Ride of Silence

I participated in the Ride of Silence tonight. Team Troll, aka Dave and Laura, joined me along with a reasonable showing of folks.

The weather was cool with a few scattered light showers just prior to our start. The weather probably kept a few folks home. I'd estimate just slightly over 100 riders. Those who showed up did not lack motivation or understanding on why we were there. Scott Bricker, Executive Director of the BTA made a few comments to the group before we shoved off with full police escort allowing us to pass through intersections unimpeded and unhassled.

Joining us were several family members of Tracey Sparling who was killed this past year and who's ghost bike we passed.

Here's a photo of Tracy's mom Sophie riding in a pedicab. (I'm the rider on the left giving a helping hand to the pedicab peddler making his way up a slight hill)


I had attempted to use my helmet cam to record the pre-ride comments by Scott Bricker and the post-ride comments by Greg Raisman but seems that every time I rely on it, the helmet cam sound fails me. There are way too many extraneous sounds, rattles, clicks and whooshes as well as unexplained random changes in recording levels to make it listenable. :-(

I did get a rather lengthy clip of the ride as it unfolded,unedited except to chop it in two to meet maximum file size. Near the end of clip #1 includes the portion of the ride where we rode by Tracey Sparling's ghost bike.

clip #1


clip #2



Here's our group as we passed the ghost bike for Brett Jarolimek:


My personal thanks to the Portland Police (especially the motorcycle contingent) for their support of the Ride of Silence.


I managed to get the 8 miles of the ROS, plus another 2 of pre-ride puttering around, and a commute to a post-ride beer with 2 of the members of Team Troll.

I had been trying to find someone who wanted to join me on a long and/or difficult ride on either Saturday or Sunday. I was thinking of maybe doing some riding around in the West Hills or perhaps riding most or all of the Cherry Ride route. The instigator of most of the Sunday Irregular rides made it easy for me. He's doing a 55 mile ride with 4500 ft of climbing in the West Hills taking in McLean hill, Rocky Point, Old Skyline, Logie Trail, Mason Hill, Skyline, Thompson, and Cornell. I've decided to join him. Color me crazy.

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...............Road Bike.....LifeCycle.....Total Miles
Today...........10...............0
Jan total.......98.....+........402....=..........500
Feb total.....385.....+.......220....=...........605
Mar total.....659.....+........41.....=...........700
April total...629.....+........57.....=...........676
YTD...........2265....+.......720....=.........2973

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