex Movies & Music and Silver Platters.

(Click for larger image)

A key bike route is along the Cross Kirkland Corridor, which perfectly maps to nearby locations of all three of the record stores! This means that I theoretically could visit each of the record stores in one trip, efficiently stringing them all together in one voyage! Note that time, I’m going to set myself some specific challenges for this voyage:

  1. Ensure the trip time is less than 1 hour and 18 minutes. Think I can accomplish that? I’m pretty confident I can beat that.
  2. Check out both “Vortex Movies & Music” and “Silver Platters“, and for this first voyage to Eastside record stores I’m going to skip Frank’s since I can’t make a Sunday trip.

With that, this I’ll dub “Mission 1: Seattle Metro Eastside Record Stores Voyage“. But with the Eastside locations covered, let’s move on to the *actual* Seattle record stores.

Seattle (The actual *city*)

18 Record Shops – That come back in a maps query. There could be more, and if I zoom in…

My first observation, is that there are none in West Seattle, which seems really odd. I’m finding it hard to believe there isn’t a record store over there, as I’m 100% positive that Easy Street Records & Cafe is over there. Which, I’ll get over there for a full review in the coming weeks as it is easily one of the best record shops in the country let alone Seattle.

I’ve done a secondary query and there is indeed multiple record shops that don’t show up in the above, with the addition of Easy Street Records & Cafe showing up in a query of just West Seattle. Then I did another deeper zoomed map query of University District and sure enough, several additional record shops showed up: Neptune Music, Hi Fi Lo Fi, and Al’s Music, Video, & Games in addition to the two shown on the map above.

This is going to be multiple missions compared to the Eastside, as there is no single route that would travel through all of the record stores as there are just too many of them. But with a bit of study and logistical prowess I’ve attained from years of cycling all over Seattle, I’ve got a few plans following a few strategies.

With those extra queries, the 18 record stores in the map turn into 22 stores in Seattle proper! Clearly, if you’re into vinyl and live in Seattle you’d never have to leave the city, it appears Seattle has record store coverage almost everywhere! With 18 stores I’m going to guess I can maybe drop into 3-6 stores per trip, but it could very well be just 2 or more depending on which ones I’m aiming for. Based on routes and clusters of record stores here is the first two that I’ve deemed a priority.

Mission 2

Mission 2 record reconnaissance will be into the University District of Seattle with a goal to visit 4 stores: Neptune Music, Hi Fi Lo Fi, Seattle Records and Innervisions Posters, and Al’s Music, Video, & Games. There is another store that has theoretically opened at 6215 Roosevelt Way NE called Satisfaction Records & CDs that I’ll roll into this mission. It was in Ballard, but as I searched through the characteristics of that mission I had to back track and add it to this mission! Thus, it’s very likely this will be a recon mission with 5 stores!

Mission 3

Mission 3 record reconnaissance will be into a trio of neighborhood areas: Wallingford, Fremont, and Ballard. This is extremely familiar territory since not long ago I lived in Ballard and also long ago I lived in Ballard. This reconnaissance run will be the hardest to date at this point with 6 record stores to visit! Will resources be enough? Will time be available? Will the store open hours be enough? It could be tricky but I think I can pull off 6 stores in one trip!

Overall, this mission holds a special place in my heart and mind as it’s in old stomping grounds of 2022 and before! In many ways I do miss Ballard and wish we could have stayed in the neighborhood but alas, to the east we went. But just before we left, one of the old well known record stores closed, which this trip will be a hats off homage to the long years of service of said store – if you know you know. But either way, this trip is gonna be fun to record and fun to log the visits afterwards.

Mission 4

Mission 4 is going to be intense, and I might have to split it in two considering the 9 record stores to recon! I like to spend at minimum 15 minutes checking them out which would put just the time in store at 135 minutes minimum, but likely will be more if even one of. the stores has a great selection that I need to recon more intensely. My personal estimate with that many stores, it would add at least 3 hours or more to the entire recon mission just based on in store time.

Mission 5

This mission will include a nice trip, albeit long at 3 hours and 7 minutes, it’ll be beautiful ride and an absolute shit ride. This recon trip includes three record stores. One being the Silver Platters SODO location should be pretty good. Then followed with what I understand (and know) to be two of the coolest parts of the city with two a respective awesome record store in each neighborhood.

