Erinn and I started from Wilsonville this morning with no real destination in mind, just a plan to ride 60 miles. We began by riding to the Canby Ferry and crossing over the Willamette River to Canby. (just a note that in this blog you can always click on a photo to view it full size)
On the way to the ferry I almost had an oh oh moment. Erinn and I were negotiating a winding descent into "skunk hollow" and I was marvelling at the gracefulness of her bike negotiating the corners. Perhaps a moment of attention lapse, but the next thing I know I'm heading into a 15 mph corner at substantially faster velocity than that. I focused on the turn and layed into it. Probably an error but part way into the corner I feathered the rear brake. The bike began to shimmy which put me into the oncoming lane and heading for the bank. I managed to stabilize and then just focused on where I needed to go. I survived but only in part because no traffic was coming from the other direction. A bit scary.
When we got to the ferry we were surprised to see a number of other bikes. There were 4-5 cyclists on the incoming ferry along with one pickup. There were also about 6-7 cyclists waiting to board. Our crossing had only bikes, no cars.
We rode with this group until we got to Canby then they turned towards Molalla. We had thought about riding that way but decided at that moment to strike out on our own. We rode out Knight's Bridge Road heading towards Butteville/Champoeg Park. After Butteville we followed Butteville Rd to Gervais rather than turn towards Champoeg Park.
We had started with relatively calm winds and cloud cover but by the time we got just out of Butteville the sky cleared.........and we started noticing a north wind. While it was tailwind for us at this point we knew it meant riding against it on our return.
We rode south along Hwy 99E until we came to Concomly Rd and turned right, figuring we could get our miles without riding so far downwind only to have to ride back into it. We road on Concomly over to River Road, the intersection of which is the site of a rest stop on the Monster Cookie Metric Century that we both rode earlier this season. There was a seemingly high amount of traffic on River Rd so we opted to backtrack on Comcomly and ride Hwy 99E rather than negotiate River Rd back north.
Hwy 99E is a bit dicey in the town of Woodburn for a few blocks. No room for bikes on the side and a lot of debris. We took a side road hoping to find a parallel residential street. No luck, we ended up walking the bikes over a block of gravel road.
Once we cleared Woodburn we continued to towards Hubbard. In this stretch Erinn got a jump on me at a traffic light and I just didn't have the energy to chase her down. She had been riding 18-20 mph and I have no reason to believe she was going any faster or slower.......... I just had about 15-16 in me was all! I ended up out of energy (and noted a growling stomach!) I pulled over and ate a Clif Bar, downed a Gu, and took a good drink of Accelerade. I also put my arm warmers back on because I was chilled.
That did the trick, within 10-15 minutes I was back in riding form, or as close to it as I get! Erinn had pulled off a mile or so ahead when she didn't see me behind her anymore.
From there on we rode together back at 18-19 mph, even into the wind.
Just north of Hubbard we angled left onto the road the runs past the Aurora Airport. There was again an unexpectadly high traffic volume. In many stretches there is no shoulder and even a 2-3" dropoff at the fogline. As we approached the airport Erinn pulled off so rapidly I thought she had a flat. Instead she said she didn't feel good about riding through that section. It was a good call. The pavement is rough, no shoulder, high traffic count, and not a good way to cross the Willamette River (our option was to ride just under a mile on the shoulder of I-5 across the Boone Bridge. Not a highlight of my day or hers.
We called my sister who came out and sagged us in, and then joined her and the family back at her house for BBQ. If you have to take a sag back in, that's the way to do it!
We ended up with 50.46 miles. About 10 short of what we had hoped for, but we are still here and able to ride another day.
I added just a bit more sunburn to my blazingly white legs. :-(
It was a good day on the bikes!
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...............Road Bike.....LifeCycle.....Total Miles
Today...........50...............0.............50
Jan total.......98.....+........402....=..........500
Feb total.....385.....+.......220....=...........605
Mar total.....659.....+........41.....=...........700
April total...629.....+........57.....=...........676
YTD...........2799....+.......743....=.........3542
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