Riding Through the Period of Maximum Constraint

If you haven’t already heard, our local Seattle news cycle is dominated with the permanent Closure of the Alaskan way viaduct; that’s the Period of Maximum Constraint I wrote about for Wired.

How to survive, plan, circumvent or outright avoid what will be a long three weeks followed with a new tunnel and loss of exits mid tunnel.

I stopped by Westside Bicycle in my neighborhood to see what commuters are considering to get around.

Demos Available

There, I spoke with Mitchell Morris. Mitchell stated there has been a significant increase for commuting by bicycle especially for this time of year.  He mentioned Westside Bicycles, Ride & Decide program that has added a small fleet of Specialized Vado 3.0 (electric assist) bicycles that gives the customer a 48-hour demo with a nominal fee applied towards their future purchase with or without assist.

Their other demos are Giant Trance & Pique. Specialized Tarmac, Enduro and Stumpjumper with 24- and 48-hour terms.

The Specialized Vado Demo comes well equipped with charger, pannier, lock & helmet. Mitch stated, if a customer picks it up Wednesday evening you can give it a try for two full commute days and drop off Saturday morning.

Pedal assist bikes have been pretty popular with new riders tending to be intimidated by pace of traffic, hills and a lack of fitness.

Not all electric bikes are the same and they have some different models from Giant and Flash to compare for a more traditional trail test.

If you’ve got cargo to carry, consider the Tern GSD too. The best part is getting to work sweat free, after a good workout. Also, the waterfront has probably never been quieter.

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