You are invited to our first meeting for 2019. Tuesday, January 8
6:30 pm to 8:00 pm
Neighborhood House in High Point. Use north entry.
6400 SW Sylvan Way
Come join in planning for new year! We’ll discuss projects, activities, rides, and ways to make our streets safe and comfortable for everyone.
Bike parking. Metro routes 21, 21X and 128.
The Alaska Way Viaduct is coming down! Traffic is entering the period of maximum gridlock. How will we get out of West Seattle to go downtown? Ride our bikes!
This ride is a chance to try out bike commute routes in a friendly group, on a Saturday morning with more daylight and less traffic than on weekdays.
Meet in front of Starbucks in the West Seattle Junction on California SW at SW Alaska. Arrive by 9:15 for check in, safety briefing. Rolling at 9:30 am.
For more information and (free) pre-registration, see https://cascade.org/node/46115
If you’ve never tried it, we encourage you to ride in the wet months. We hardly ever have ice or snow, and it doesn’t rain hard here all that often. This November, it didn’t even rain at all on a lot of days. You don’t need a shower at work if you get one on the way. We’ve got some tips for riding in the rain on our Resources page to get you started.
West Seattle Bike Connections competed in Washington Bike’s Ride in Rain Challenge. Our Peninsula Puddle Pedalers team came in 7th of 400 teams in Washington!
We were right behind the Ice Cold Quad Squad from UW, and ahead of the NOAA AFSC Marine Mammal Laboratory Tour de Flipper team.
In the Club/Organization category, counting all 13 WSBC members who signed up, we were 5th for number of commute rides, and 10th for commute miles, coming in ahead of some big agencies and clubs.
Kathy Dunn was our team Captain, riding every day. John Graham logged 1,208 miles in November on 59 rides! You can sign up to join them and Bill, David, Don, Paul, Tan, Jodi, Al, Tamara, Valerie, Bryan and Joe, if you’d like to log rides through the winter and join the next challenge in May for Bike Month.
On December 1, Bike Works hosted a Major Taylor Tribute Ride, and screened a new short film honoring the first African-American world cycling champion. That was in 1899, when bike racing was a really big deal. This was a fun, social ride around south Seattle at quite a bit slower pace than the Black Cyclone’s.
Organizers included Seattle African-American bike community leaders pictured here: Rich Brown, Jay O’Connor and Phyllis Porter. They are leaders in Bike Works, Rainier Riders, Rainier Valley Greenways, Black Girls Do Bike-Seattle, Cascade Bicycle Club, Cascade’s Major Taylor Project, and Seattle Bicycle Advisory Board. Other leaders included Ed Ewing and Dr. Rayburn Lewis, two of the founders of the Major Taylor Project in Seattle. Don and Rachel (a Major Taylor Club volunteer) rode, representing West Seattle Bike Connections.
119 years after Major Taylor broke speed records and color barriers, a lot of people still think bike riding is something that only white people do. Not true. And that bike advocacy is dominated by white people and perspectives. That part is true. What can we do to change this? We are working on it, and invite you to join the effort. We welcome and embrace the diversity of experiences and knowledge of everyone in our city, particularly with regard to race, ethnicity, culture, socio-economic background, gender, sexual orientation, age, and physical ability.
You can learn about Major Taylor and the new film at the National Brotherhood of Cyclists, which Rainier Riders club is part of.
Todd Balf’s 2009 book is really worth reading, too. Major: A Black Athlete, a White Era, and the Fight to Be the World’s Fastest Human Being.