Tacoma (Not Seattle, but I had to include it!)

Mission 6

Mission 6 could be so intense from a trip distance, I might just need to interject a train into the mix! After all, trains leave from downtown Seattle and go straight into Tacoma, which would make this trip exponentially easier! But when the mission is on the calendar I’ll narrow it down and confirm the logistics.

Mission 7

Seattle “Metro Area” North is a string areas north of Seattle and south of Everett. I’d go into detail but it’s unnecessarily complicated. Suffice it to say, this trip is going to be long at a suggested 2 hours and 9 minutes, with a significant amount of the trip via trails, amazing. There is still about 15-25% that is on roadway “bike infrastructure” which, in this area, translates to shitty car sewer stroads. But I’ll make due, this is going to be a very interesting recon trip. It’ll also be really interesting if the record stores will validate the trip effort! Hopefully there is a jackpot or two to find among the two.

The other thing that isn’t immediately noticeable in this trip is how much of the trip is actually dedicated trails! There are of course some roadways but significant portion of the trip is extensive trail routes! I’m really looking forward to that aspect of the trip.

Mission 8

In mission 8 the route is about 50% trail and 50% car sewers so that is going to be a bit of a challenge. Either or though, at some point I intend to complete this mission! These two stores seem fascinating and could be interesting collections unto themselves.

by Adron

A VLOG Trio – Eastside Bakfiets Bijeenkomst – From Bellevue to Mercer Island to Seattle – Grub @ Burgermaster & Enjoying Spring District!

This is a consolidation post to catch up with the ole’ VLOGs, so this is going to be a short and sweet summary of the VLOGs I shot for the:

Eastside Bakfiets Bijeenkomst

In this episode it’s off for a trip down to the Spring District of Bellevue WA for a “Bakfiets Bijeenkomst”. Translated that means “box bike meet”. For details on our future meetups, check out the Bakfiet Bijeenkomst details here!

  • 0:21 the trip to Bakfiets Bijeenkomst.
  • 0:58 The 40th Street Underpass & a video glance of the tunnel internals of the underpass.
  • 1:29 The 148th Street crossing and its lunacy, this time with lots of other people riding through!
  • 2:03 A downhill race with a peloton rider! 😱
  • 2:15 Arriving at the cargo bike meetup!
  • 3:07 The latest configuration for the Insta360 and GoPro mount.
  • 4:05 Crew Portrait: wololo (Glen), Hanoch, Chris, Jer, Charlie, & Lara with me being invisible.
  • 4:12 Onward to the bakery, Belle Bakery. Check them out at http://www.bellepastry.com/.

Bellevue to Mercer Island to Seattle Long Form Video of the ride

This is a one off long, long, long video of almost a complete ride. I depart from the Bakfiets Bijeenkomst and ride up through Bellevue, across the Interstate 90 Bridge, across Mercer Island, and into Seattle. 0:21 the ride begins, departure from the cargo bike meetup.

Grub @ Burgermaster & chilling in the Spring District

On the ride home from the previous episode I stop in at the Burgermaster for a bite to eat. Join me for a stop there, then a ride back over to the Spring District to enjoy the burger and some introspection. 0:21 On to Burgermaster. 1:07 Going full aero on the cargo bike! 1:38 Gettin’ a burger at Burgermaster. 2:03 I chat with the fella that strolled over to take my order. Love how they take orders here, it’s fun. 4:06 The map of the route from Burgermaster to Spring District that I took. It’s the monster uphill onto the Cross Kirkland corridor right here, but with the Riese & Müller Load 75 it’s a simple walk in the park! 5:09 Back at the Spring District I opted for this cool public space and the marble table! This table is NICE! 5:10 Diving into a bit of introspection and pondering about this Spring District area.

by Adron

Train Life, Bike Life! Portland & Richland trip is done, back to Seattle!

After that last few days I visited some family and friends it was time to head back north to Seattle. On this trip back to the train station I take a slight different route and show that route. All good, all valid, all generally the same trip times.

