Seattle Rides

After an almost 20-year hiatus, I've started biking again.  These are the major rides I took this past summer:

• Seattle Loop (link) — 25.5 miles total from home
• Gas Works Parks to Seward Park and back (link) — 25.5 miles from Gas Works plus 8 miles roundtrip to/from Gas Works (via Roy, Mercer, and the path along Westlake)
• Gas Works Park - Mercer Island Loop (link) — 31.5 miles from Gas Works; the Mercer Island loop is really nice, especially on a weekday when few others are riding (very popular on nice weather weekends)
• West Seattle - Leschi - Gas Works Loop (link) — 37 miles total; you can connect into the loop right at the bottom of 3rd AVE W on the other side of the pedestrian bridge
• North Lake Loop (link) — 41 miles from Gas Works Park; you ride clockwise around the north half of the lake, coming back over I-90
• South Lake Loop — 38 miles from Gas Works; I don’t have a map for this and haven’t ridden it recently, but you’d basically ride over to Gas Works Park, start riding counterclockwise around the lake to I-90, and then you’d ride around the southern half of the lake (crossing it over I-90) either clockwise or counterclockwise, and then back to Gas Works
• On either of the previous two rides, you can add another ~8 miles by looping around Mercer Island when you cross I-90
• Lake Washington Loop (link) — 53 miles from Gas Works
• Chilly Hilly (link) — 32.5 miles roundtrip from/to the Bainbridge ferry terminal

I had some fun rides with friends, but the twin highlights of this season were the full Lake Washington Loop and the Chilly Hilly route with my daughter, Sara.

Next year I hope to do some longer rides out through Snohomish, Monroe, Woodinville, Redmond, Issaquah, etc., as well as some hillier rides on Vashon Island.

UPDATE: I posted an annotated map and cue sheet along with a route (.gpx) for some rides around Vashon Island (link).