The World Gone Orange

i should really just dangle this sign in front of my bike like a carrot because everywhere i go, i can't seem to avoid the damn things.

i went for a nice afternoon ride today, since the weather was nice, i had nothing to do and, well, when is an afternoon ride not a good idea? the idea was to head up to kirkland to drop in on my mom, then head out via 70th to old redmond road, take redmond way to east lake sammamish parkway and cruise around the lake, coming home through issaquah on newport way.

things started out well. i headed up to kirkland via my normal non-freeway route. up lake washington boulevard, through my favorite turn in downtown bellevue (yes, i do have a favorite turn), and up 112th to my mom's neighborhood. it wasn't long before the bad omens started, though.

coming up 112th, i remembered that they'd been paving it for the last few weeks. deciding i didn't want to sit through all that to bounce around on bad roads, i backtracked a bit and jumped back onto the boulevard to come at my mom's from the north. no luck, though, since they were replacing a telephone pole. trucks all over the road, flaggers galore, and i had to wait behind the first of many large truck exhausts to get through. when i got to my mom's house, i laughed it off as bad luck before heading off on the rest of my ride.

oops. the entire way, literally, was filled with construction. i can honestly say that every road i stayed on for more than a mile, had construction at some point. orange phantoms haunted me at every turn, and unpaved roads, gravel and steep dropoffs abounded (not to mention waiting behind all those trucks). what should have been a nice hour-long jaunt turned into a 2.25 hour epic trying to find clean roads. it was like highway 1 all over again.

now i don't pretend that roads fix themselves, and i have nothing against construction workers (well, i do, but that's a different post), but things are different on a motorcycle. variations in the road surface can be big hazards, especially with lots of loose materials like gravel or dirt. two wheels is a lot less stable than four, and it's quite easy to slip sideways if the road isn't in good shape. even those tar strips to fix cracks can send you slipping on a hot day. that plus it's just annoying to have to stop every few miles to wait in a long line of cars to be let through single lane chaos at 12 miles per hour. it can really mess with your motorcycle-mojo.

don't get me wrong, i still had a good ride. the parkway around the lake was gorgeous (i got plenty of time to stop and look around) and i had good tunes to keep me company (flogging molly for most of it). the weather was perfect and vixen performed admirably. i even got a second look from the one cute flagger i passed. but seriously, folks, do we need to have the entire eastside under construction at the same time? maybe mix it up a bit, do some work at night, or at least stick to the freeways, so i don't have to deal with it.

anyway, a good time was had in the end, and a construction-filled ride is still better than no ride at all, so i'm not complaining. much.

rftc,

scott