The Wilsonville Century....revisited

Today Doak and I rode a route we call the Wilsonville Century. It's a 103 mile route that takes us from Wilsonville to Champoeg, to Keizer via Saint Paul, Wheatland and Windsor Island then turns east into Silverton and continues to Scotts Mills, Molalla, Liberal, and Canby, then over the ferry and back to Wilsonville. Along the way the route accumulates nearly 5000 ft of climbing, all in the last half the direction we rode it today. (can you say "Bird Hill"?)

Doak is a strong rider and we pushed hard to Keizer. We rode consistently in the low 20's. The nice thing about this route is that there are opportunities to refuel and rehydrate about every 20 miles. We took advantage of the opportunity in Keizer and ate a pretty good lunch. We had begun our ride at 10AM today so it was lunch time by the time we got to Keizer.

The day started with a reminder that fall is approaching. It was blue sky and cloudless, but quite cool. I had long riding pants on and armwarmers along with a windbreaker. I kept it all on for about the first 25 miles when I took off the windbreaker. I didn't roll up the armwarmers until mile 55 even though we were riding hard.

Doak kept right with me (albeit in my draft most of the time) on the flat first half. When we started the climbing my mega mile training and hill work showed itself. I was able to stay out in front without problem once we got in the hills. That's a good thing...........I've got just a few short weeks before I need to be able to RIDE hills, Doak doesn't have to worry about that right now.

He had never seen a Willamette River ferry so our ride across the Canby Ferry at about mile 92 was a treat for him.

We finished strong and rode back into Wilsonville with 103 miles on the odometers. I added 4 because I rode to the ride.

A great day on the bike!

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...............Road Bike.....LifeCycle.....Total Miles
Today...........107...............0................107
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......502.....+.........0........=.......502
Year to date...7685.....+.........30.......=......7715
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