Hello, traveling to seattle next week and have a half a day to kill. i rented a bike and going to get a ride in. anyone have good 45mi to 60mi route suggestions that are easy for a non-local to ride? (i’m staying downtown seattle near the pp market)
thanks!!
andy
What day are you looking to ride? Easiest ride would be out the Burke Gillman trail…
Depending on schedule I could probably take you on one of a couple different routes around the city.
You’d need to first get out of DT Seattle.
If you just want to cruise around on the bike, make your way to Burke Gilman trail north of DT and take that all the way around the north tip of Lake Washington and down the east side to Sammamish River Trail. It’s scenic. Use Google maps and click the bike icon to figure out which way to go. Burke Gilman is a MUP so you won’t be able to go fast.
If you want to train that’s another matter. If you want to stick close by, pick any bike friendly road due east of DT and get onto Lake Washington Boulevard. Relatively low and slow traffic and good (not great) pavement. Little or no shoulders, but drivers are used to seeing us there. Ride that a few times up and down, between UW Arboretum near SR520 in the north and Seward park in the south. That too is pretty scenic.
If you have more time, cross the I-90 over the bike path and make your way to the Eastside. There are lots of long roads past Redmond with no lights or stop signs. I train on E Lake Sammamish Pkwy (35mph and really wide shoulders) and on SR-202 and SR-203 (55mph and small shoulders) east of Redmond. If you’ve got a car you could drive to Marymoor park in Redmond, and ride from there.
Thanks for the info. I’m going to ride early Wed AM, like at sunrise.
I’ve done the I-90 path before but didn’t know where to go at the end, I’ll probably do that again and hook up with those routes you mentioned to get some miles in.
If you’re riding the I-90 trail you could do a loop (or 2) of Mercer Island. It’s 13 miles around and a really nice rolling road. Good way to add a few extra miles without getting too far from downtown.
Yeah the mercer island loop is fairly quiet, if you want to get over the 90 bridge but won’t have the time to go further out east. It is no country road though. Keep your eyes open for cars, especially cars leaving driveways.
I’ve lived here 20 years. Best rides are out east toward the Cascade foothills in Fall City, Snoqualmie, North Bend, Duvall, Carnation. Best ride I’ve ever done, we are talking TdF scenery here, is way out near Cle Elum.
Just cruise out to Redmond on the Burke Gilman & back to downtown for that length of ride.
Afterwards find a good Chiro because that trail is way too bumpy; in any case, you can’t get lost on that thing! 
Hello, traveling to seattle next week and have a half a day to kill. i rented a bike and going to get a ride in. anyone have good 45mi to 60mi route suggestions that are easy for a non-local to ride? (i’m staying downtown seattle near the pp market)
thanks!!
andy
As others have mentioned Mercer Island is a good ride but it would take a few laps along with the trip back and forth from downtown to turn that into 45+ miles.
The full lake Washington bike route is a good ride that comes close to that distance and is well marked. A half lake lap with a Mercer loop is a good option and there are a ton of options heading South, North or East as well. Here’s one of my favorite day rides that would work out to somewhere around 60 miles starting and ending near Pikes Place (got to get out to Mercer where I marked the start and end of this route): http://www.mapmyride.com/us/mercer-island-wa/jones-road-196th-maple-valley-maxwell-ho-route-62133436
Or here’s a bunch that should mostly be publicly viewable. Many of these start and end at the Mercer Island Starbucks as that’s where our team meets for winter rides but it’s easy to get from Pikes Place out to the I90 bridge and Mercer: http://www.mapmyride.com/routes/my_routes/
There are plenty of shorter rides in town like out around Magnolia or up into Ballard and the hills along the water or down to West Seattle if you end up having less time than expected. Should be easy to find all of these on Mapmyride.
-Dave
Hello, traveling to seattle next week and have a half a day to kill. i rented a bike and going to get a ride in. anyone have good 45mi to 60mi route suggestions that are easy for a non-local to ride? (i’m staying downtown seattle near the pp market)
thanks!!
andy
As others have mentioned Mercer Island is a good ride but it would take a few laps along with the trip back and forth from downtown to turn that into 45+ miles.
The full lake Washington bike route is a good ride that comes close to that distance and is well marked. A half lake lap with a Mercer loop is a good option and there are a ton of options heading South, North or East as well. Here’s one of my favorite day rides that would work out to somewhere around 60 miles starting and ending near Pikes Place (got to get out to Mercer where I marked the start and end of this route): http://www.mapmyride.com/...ll-ho-route-62133436
Or here’s a bunch that should mostly be publicly viewable. Many of these start and end at the Mercer Island Starbucks as that’s where our team meets for winter rides but it’s easy to get from Pikes Place out to the I90 bridge and Mercer: http://www.mapmyride.com/routes/my_routes/
There are plenty of shorter rides in town like out around Magnolia or up into Ballard and the hills along the water or down to West Seattle if you end up having less time than expected. Should be easy to find all of these on Mapmyride.
-Dave
+1…My fav route is I-90 east from downtown + 1 Mercer loop + bellevue south to renton airport and back to seward park and end at I 90… would definitely close to 45 miles
+2 on the Lake Washington loop. Definitely the best bet for that distance leaving from downtown.
I’d suggest Burke-Gilman Trail to Sammamish River Trail to E. Lake Sammamish Blvd. If you haven’t ridden the routes through the neighborhoods you can spend more time trying to figure out where you are than riding. Unless you wanted to do laps around Mercer, which is a good ride and straightforward, but it gets repetitive.