Snow, hail, rain, sun, ......and 54 miles

What a mixed bag today was! I drove through a snow shower getting to the meeting point this morning. It was cool, in the mid 30's as we looked for excuses to delay our start. We were a group of about 12 that divided right from the start into the "fast group" and the "slow group", though those designations are certainly subject to interpretation. I thought it was better for me to struggle to keep up with the fast group.

We took off towards Mountaindale. Before even getting there two of our group split off towards the hills saying something about Logie Trail and Skyline as they peeled away. The remaining 4 of us continued on our way, running a solid 18-19 mph until we began climbing that "almost imperceptible" hill heading up to Snooseville. As we made our way up we experienced our first hail shower of the trip. Having spent my whole life around here I knew that if it was raining anywhere it would be raining in the Mountaindale canyon. The bike pansy crawled out of my bike's rear bag and parked itself on my shoulder. It didn't take long for it to convince me that I did not need to go all the way back to Snooseville. With about 3 miles to go I turned around and made my way back to the now closed Mountaindale Store........ all the while getting pelted with hail on my cold cheeks and nose!

I waited under the store's porch for the others to return. It didn't take long and they were back there too. The cold and wet were getting to the group so we decided to take a reasonably direct route back to our starting point, Longbottom Coffee. As we pedaled into North Plains the sun came out. (probably more correctly, one of the hit or miss showers was not currently over us!) The group was going to get back to Longbottom's with about 35 miles, not enough for me today. I peeled off and took a different path. I had to do a bit of "sight seeing" to get my goal and ended up traversing some roads more than once, but did end up with just under 54 miles.
Here's the route I took.

When I finally made it back to my pickup the temperature was 45, not bad at all, but before I got out of there it was hailing mixed with snow and rain again. The temperature dropped to 36 by the time I drove out of the parking lot. Welcome to Springtime in Oregon! The Coast Range was beautiful with all the snow. I was too busy pedaling to take any pictures today.

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...............Road Bike.....LifeCycle.....Total Miles
Today...........54................0
Jan total.......98.....+........402....=..........500
Feb total.....385.....+.......220....=..........605
YTD...........1123.....+........663....=........1786

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