Team Teriyaki Donut is Elizabeth Walkup and I, Greg Barnes. We have lived in Seattle continuously since 1998, and off and on for about 10 years before that. Of course, we've been to the Seattle Center many times (including the day before the Uptown Street Scramble, when I took the kids to the Children's Museum).
We entered the bike division of the Uptown Street Scramble, riding separate bikes, and stayed out for 3 hours.
Since we were pretty familiar with the area, the only legwork I did was to study the Seattle bicycle map for routes up and down Queen Anne Hill, across the railroad tracks to the west, and across Aurora to the east. The Seattle bicycle map has a suggested route up the hill from the west (starting at W Dravus Street), which we ended up using, but otherwise we didn't find anything earth-shatteringly useful.
If anything, we did anti-preparation, as Elizabeth recently took on a leadership position at our children's daycare, and we were moving the daycare to a new location during the Independence Day weekend. This is why we were at the Children's Museum on Friday --- the daycare was closed Wednesday-Friday and I took care of the kids while Elizabeth took inspectors around and worked on fixing up the new space. On Thursday she was up until 2am. Needless to say, we weren't in the best of shape. As it turned out, though, I was the one who made the mental mistakes.
We visited 26 checkpoints and got 710 points. We should have gotten 730, but I'm pretty sure I forgot to mark our answer for #29, the Queen Anne Cafe. The judges could also have left off 20 points for #27, Ward Springs Park, which we visited but couldn't for the life of us answer the question. But we complained to the judges and I'm guessing, got the points for this one. See below.
Apart from my obvious lack of mental acuity, the main problem once again was mechanical, and it could have been much more serious than it was. After walking our bikes up a block from Kinnear Park (remember, Elizabeth was tired), Elizabeth found her chain was frozen. The problem was that her bike rack (over her back tire) had lost the two bolts near the back axle, and part of it was tangled in the chain. It's a good thing it didn't jump off while she was riding, or she could have had a serious injury.
Anyway, this should have been a minor repair. We either had to detach the rack at the remaining two anchor points and stuff it in a pannier, or reattach it with spare bolts. The bolts needed are all over the typical bicycle --- they're what your water bottle cage is attached with, for example, and Elizabeth had a couple of spare ones attached to her frame. Unfortunately, our Allen wrench of the correct size was apparently stripped, so it would only take out the loosest of bolts, and more often than not just ruined the bolt we tried to use it on. We ended up stripping a couple of bolts, and couldn't do better than leaving it half attached. This was very frustrating. On the other hand, Elizabeth got some much-needed rest, and was also able to phone into some daycare parents who had left us a message asking for guidance for the move. Meanwhile, I cursed my Allen wrench.
Fortunately, Seattle is full of bicycle shops, and I knew there was one fairly nearby (Counterbalance Bicycles, at Roy and Queen Anne). So we walked there from our perch halfway up the hill (picking up a checkpoint along the way). It took the repair guy all of 5 minutes to reattach the rack to the frame. He even gave us a new Allen wrench gratis. [I was so grateful, I walked over between lunch and the awards ceremony and bought some fenders for Elizabeth's bike.]
In all, we blew about half an hour on this incident, which pretty much insured we had to skip a number of high-value checkpoints we almost assuredly could have made. This also marks the 2nd Scramble in a row where we've had a breakdown. My only consolation is that in the next event (the 7 hour Night and Day), a half-hour off the bikes won't be a crippling loss of time, but rather a much-needed rest break.
Our route first picked up the checkpoints in Uptown proper and Seattle Center, then those just east of Aurora. Next we headed downtown and to the Market, descended the hill at Broad and followed the shoreline and the Terminal 91 bike path (which connects Elliott Bay Park to Magnolia at approximately checkpoint 54). From there we crossed the railroad tracks at Dravus, picked up #39, then headed up the west side of Queen Anne following the bike map route. From there the plan was to pick up all the Queen Anne checkpoints, then the one on Westlake, followed by Fremont, Wallingford, Eastlake, and Volunteer Park, with a final mad dash down the hill, picking up the nearby #11 if we had time. [Of course, it's not clear we could have done all this, but that was the plan.]
It's worth noting that we left a lot of improvisation in our route, particularly on Queen Anne Hill, because I was unsure as to the best way to get between checkpoints or even the order to visit checkpoints. I think this is a reflection of good course design --- the route should not be that obvious, and should require some thinking on the fly. I'm dubious that there was a nice, clean route to pick up the Queen Anne Hill checkpoints, anyway. I'm not an expert, but it appears there are two somewhat flat levels to the hill --- one at the top, and one at the level of Queen Anne Boulevard (the latter of which you can easily discern if you find a Seattle Parks map). But most of the Queen Anne checkpoints weren't on these levels, but on the undulating slopes between them, requiring you to climb hills (or stairs) and then go immediately back down. Elsewhere, I thought the location of checkpoints 46 and 52 posed a nice dilemma. The temptation is to go to 46 first, whether you approach from the north or the south, but that puts you at the bottom of Capitol Hill, with the top of the hill (the Volunteer Park water tower) as your next checkpoint.
