Kevin's Weblog

7) Ride in the Bridgepedal

Yesterday was the Bridgepedal. I did the 6 bridge, 14 mile ride with a bunch of S.’s family who happened to be in town. I was able to take pictures with my phone through most of the route, and the full set is here.

The start of the ride was rather frustrating. We signed up for the 9AM start and showed up about 15 minutes early and got at the end of the mass of riders. It was about 9:40 when we finally passed the starting line. It was crowded but moving over the Hawthorne Bridge, but a few blocks later things ground to a halt:

We spent the next 7 blocks and 35 minutes very slowly walking our bikes down the street and up the hill onto the Ross Island Bridge, where things finally started moving again. The rest of the ride kept moving reasonably well, but at this point we were only about a mile into the ride and had only 45 minutes until the last bridge, the Fremont, reopened to traffic. Sure enough, by the time we got there, they were turning everyone around to go back to downtown by an alternate route:

I was pretty bummed because the Fremont bridge is one of my favorites in town, with its graceful and simple architecture. It’s frustrating that the planning and crowd control wasn’t better and couldn’t keep things moving more smoothly. In critical places, like the hill up to the Ross Island Bridge, there was only one lane open, meaning that one group of slow riders could bring thousands of others to a halt. The lesson for next year is to start earlier and do one of the longer routes, which means fewer people on the course at the same time as you.