It didn't take long for me to figure out that it was going to be fast. We rode from Wilsonville and went to Newberg via Wilsonville Rd then to Dayton where we made our first stop for water.
From there it was south to Salem. When we got to Salem we had an 18+mph average. That's moving along pretty quickly for me. To have an 18 mph average you've got to be seeing 20+ most of the time to allow for stop signs etc.
We stopped in West Salem at Dairy Queen for some cold snacks then rode across the Union Street pedestrian bridge to get across the Willamette River.
We had a very slight north wind today, meaning that we would be riding back into that on the last half of our ride. We morphed into a 3 man paceline and shared the work. We maintained 20 mph for most of the way. We came across a few folks today out enjoying the nice weather... on flat bar hybrid bikes. The first one came up from behind as we were pedaling about 18-19 on Windsor Island. We saw him coming up and had just a bit of warning before he was among us. He had changed position to be casually laying across the handlebars and smiled and said "howdy, how's it going" as he cruised seemingly effortlessly by. He got by Ken, rolled past me, and Dave decided that this guy on a flat bar bike was not going to pass him! We were just coming up to a steep little pitch. I could see that Dave was switching into race mode. At about the same instant the flat bar dude stood up and poured it on. I looked back at Ken and said "race on". The flat bar dude not only had flat bars, but also front suspension. As we climbed up the pitch I gained on him. Dave was safely putting distance on this guy who had obviously spent most of his chips trying to catch us. As I passed him I noted the front suspension compressing and rebounding. The smirk on his face had morphed into a sweat streaked grimace. As I crested the hills the flat bar dude as a distant speck in my mirror. Dave and I kept the power on to let this guy know the folly of showing up to race road bikes on a hybrid. Ken passed the guy too and within a mile or so we were back in our group making good speed.... just to let this guy know he was outclassed today. My friend Cecil Ann would rightly describe this situation as "testosterone poisoning". ;-)
We came across several more "social riders" today. We passed them all, and passed them "with authority". Silly boys be we.
We made our way northward and over to Canby where we took the Canby Ferry back across the Willamette River. We had the most hills of the ride in our last 10 miles. It was a warm day, but a great ride!
As we pulled into Kraven's Sports Bar I noted to my riding partners that this ride leader had led a ride true to the ride description. I said we'd return to Wilsonville around 4:30 pm or so. We sat down at 4:45 pm. A "true intermediate" ride, and a great day on the bikes!
102 miles today for me, and 404 miles for the month. Now I get to think about biking, but not do much biking for the next two weeks.
.......road bike.......rollers.........mtb.....lifecycle.....total
Today.......102..............0.............0..........0.........102
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
June.......1016..............0............10..........0........1026
July.......1148..............0.............0..........0........1148
August.....1049..............0.............0..........0........1049
Sept........404..............0.............0..........0.........404
YTD........6554..............0............37..........7........6688
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