Tag / cycling

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

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

Later Week and The End of My Pittsburgh Adventure

Well, it clearly took me MONTHS to wrap up the blog posts on this trip! It was indeed a blast and I got so much footage that was great. I had to extensively cut it back on focus on a few key rides here and there and record recon stops of course! With that, the final blog post of the Pittsburgh trip.

Alright, I’m almost done through all the VLOG posts on my Pittsburgh trip. It was, needless to say, a really eventful trip! Last post I wrote up the 3 part VLOG of day 5, and in this post it’s another 3 part for day 6! Included is the second record recon run and wrapping up all three parts with the arrival of a CSX COKE TRAIN!

A little route map for an idea of the route.

Heading along the north side waterfront.

Hey look at that, a Norfolk Southern train heading across the Ohio River.

Trip Wrap Up

Thursday’s ride…

The finale, riding from Traveler’s Rest to the train station in the rain! First bit of inclement weather of the entire trip!

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!