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No really. It's true. According to the League of American Bikes (via the Cascade Bicycle Alliance in our case), Washington is the most bicycle friendly state in the union. According to the LAB, "Washington’s model bike laws, signed and mapped statewide bike route network, dedicated funding from the state for bicycle related programs and projects, and an active statewide bicycle advisory committee" are reasons that the state earned top honors above Wisconsin, Arizona, Oregon (numbers......

Thanks to these high, high temperatures (OMFG!!1! 80 degrees?! *pantpant*), the P-I reports, the Puget Sound Clean Air Agency is close to calling a smog alert. The shame! The agency's Dave Kircher says to do everything possible to keep from driving the next few days: "Stay home, have an iced tea or whatever, and don't mow your lawn." Here we just laugh! As bicyclists, we're gonna pack extra water, but otherwise, Kircher, we'll do whatever......

Not to belabor this story, but we think the issue of the rights of bicycle riders to the road is an important one. We ride on the city streets every day and, though some commenters on our post about changes we'd like to see made to Critical Mass in Seattle think that every driver goes out of his or her way to be respectful to us, we know it's not true. Seattle still has a......

This is the third part of a series that follows the Group Health Seattle to Portland Bicycle Classic along its route, and explores the history and transformation of the Pacific Northwest through the communities and stops along the way. See here for part 2. Twenty minutes south of Olympia we take exit 95 off I-5 towards Little Rock. The road changes name a couple times until we're on 28th Ave SW, which ends at Waddell......

This is the second part of a series that follows the Group Health Seattle to Portland Bicycle Classic along its route, and explores the history and transformation of the Pacific Northwest through the communities and stops along the way. See here for part 1. As 7:30 a.m. rolled around, we were ready for breakfast and tired of slowly following the STP riders through Kent, so we made our way back to I-5 and headed south......

This is the first part of a series that follows the Group Health Seattle to Portland Bicycle Classic along its route, and explores the history and transformation of the Pacific Northwest through the communities and stops along the way. At 4:45 a.m. Saturday morning, July 12th, 2,427 bicyclists set out from the Husky Stadium parking lot to make the 204.5-mile Group Health Seattle to Portland Classic in one day. Fifteen minutes before that, we were......

The other day we asked if there was anything special you could do to set off the arrow for turn-only lanes if you're on a bike. And yes, there is. (See also comment #9 by eldan.) But that still leaves the question of what you do when you can't trip the signal no matter what. How do you get out of that spot legally without being run over by impatient motorists lining up behind you?......

"How I spent my Sunday" by Todd Bates Seattlest spent our Monday this way, though we weren't cool (or crazy?) enough to document the ride in such a fashion. You never know what you'll find in our Flickr Pool.......

RETURN TO THE '80s: The B-52s are playing at the Showbox at the Market tonight. We hope you already have your $50 (!) tickets since the show's sold out. If you're into that kind of '80s thing though, you can get your fill at "I Love the 80s" at Club Noc Noc with DJ Shane. Tonight is sure to be a love-shack bonanza. 9 p.m. // Club Noc Noc // Free TIME FOR THE BIRDS:......

The East Coast got two new toys this month and Seattle didn't get any. We didn't even get a Microsoft/Yahoo buy-out like we were promised. Why can't Seattle get a bike-sharing program of our own, a la Washington, D.C.'s new "SmartBike DC"? Our city has a dedicated (at times, frighteningly dedicated) cadre of bicyclists who will shoot down objections that Seattle's just not bike-friendly. If we can embrace Zipcar, as undoubtedly Seattle has, we......

It's Earth Day. Down here in the Seattlest news room we thought that, along with giving up meat, disposable coffee cups and plastic bags, we'd offer some unsolicited advice about how you can help the planet the other 364 days of the year, too. But, when a friend who happens to be a real live Seattle native and an inveterate bike commuter approached us with a better idea abut spreading the gospel of bike commuting,......

For all the talk about whether or not the city's Master Bike Plan goes far enough, one thing is clear: if you spend any time on the city streets, there are new bike lanes and preferred bike routes out there. To help you keep track of all the changes, the Department of Traffic has released a new version of the bike map. If you ever ride your bike outside your neighborhood, you're going to......

We were impressed by this morning's Times article about the need to increase bicycle safety on the city's streets. Writer Mike Lindblom stays away from polarizing histrionics. Instead he makes bicyclists seem like sane, good people who just want to make it to work alive:At each end of the Fremont Bridge, road signs tell car drivers to yield to bikes -- southbound motorists turning right toward Seattle Pacific University will wait for the bicyclists pedaling......

You recall the other day we were mad as hell at the Washington State Ferries for running their boats until they rusted through, leaving everyone high and dry while new ones can be built. WSF is still dead to us, but Governor Gregoire could make our "holiday card" list if she keeps it up. First the viaduct course correction, now she's scrounged up $100 million to pay for three new ferries. Budget, schmudget! She's......

Seattlest has found a reason for everyone to welcome bicycles on the city's streets. The origins lie in Virgin Vacations' (has anyone asked The Name Inspector to do a write up on Richard Branson's desire to cater to virgins?) naming of the world's 11 most bike-friendly cities. Unfortunately, Seattle didn't make the list (Portland came in at number 2), which uses five criteria created by The Bicycle Friendly Communities Campaign to judge a community's bike......

