Success!

The weather forecast was for a rainy morning. Frank and I had ridden earlier in the week and he expressed interest in riding a century, his first. The forecast was for a rainy morning so we looked for a route on the drier east side of the Cascade Mtns, and hoped to find one close enough to do as a day trip. A group of Oregon Randonneurs were riding a permanent that began in John Day and traveled much of the same roads that we rode on the `08 Race Across Oregon. It would have been nice to be back in that country but it was just too far to go.

We decided instead to ride the Cherry Ride route. Normally I'd start that in Hood River but the Mosier Twin Tunnel section of the old historic hwy is still closed due to a forest fire that burned in the area a few weeks ago. We started in Mosier instead and knew we'd just have to add a few miles to be sure to get the full 100 miles in. Starting in Mosier also meant that we began the climb up 7 Mile Hill without a warmup! At least we were succesful in finding dry weather. After non stop rain falling as we drove east until nearly Hood River the skies cleared and the roads were dry by the time we got to Mosier.

Here's Frank just getting started up 7 Mile Hill. (note the smile rather than a look of anguish!)

This is one of the tougher century rides around. Not only is there significant climbing, but often a brisk wind also. Today was no exception with winds in excess of 20 mph. There are also some long stretches without an opportunity to resupply unless you are riding on the "official ride" in Spring, or stash some supplies ahead of time at the far end. :-)

Here's Frank climbing away from the Columbia River.

The roads are quite nice to ride, very low traffic and what traffic there was seemed to have read the "Be nice to cyclists" memo! We both commented about that several times as we rode.




It was Frank's turn for tire problems today. First he developed a bubble on his tire. Luckily I had a folding spare along.

30 or 40 miles later he noticed a slow leak in his tube, so once again it was time to practice roadside repairs!

After the tire/tube problems we got a bit later than originally planned, but it did make for some nice photo ops with the long shadows.






I had been ahead of Frank on the 40 mph descent from Cherry Heights when he had the first tire issue and by the time I got the phone call I was 2 1/2 miles down the hill. I rode back up to help out. Because of that I was 5 miles ahead of Frank on the speedometer. Even with those "bonus miles" I was going to be short of the 100 when we got back to Mosier. There is a flat section of road just before dropping into Mosier which today was experiencing cross wind rather than a headwind/tailwind and we both used that opportunity to do a little back and forth on that 1.5 mile stretch to make sure we had our century complete.

The sun was just going down as we reached Mosier......with Frank's first century firmly in the bag! Congratulations to him!



+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
...............Road Bike.....LifeCycle.....Total Miles
Today...........103...............0................103
Jan total.......501.....+.........30.......=.......531
Feb total.......614.....+.........0........=.......614
March total.....860.....+.........0........=.......860
April total.....790.....+.........0........=.......790
May total.......901.....+.........0........=.......901
June total......543.....+.........0........=.......543
July total.....1322.....+.........0........=......1322
August total...1603.....+.........0........=......1603
Sept total.....1105.....+.........0........=......1105
Year to date...8288.....+.........30.......=......8318
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++