Tour de Blue Sky and Sunshine

(photo by Jonathan Maus)

Actually the Tour de van Oeste Portlandia, but what a beautiful day for a bike ride!
After the first two years of this event being wet...and cold, today was very nice indeed. The nice weather brought a good turnout (600+!) for this little hill fest. (8300 ft of climbing according to a friend's Garmin)



We got a good warm up on the run out Hwy 30 before starting our first climb. All went well until I got to the first "biggy" of the day, Brynwood Street. It looked like well over half walked their bikes up this steep little hill. With my 30x27 I was able to pedal up. About 2/3 the way up a female rider zigged a bit to the right, forcing me into some wet fir needles. My slick road tire slipped about a half revolution and my forward momentum stopped. Down I went. She felt terrible, I felt a little sore on the left knee. We both pedaled on. Post ride I verified what I had suspected, scraped up knee. At the top of Brynwood a crew from OPB interviewed me, "hey let's go talk to that OLD guy" ;-) I understand they are putting together a piece for Oregon Field Guide. Maybe I'll be lucky and end up on the cutting room floor. A gasping for air old man is not a pretty sight!

We continued to ride the West Hills like yo-yo's, up and down, up and down.



With most of the climbs we were rewarded with great views.



I pedaled all the hills today, with the exception of the top 50 ft or so of College. I had a cyclist stall out in front of me. I unclipped and stopped. Starting on a 20+% hill just wasn't my idea of fun with the top so close, so I walked it to the stop sign. At the bottom of College I stopped for a bit to chat with Jonathan Maus of BikePortland fame. We talked about the SOB SUV.

After teasing us with close passes of Council Crest several times today, we finally made the turn into the park. Unlike the last several years when it was wet and cold and folks topped and left, today there was a lot of visiting and congratulating.



I was supposed to meet up with 3 of my social bike group here today but did not see them. I did however see fellow Oregon Randonneur Bill A. Of all things, he was on what Cecil Ann would call a "plastic bike", very unRando like. Hey, we all do what we have to do!



I didn't push real hard today, just hard enough. I finished just before 3PM with a 10.2 mph average. I'm guessing that may have put me just in the top half of finishers, not that it's a race.

After the ride ended and I visited around a bit I pointed the bike downhill and went back to McTarnahan's Tap room. That's where the day's fun began and where I had parked.

Tomorrow I lead an 80 mile ride for the social bike group, part of our "training series". We'll have significant climbing on that one too. Just not as much as today!

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
...............Road Bike.....LifeCycle.....Total Miles
Today............51...............0.................51
Jan total.......501.....+.........30.......=.......531
Feb total.......614.....+.........0........=.......614
March total.....860.....+.........0........=.......860
April total......71.....+.........0........=........71
Year to date...2063.....+.........30.......=......2093
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++