Seattle's infamous Bicycle Hobo(TM) tipped us off to this cool Halloween scavenger hunt thing going on this weekend that we hadn't heard of previously, evidently called the Mess-Man's Messquerade. Here's the run down from the site: The hunt starts soon after 7pm in the sunken parking lot behind Cafe vita/Wild Rose entrance off 10th ave. This historic location is where Seattle’s first BIKE POLO tournament was held by yours truly at the 1st Messquerade.......

It's not often that a play comes along that unites both senior citizens and the people who want to kill them. If your parents are elderly, this may strike you as "fair and balanced" theatre. Seattle Rep's The Murderers also unites the talents of "highly respectable playwright" Jeffrey Hatcher and respectability's opposite in many ways, actress Sarah Rudinoff. Her character Minka says about killing: "You do it once, it just gets easier and easier --......

Over the weekend, we made three trips to the new Stumptown Coffee on 12th Ave (next to Cafe Presse). We're not actually coffee geeks, it just worked out that way. (These people are coffee geeks.) We're more of a cafe geek. If you aren't familiar, Stumptown Coffee is based in Portland, and this is their big move into the Seattle market. (Edmonds' ZuKafe claims to have been their first Puget Sound wholesale account.) Here's Seattle......

That headline was designed to hector Seattle because we know how awful it is for this part of the world to be compared to New York City. But showing Seattle how New York does something better seems to produce results (the M's notwithstanding). This time they're creating truly bike-friendly streets. It's always been unbelievable to us how Seattle presents itself as an uber-environmentally friendly city, while drivers clog the freeways in Hummers, voters kill the......

With a Freedom Fries eating contest. Here is the relevant flickr set for last night's contest, evidently won by bicycle hobo associate identified only by the alias "Michael." Here are the rules for the 9/11 Eat Off Commemoration that apparently took place at Red Robin: RULES 1. Vomit: If you vomit, you cannot continue until you re-eat the vomit food. If you refuse to eat your own fry vomit, disqualified. If you do eat your......

Apparently the same kind of PR firm that emails proposals from a yahoo account. So says our confidential source at Coastal Kitchen, who told us that, just minutes after Ronald Holden's hilarious, pun filed Seattlest screed showed up in her RSS feed, she was immediately bombarded by PR companies offering to help her "spin" this story. Here's one that showed up via email (note the time stamp proximity to Ronald's post): From: Date: Wed, 5......

Seattlest's heart's cockles always get warmed when we see a bunch of people who choose to ride their bikes to get around get together, so we were predisposed to love Northwest Film Forum's Second Seattle Annual Bike-In last night. (Almost getting slammed by a driver opening her car door while riding over probably added to our joy at making it there.) Unlike most communal bike events in Seattle (Critical Mass, Bike to Work Day), the......

With unseasonable weather descending upon much of North America, schools getting ready to reconvene, and sports seasons getting exciting, it's a busy time of year for us here in the Ist-A-Verse. Luckily, even with all the things we have to do, we still managed to get together to let you know what we've all been up to. After cooling down from a hot weekend of many badass Sunset Junction Street Fair photo dispatches, LAist asked......

Evidently, the vocoder will not have its vengeance until it has reconquered all of pop music. The saga continued earlier yesterday when M.I.A. dropped her much anticipated follow up to 2005's much anticipated and critically acclaimed Arular. So in case you missed Monday's listening party or you simply don't care, the album is called Kala and it's been quite the hot topic in the blogosphere, inciting outernational dance floor ecstasy while unnerving folks who fret......

Or you could get your ass FIRED! Just ask our old pal/arch nemesis/best livejournal trainwreck on the internet the Bicycle Hobo(TM), who just got let go from his job at the Times for visiting Fleshbot.com [evidently NSFW] while ostensibly "working." From the hobo's blog: I could have gotten drunk at work, groped a coworker and peed in the corner of the building, and I would have gotten a warning, but a little ass & tickle......

Summertime lunch (pasta, Frascati) with our Paris Pal, and Seattlest carries on about the failures of Velib as if it were the end of Western Civilization. (Velib is the city's brand new, one-way, hourly bike rental program; see "Paris When it Fizzles" entry on our other blog, Cornichon.) When we pass a Velib "station" near the Arc de Triomphe, we triumphantly demonstrate that American credit cards won't work. Then Paris Pal swipes his Amex...the......

We wouldn't yet call ourselves bicycle "enthusiasts," but we're getting there. We've started riding from work (downtown) to home (Shoreline) about three days a week and we're loving it. We're getting exercise, doing something we enjoy and the majority of the ride, along the Burke-Gilman Trail, is just gorgeous. Now, most days, our ride through the UW campus is an uneventful pleasantry. We glide along, casually admiring young co-eds as they jog by in......

We would like to point out that it is our firm desire that there be less militancy in the driver/biker debate. Obviously there are a few asshole drivers, and there are a few asshole bikers. The vast majority of both groups, however, are cool, and the few bad apples shouldn't make us want to nuke the whole barrel. That said... Friday night, we saw a biker get hit by a car making a left turn.......

The supreme granddaddy of Seattle blogging and king shit of the international bicyclist rebellion Rob Zverina has yet another straight from the gut, well written and beautifully illustrated post up on his blog that's worth checking out. After viewing the aftermath of another car on bicyclist collision up in Fremont, Zverina rants: It made me incredibly mad. The equivocator said he knew what it was like because he too was a cyclist. When Sarah......