The end of the month

The month came in wet and left wet. In between was pretty wet too! In between all that rain I managed to get my first 1000 mile month since last September. It sort of came by accident. I've been "struggling" to get 500 each month but this month things just sort of fell together. Longer daylight helped, leading a twice weekly hill repeat ride for my social bike club helped, and a 200 mile day last week helped too.

What managed to put me over the top was riding last night late while waiting for a floor sealer to dry. Doing that after riding a ~70 mile ride during the day put me within striking distance tonight. I had planned on driving across the Abernathy Bridge on I-205 then unloading the bike and riding the rest of the way to Rocky Butte then ride back after the hill repeats, but I had to work late and that made time too short to be able to do that. In fact, even driving I made it to Rocky Butte less than 2 minutes before we started up the hill. Luckily I had everything ready to go, just put on my helmet and jumped on the bike.

Many of the normal hill repeat gang stretched their holiday weekend out a bit, and a few others had schedule conflicts. Finally it was only two of us tonight. Jim was there waiting when I got there. Jim rides a bit slower than I do and that was just fine by me tonight. I've got a pretty sore rib, either broken or cracked, and it's making taking deep breaths difficult. I decided to just ride along with Jim.

We rode up the normal way (through the tunnel) but descended via the longer north side. We made 4 loops tonight logging 15 miles in the process. Jim was very happy with the accomplishment and I was happy to be along.


I knew I needed a few more miles for my 1000. I thought about riding out to the Columbia River and riding the Marine Drive path. I don't know the area real well and decided that maybe it wasn't worth taking the chance of getting on sketchy roads on my commute over to the river. I loaded my bike back up and headed back to Wilsonville where I again jumped on my "night route". The sun was still up as I started the 21 mile loop. The roads were dry too.

By the time my 21 and change miles were finished though all that changed. I finished in the dark and it had started to rain. I had my lights along and a Tyvek jacket that did a good enough job of diverting the rain from me for the short time I had to be in it.

I finished up tonight with enough miles to bag my first 1000 mile month since last September. The last two years I rode 1000 mile months more often than not. This year not so much. That's what happens when there are no big rides to train for. I just ride for fun this year. This month there just happened to be almost 1000 miles of fun on my bike!

....road bike.......rollers.........mtb.....lifecycle.....total
Today........37..............0.............0..........0..........37
Jan.........474..............0............21..........7.........502
Feb.........530..............0.............0..........0.........530
March.......502..............0.............0..........0.........502
April.......524..............0.............0..........0.........524
May........1003..............0.............0..........0........1003
YTD........3037..............0............27..........7.........3070