I was perusing Kent Peterson's excellent blog last month and saw this post about his visit to the Vashon Island Bike Tree. I thought to myself. Hmmm, I have a good friend that lives on Vashon Island, I have been there 3 times, and ridden there every time. Yet no one told me about this?
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Fortunately I went to seattle last week for my cousins wedding and I was able to spend a night out on vashon and get a good ride in the next day. So armed with directions, my buddy Charlie and I set out to recreate Kents blog post. We started with a long navigation around the island with a pause to meet Elena, Karin and Charlie's kids at the lighthouse beach for a picnic. It was cold and charlie and I were already near bonked from not eating enough pre ride. Then we made it to the tree.
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The directions on Kents blog are pretty good. Here they are again in case you found this page via google:
The bike tree is off of Vashon Highway (which runs between the Seattle and Tacoma ferry ports on either end of the island) on the northeast corner of the Vashon Highway and SW 204 St. intersection, about 50-60 ft (very rough guesstimate) into the woods on the north side of Sound Food Cafe.
Not too shabby, but I would say that it is less than 50 feet into the woods on a very well worn path into the woods. It is on the north side of the vacant building north to the Sound food Cafe, but we got there without being confused. The bike is only 6 feet or so off the ground, for some reason I was under the impression that it was 10-40 feet off the ground. I am not sure why.
Thats me and my buddy charlie
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The bike's front wheel actually turns still. Really neat overall. We ran into some Vashon Island water quality people in the parking lot and aksed them about the tree, none of them had ever been there before. So as we were taking the photos, first one, then two and then three water quality workers came by to check out the bike. I should have gotten a group photo.
We next stopped at the bay view exercycle brigade, where I got a few extra miles in.
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We saw a huge salmon jump out of the water mere moments after taking the photo.
We also went beyond the kent post and posed for a photo with the famed Vashon Island galvanized rooster mailbox:
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And then the obligatory post ride refueling:
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Coffee was good, pink donut not so much, but it was a good 30 + mile ride with some good scenery.
Winter 2024 Bicycle Quarterly
6 hours ago
2 comments:
Call the papers... I'm famous!!!! How I've longed for this day to appear among the many fabled legends that have passed these hallowed gates before me.
I'd like to thank my wife, my three children who are home and should be in bed right now....
You are famous among a handful now. Congrats and thanks for the good ride. If you missed it you were also featured here.
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