Carbon Footprint - 11kg or 2234kCal

Yesterday I left my car at home. I rode my bike down to the bus stop in Duvall and caught the 311 in to the city at 6:47am. Before I left the house I made Audra promise that she would come get me if I missed the bus. There is about 500 feet of elevation between downtown Duvall and my house and although I've climbed it numerous times I was not interested in getting my natty work clothes all sweaty - especially at 6:47am. Audra was asleep when she made the promise - so I'm really glad that I didn't have to make that call.
The one hour 7 minute ride in was uneventful. I sat near the front to keep a watchful eye on my bike as we made the trip through the dangerous upper middle class hamlets of Cottage Lake, Woodinville and finally Kirkland before heading across the lake on Highway 520. I got off at my new normal spot - at Stewart and Denny - and commenced to play tag with the downtown morning traffic. After pulling my bike off the bus, strapping on my backpack and buckling my helmet I head down Stewart to the bus alley (aka 3rd Street) make a left and head down the hill to my building at 3rd and Madison. The trip down 3rd street is pretty nice as only buses, cyclists and the occasional cop are allowed during peak commute times. Alternatively, I sometimes see cyclists on 5th street when I ride the bus all the way in and I scratch my head at this. 5th street is typically PACKED in the mornings - buses, delivery trucks and cars all packed in 3 wide, all looking weaving in and out as folks make their way to work. You have to have some serious thrill issues to ride that route to work.
Round about 4:00 I shut down my computer and geared up for the commute home.

View Larger Map

The first 20 miles of the commute is grand. My normal route through downtown, across the I90 bridge, over Mercer Island, up through Bellevue and down in to Redmond is primarily on surface streets through neighborhoods; no drama, no pensive moments, no enraged Escalade driving soccer moms late for practice talking on their cell phones, just an easy ride. It takes me about an hour twenty to complete and I've taken to keeping a frosty cold beverage in a little cooler in my Jeep to celebrate the end of the ride - no not THAT kind of beverage(that one is reserved for when I'm safely home)- just a nalgene full of cold water or Gatorade. My point is that my standard route from Seattle to Redmond is nice and I look forward to it. Even on crappy weather days, its a far better thing to be spinning along in the wind and rain than stuffed in a bus. On the really wet days the buses tend to smell like wet dog... not good. The last 11 miles are a different story all together.
My standard route from Redmond to Duvall is miserable. I have two other routes I'm temped to try, but they have their shortcomings as well. As far as I can tell, there just wasn't supposed to be as many people living up on Redmond Ridge or out in Duvall/Carnation/Monroe. Because, you see, if there were supposed to be this many people living out here, then OBVIOUSLY the roads would have been modified to accommodate them. There wouldn't be a stop and go line of cars from the end of 520 to the top of Redmond Ridge. There wouldn't be a dark savage winding narrow two lane plummet from the top of the ridge to the Snoqualmie River valley floor. There wouldn't be several stretches of menacing blackberries seeking their pound of flesh on a shoulder less road.
The excitement starts shortly after leaving the safety of the Snoqualmie Valley Trail just east of Redmond Town Center. Here you are forced to jump in to 45mph bumper to bumper 2 lane traffic and cross an old set of train tracks before stopping at the light at Redmond Way. After crossing Redmond way traffic is funneled into a narrow 2 land alley-turned-road up to the intersection with Avondale. This is one of the really fun parts - 5 lanes of constant traffic, no bike lane, several feeder streets that splits at Union Hill road so you have cars weaving in and out to either make or miss the exit. As a cyclist it feels like a luge - you jump out of the saddle at the intersection of 170th and Avondale, take the left lane and hug the center turn lane so cars can get around. If you take the normal slot right lane against the curb your going to have to navigate all the cars nosing into the road trying to find a spot long enough to pull out into traffic without getting hit, also you're going to have to cross traffic and change lanes at the split - neither activity is especially pleasing so I park it in the left lane and stomp.
Once on Avondale proper (after the split to Union Hill road) things calm down a bit. The road has a full bike lane and enough cyclist traffic to keep the cars honest. The trouble from here to the top of Redmond ridge is the constant stop and go traffic. There is always a car next to you either idling, inching along, or roaring up to close a gap. On the flat this isn't so bad but when the road starts to climb this really sucks. The climb up to the top of Redmond ridge is a stout 4 miles with about 500 feet of elevation gain, mostly concentrated in 3 1/4 mile pitches of upwards of 11%. For a fat guy like me - that's plenty steep enough to get me sucking wind, and with the constant traffic, sucking fumes. It takes me about 18 minutes to get from the bottom of the hill to the top. At the top things once again open up - new road, plenty of bike lane and about a mile of downhill.
Normally I would look forward to this fast swooping downhill run to the valley floor. Is it fast - absolutely, are there cars - yep, in front and behind you, is it swoopy - not really. According to the Washington State DOT this section of road sees in excess of 40,000 vehicles per day. 40,000 cars, vans, pickups, dump-trucks, buses and moving vans really tear up pavement. If you look up at the map you'll see a little bend in the road just up the hill from West Snoqualmie Valley Road. On the map it doesn't look all that dramatic, you really wouldn't give it a second glance but in reality its a torn up 20mph off camber corner that in a car forces you to hit the brakes pretty hard and crank around. The pavement is grooved here as it helps funnel the water away when it rains - the cuts are too small to affect the large contact patch of a car tire, or really even a motorcycle - but damn do they get your heart started on a bicycle. At the bottom of the hill you have to navigate about 500 yards of what is essentially a single lane paved road that's been turned into two lanes. You can't get too close to the edge as the blackberries are encroaching into the open space of the roadway - hit one of those thick barbed branches at 20mph and you'll need stitches.
124th across the valley is a blessing, wide, flat with a good bike lane. If the road was like this all the way to Redmond I might do this more often! Unfortunately all good things must come to an end, and this one ends at highway 203. It's only a mile from 124th to the Safeway parking lot - but a mile on a full fledged freeway is one mile too many for this kid. Once on this road I was passed by 5 dump-trucks pulling pup trailers - in a row. Oh- and I saw God, he told me to get off the road. So instead I grab the rails-to-trails gravel path that parallels 203 and ride that up to the access road below Safeway. The final grunt is up Big Rock Road - the same one I didn't want to climb at 6:47am is now directly in front of me roughly twelve hours later.
All in all my heart rate monitor told me I burned 2234 calories in the 2:15 it took me to navigate the 31 miles. For reference, 2234 calories is the equivalent of:
15 Twinkies
4 Big Mac's
20 Bud Light's
6 cups of Ben & Jerry's Cookie Dough ice cream.
For fun I thought about what my carbon footprint typically is for my round trip to Redmond when I take the bus both ways - it figures out to be around 12kg of CO2. Based on my trip from Duvall to Redmond - I'm going to have to find a better way to save both the $4.50 in gas as well as the 12kg of CO2.