I get into the station and get the bike tagged, and this time per the baggage attendant’s suggestion I check my Burley. More on that momentarily.

I then went and relaxed in the first class sleeping car lounge to wait for the boarding call. In short order the call was made and out the door to board. As always, with roll on bicycle service I headed to the baggage car, lo and behold I knew all the handlers today! I was greeted warmly, handed off the bike and we chatted for a minute or three. After wrapping up a good conversation with some interesting details – as always with the crews – I headed for my roomette.

When arriving at the sleeping car some other passengers and I waited outside for the car attendant to make up some beds and straighten up real quick. This is a common practice at Portland since so many people detrain and so many board for Seattle. You’d be surprised how many opt for roomettes and such just like I do for the Portland to Seattle trip. While out I snagged a video pic of the station…

and ended up giving a knowledge drop on the station to some fellow passengers that found the plight of Portland’s station rather interesting.

From there I enter my room, and oh yeah, I didn’t get a roomette I got a bedroom! Even MORE space, so that being the case I decide to provide a short tour of the bedroom accommodations.

For the final short segment of the video, enjoy a ride through the dark streets of Seattle as I head back to Redmond, with a quick – as I do often – one take session of some thrash metal for ya. 🤘🏻

  • 0:21 – Back to Union Station in Portland, but with another arrival trip, just like the previous one discussed in this episode    • Bike + Train Life…   (time marked so you go right to it).
  • 2:20 – No bike box for this trip, just rolling on. But I do check my Burley trailer.
  • 5:02 – A tour of Amtrak’s Superliner Bedroom accommodation.
  • 8:00 – Getting comfortable and a few words.
  • 9:23 – Arrival in Seattle, detraining, and into the streets accompanied by a little thrash from yours truly! 🤘🏻
Episode 35 of the VLOG.
by Adron

Train + Bike Life! Leaving Richland via Pasco for Portland, Oregon on The Empire Builder!

As I departed Pasco on the Amtrak Empire Builder, the sun rising in the east came in through my roomette window, and let me tell you it was stunning! Check the VLOG for footage of that site, but always know, VLOGs and photos and all that are fun but they compare in no way to being there in person! The tranquility of a roomette, as we roll along on steel rail, with the rising sun is absolutely stunning every single time I get to experience it!

When we arrived into Portland I detrained and went to baggage pickup. Within just a minute or two the bike arrived in the ole’ bike box. I slid it out and with the two tools I brought, I had the bike up and going in just another 90 seconds or so. Slung my backpack back on and out the doors of the station I went.

With a ride, almost parallel to my original departure from Portland the day before yesterday I alternated to the Williams St corridors for the majority of the trip back. In doing so I got to race the Trimet #44 bus! What fun, what excitement, what a slow and relaxing race! The real question though, who will win!

After the race I arrive back to Office PDX and make a cup of coffee with the MiiR pour over and it is excellent! I also use some techniques that you might not always use, but it’s worth a watch just so you can give it a try if you ever need to give it a try! It kicks off at 9:42 in the video.

  • 0:21 – Leaving Richland via Pasco on the Empire Builder. Catching a stunning sun rise!
  • 1:48 – Arriving in Portland.
  • 2:38 – Reclaiming PDX Orange from baggage, getting her back in riding condition. Tips + tricks on boxing your bike and unboxing it.
  • 3:30 – Departing the station and a tip for egress from Union Station via the Broadway Bridge.
  • 4:19 – Watching the Empire Builder cross the Steel Bridge, buy why, learn about it here!
  • 4:48 – Bus🚌 Leap Frog🐸 with the #44! Some thoughts on the buses, their speed, and the fact that I basically pace the bus for the whole… well, listen to the segment and you’ll see. Along with the oddities and other things along the way.
  • 6:50 – Riding through Peninsula Park. With odd unexpected elements! 😬
  • 9:00 – The final stretch, do I defeat the #44 or do I get beaten by the bus!!! It’s soooo close!
  • 9:42 – Caffeine Induction System from Miir, the Pourigami, via Bicycle Coffee from Oakland (link below). In this segment I show you a wicked cool pour over travel setup, using minimal kitchen tools.
Episode 35 of the VLOG.