New (and Clueless) in Seattle...

[dex]

I've heard of the Burke-Gilman...maybe I'm not *quite* as clueless as I thought. Thanks for the suggestion!

I'm in the north Cap Hill area...above Eastlake, north of St. Mark's, south of Roanoke. *Everything* around me is a hill of some sort.

[mountainchick]

Welcome to biking!

I just started last fall and am loving it. Enjoy your time out!

[KnottedYet]

From where you are, you can also easily get to the Arboretum to ride, but sometimes that's crowded. There's also the road that runs along the lake (oh, someone help me, I've drawn a blank!) which is a major bike route and is sometimes closed to car traffic for races. It's nice and flat and cars know there are a ton of bikes on it.

Lake Washington Boulevard! Yeah, that's it! (I had to go get my bike route map, because I couldn't remember!)

[mimitabby]

Yes, Dex, welcome to Seattle! I live south of you a little bit. Maybe we can do some rides together! yes, if you can get up over your hill, Lake Washington BLVD is there, it's beautiful and there are lots of bikes.

Your new bike is beautiful and is fully capable of doing the STP, actually, you COULD HAVE done it on your old green bike too, if you were stubborn.

You have 3 months to get in shape and I would be happy to do some of your training rides with you. I should mention that the Cascade bike club
has a lot of training rides already.

And those hills? Those are your friends! Right now they are all high and annoying, but they are your back yard and someday soon they will not phase you a bit!

[dex]

...you COULD HAVE done it on your old green bike too, if you were stubborn.

One of my friends told me this as well...but I also *really* like reasearching and shopping, and I love new toys, so this seemed like a reasonable excuse to indulge those loves a little. Also, I figured the added motivation of shiny, pretty new bike might make me more eager to ride. (And, um, carrying Anabelle up the flight of stairs from my front door to street level has never been a picnic--she's a pretty hefty girl, not entirely unlike me--and that's one of the things that's been a barrier to taking her out more often.)

I did notice the training rides on the Cascade site. Here's another of my dirty little secrets (amazing what people will reveal on the internet to relative strangers, but would take hours to admit over coffee with new friends): I have a little social anxiety. The idea of showing up somewhere to do something I'm not very good at/knowledgeable about (yet) with a bunch of people I don't know kind of makes me queasy. I'll get over that, but only after I've convinced myself I'm not a total disaster on two wheels.

I'm truly bowled over by how nice everyone here seems. Y'all are great!

[mimitabby]

well, get used to your new bike in the privacy of your own company and then maybe look us up.
I am always looking for someone to ride with, particularly someone close to home.

[dex]

I just realized how that might have sounded. If it came across as off-putting, that wasn't intentional. I'd love the chance to ride with you, or anyone else, I just wouldn't want to hold people up...which is probably my actual big fear at this point.