Anyway, our route was: 13 [dentist], 35 [24 Hour Fitness], 22 [Key Arena], 45 [Space Needle], 47 [Denny Park], 34 [Terry Ave building], 36 [doggy day care], 23 [Seattle Superhero fountain], 44 [Metsker Maps], 28 [Starbucks], 51 [Myrtle Edwards plaza], 48 [Elliott Bay water fountain], 54 [Magnolia cafe], 39 [industrial building doors], 38 [garage door with number], 24 [west Queen Anne pole], 37 [Kinnear Park], [bike rack failure], 26 [Kerry park playground], [bike rack reattached], 12 [Ward pole], 27 [Ward Springs], 33 [brown garage door], 43 [radio tower], 21 [West Queen Anne Playfield], 29 [Queen Anne Cafe], 32 [Comstock pole], 11 [construction site]
We placed first in our division. I believe we traveled approximately 14.5 miles, .5 miles walking the bikes, 14 riding the bikes. Even ignoring the half hour spent repairing the bike, this comes out to a rather ugly 5.6 mph. I blame the hill.
We could not figure out the answer to #27, Ward Springs Park, because we couldn't locate the park. We approached from the south, on 4th Ave N, saw a single family home on both the SE and SW corners, then climbed up to the NE and NW corners (Ward is one of the many Queen Anne streets that is split with a large steep median between the two directions). We saw single family homes on the north corners as well. As it turns out, the SW corner 'house' was apparently a barn, but we didn't recognize this. This is partially the fault of a misaligned checkpoint circle (the map shows the checkpoint as being on the SE corner of 4th and Ward not the SW). But really, I probably needed more sleep. I think we convinced the judges we visited the checkpoint, so we probably got the points, anyway (and lost them by failing to write down the answer to #29).
I also made a somewhat stupid error on checkpoint #38. Approaching from the north, the street was again split into east and west sides. I knew the house we wanted was on the east side, but the west side had a dead end sign (and the east side, of course, a Do Not Enter sign). For some reason, I thought the Dead End sign meant we had to enter the east side, since the west side had no outlet. So we walked our bikes to the house. But of course, if you go down the west side, there is a point where you can turn around and get to the east side (otherwise, how would anyone use the garage?). Duh.
Speaking of split streets, I was a little disappointed that Soundview Terrace (2500 11th Ave W) was not a checkpoint. Soundview is a park built into one of the medians of these split streets. At the north end, it has a view of Elliott Bay (hence the name). At the south end, it has a very cool play structure that uses the contours of the steep slope.
Apparently it would have been useful to have a pair of binoculars for a couple of the utility pole checkpoints, which would allow you to read the numbers on them without descending and ascending a hill. We did manage to read the number on #24 from the intersection at the top of the street, which was a relief after pushing our bikes up the hill to get there.
Another useful item to bring along (for us at least) might be a list of Seattle bike repair shops.
We caught up with the photographer (or she caught up with us) 5 times: At the Space Needle fountain, the Myrtle Edwards plaza, Kinnear Park, the radio tower, and the finish. I think we only saw her once during the Crossroads Street Scramble.
I noticed while looking at the Seattle bike map the night before that its scale is the same as the scale for the Street Scramble maps.
The last two times I was in the Uptown area, for the Children's Museum and The Queen Anne Treewalk, I was with my 5-year old, and both times we ate lunch at Steel Pig Barbecue (Roy and Aurora). Of course, we had to stop both times to watch the work at the construction site where the Tower Records used to be (checkpoint #11).
This time we didn't make back our entry fee (although we did get a nice bar of chocolate). That's probably mostly because we both already have a gym membership, so the 30-day free pass in the prize bags from 24 Hour Fitness isn't worth anything to us. Oh well.
Eyeballing Eric Bone's guess at an optimal route, I wish I had the software he is using so I could play around, but I think my proposed route was shorter (by [very roughly] the length of Fairview from Valley to Eastlake, which is probably about .5 miles). I think it could be made even shorter if the final dash from Volunteer Park diverts to pick up the two checkpoints east of Aurora and north of Denny (47 and 34). But I'm just doing this in my head, and would love to know how long these routes really are. If anyone wants to satisfy my curiosity, here's my guess at an optimal route:
13, 35, 22, 45, 36, 23, 44, 28, 51, 48, 54, 39, 38, 24, 37, 26, 12, 27, 33, 43, 32, 29, 21, 25, 31, 42, 41, 53, 46, 52, 34, 47, 11.
My route as planned moved 34 and 47 between 45 and 36. I considered following the route above instead, but I was dubious we would have time to get over to the east side of Lake Union, so I elected to visit them earlier to prevent the possibility of missing 70 easy points.
Another note about Eric's route: you have to change a few things if you're on a bike. Most notably, he seems to be taking the Lakeview stairs down Capitol Hill to Eastlake, but presumably if you were on a bike you'd divert to Roanoke. I know I couldn't do 24 miles on foot in 3 hours, even if I didn't have to climb Capitol and Queen Anne hills and answer the checkpoint questions. But perhaps you can.
Update (2/2007): Thanks to Gmaps, my curiosity is satisfied. My guess at an optimal route beats Eric's by around .28 miles, even if you follow routes a bicycle can take (I did postulate using some Queen Anne Hill stairs, but nothing you couldn't imagine carrying your bike over or just leaving it for a minute to answer a checkpoint). If you take the stairs from Lakeview and cut into Volunteer Park by the tennis courts (not things you want to do with a bike), the route is almost a mile shorter.
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gsbarnes [at] drizzle.com