Gettin' my behind kicked

Today the plan was to ride LoLo Pass.  The official route was from Sandy, but quite a few of us expressed interest in starting in Gresham at Sam Barlow High School to add miles and climbing.

The morning was wet, with a steady rain falling, and that cut into our attendance. Dave and I were the only riders still going for the Gresham start, and we were joined by 9 more folks in Sandy. About a half dozen decided that riding in rain was not their thing.  The ride was posted as "ride rain or shine", next time those folks will believe me. Too bad they decided not to ride, within 2 hours the rain stopped and we had perfect weather for climbing those hills (and descending them too!)

A few of us found a way today, and were glad we did.
Those who backed out were for the most part the slower riders, and that left me with trying to keep up with the big dogs. I didn't do so well at that, routinely playing lanterne rouge today. I'd like to use the excuse that I was in my Goretex raingear and was overheating, and that I rode a hilly 103 miles the day before,  but in reality those guys just plain out rode me today.

I did eventually reach the summit of LoLo Pass, and not in last place either!  Only because I run Gatorskin tires and was not plagued by flats as some of the others were.

photo by Max

We stayed pretty much together until we stopped at the Zig Zag store (for boysenberry cobbler!).  Some had time constraints and pedaled back to Sandy via Hwy 26, the least scenic, but most direct route. Some took the posted route but did not stop in Zig Zag. 4 of us stopped in Zig Zag and backtracked our route to Sandy rather than climb Coleman Road.  Avoiding Coleman added a few miles, and a few feet of climbing, but not as steep as Coleman.  I saw 15% on my Garmin as I was climbing on our return, and that was steep enough!



The map was hand created and the data is a little off.
My Garmin showed:
90.3 miles
7488 ft total elevation gain
112 bpm average heart rate
6704 calories burned
13.0 mph average

An interesting note, on the return from Sandy to Barlow High School, an 11 mile run with 345 ft elevation gain, I had an 18.1 mph average.  Must have had a little left in those legs yet.  ;-)

And a special tip of the hat to Alex, who we found out had never biked 66 miles before, and to achieve that PR on such a hilly route was indeed an accomplishment.


  ........road bike.......rollers.........mtb.....lifecycle.....total Today........90..............0..............0..........0............90
 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..........1500...............0...............0............0.....1500
 July.............90...............0................0............0........90
 YTD........4933............142............20.........46.........5116