being a guide

Matt Biers-Ariel, a teacher/author/all around nice guy, is on a book tour for his book "The Bar Mitzvah and the Beast". The social bike club thought it would be nice if a few of us rode with Matt as he made his way from Longview to Portland. The forecast was for rain. It was beginning to look like it was just me who would be up for this 120 round trip to ride with a stranger. At the last hour, Art decided he would join the fun. Fun, of course, is relative. I began high on Capital Rd and biked DOWN the wet roads in a constant rain to the Broadway Bridge where I met up with Art. We pedaled in non-stop rain to just short of the Longview Bridge, where Art got a flat tire!

  At least it was not cold.

Art had early evening plans back in Portland, and had some back pain issues, so he decided not to make the climb up and over the Longview Bridge. We said our goodbyes and parted ways. We had a 15.9 mph on bike average to this point. I made my way across the bridge and into central Longview where I rode up to the library at the same moment that Matt rode in from Olympia.
I rolled my bike into the library's foyer and took a seat in the meeting room where Matt would be giving his presentation. There was a good turnout of folks. Following the presentation and book signing Matt and I pointed our bikes back toward Portland. I was on my rain bike, Matt was on a fenderless road bike pulling a trailer with books and presentation supplies. We rode a pretty good pace. I didn't want to push him too hard, but at the same time, with a 4:30PM start on a ~60 mile ride, I didn't want to get in the dark either. Before we got too far, the rain stopped, and we even began to see a bit of blue sky. We began to pick up a bit of tailwind. :-) We made two stops for snacks along the way. Soon we saw the graceful arches of the St John's Bridge.

 Matt hasn't been riding long distance's lately and was beginning to tire. About this time I found out that he was not going back to the community center where I had started my ride from. We stopped and looked up via smart phone where his destination was. Luckily for him, his destination was near 26th and Hawthorne, on the south east side. No climb of the West Hills required! I guided him over the Steel Bridge, down the East Bank Esplanade, and out Hawthorne. I declined a dinner invitation because of impending darkness and pedaled my way back across the river. I reached the Hawthorne Bridge just in time to catch a pretty spectacular sunset.

 The light of day was fading fast as I made my way up the West Hills. The climb however was not as bad as I feared. Before long I was back at the community center, done with 120 miles. The return trip had a 14.0 mph average. Not bad considering Matt was pulling a trailer. I loaded the bike and headed directly to food and a warm shower.

 ........road bike.......rollers.........mtb.....lifecycle.....total Today.......120..............0..............0..........0...........120 Jan.........105.............34.............0..........0..........139 Feb.........428............108.............0.........24..........536 March.......809..............0.............0.........22............831 April.........1010..............0.............0..........0.........1010 May..........1000..............0.............20..........0.......1020 June..........1194...............0...............0............0.....1194 YTD........4537............142............20.........46.........4720