New territory

I played with my Garmin mapping program, selected a few points and told it to find me a bike friendly route between them. It was going to be a fun adventure, sending us over many roads I had never cycled before, as well as finding bike paths where I never knew they existed!

The concern this morning was the weather. Last night a black ice warning was issued for the area, and there was supposed to be snow accumulation to quite low elevations and possible freezing temperatures.

As it ended up the morning came with lows in the high 30's so we dodged the black ice bullet, at least on the valley floor. Our route was to take us up to Sandy, about 1000 ft in elevation.

Ken and I started from Tigard today. I drove to the start since I was running too late to bike there, Ken rode about 25 miles from his home in east Portland.

We rode up to Garden Home and over a bit of a hill before dropping down to the Willamette River and crossing the Selwood Bridge. We pedaled along the Springwater Corridor to Gresham then dropped into the Sandy River canyon and crossed the river at Dodge Park.



I guess I cursed our ride today, because as we began the climb away from Dodge Park we experienced a rain shower. It wasn't real hard, but hard enough that I put on my goretex jacket. I rode with it on for just under 10 miles.

After climbing a significant grade to get out of the canyon we dropped right back into it to cross Revenue Bridge. It began to rain lightly again as we neared Sandy. We stopped for lunch at Subway.

From Sandy we turned toward Estacada. After 50 miles of nice cycling roads and paths we were now on a road that had no real shoulder. Not that it made a whole lot of difference, because of the copious leaf debris following a few days of blustery wet weather we were in the lane most of the day. It just wasn't safe to ride on those wet leaves.

Once we got to Estacada our road improved. Ken outrode today, as he usually does. He was 200 hundred feet ahead of me climbing a hill and missed a turn. I waited a bit for him, but knowing we were going to need all the daylight we had today I pedaled on, figured when he called me we'd figure out how to meet back up. I had figured that we were probably riding a parallel route heading toward Oregon City.

He ended up backtracking and coming into Beavercreek the same way I did. It was probably shorter for him to continue on the way he was going and cut over to the "official route" farther down the hill. We ended up meeting in Beavercreek just as it was getting dark.

We lit up and pedaled on. Between New Era and Canby I heard a loud "BANG" behind me. Ken had blown a tubular tire. It was beyond fixing with a can of sealant so we set about changing it. My duties were pretty much holding the light. It took a long time to get the old tire off the rim, probably 20 minutes or more. That Ken sure does a fine job of gluing those tires on! Along with the darkness issue, it was raining. Never a fun time to be standing along the side of a dark rural road changing a tire in the rain.

We made our way to Canby via Territorial Rd and crossed the Canby Ferry. We climbed away from the Willamette River on that short steep hill then rode over the big rollers of Advance Rd. By now neither of us had much spring in our legs, but we did manage to keep forward momentum.

We arrived in Wilsonville then turned toward Tualatin and hopped on another bike path, this one leading us to Cook Park and Tigard.

It was getting late, we finished at nearly 7:30PM. Ken had family plans that were pressing so I offered to drive him home instead of him having to ride another 20+ miles on top of the 120 he'd already pedaled. He eagerly accepted the offer.

It was a good ride, some new country, or at least new roads in old country, always a bonus. No snow or ice, though at Sandy there were white trees not too far above us. The biggest issues were the huge amount of wet leaves on the shoulders, but even those weren't enough to make me wish I hadn't biked today.

I finally rolled over 9000 miles on the bike this year today. :-)



........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.......1153..............0............50..........0........1213
Oct.........881..............0.............0.........20.........901
Nov.........658..............0.............0..........0.........658
YTD........8914..............0............87.........27........9028