I contacted Ken, a long time riding buddy who was always up for long hard miles. He accepted the offer to ride, but qualified it by adding that he hasn't biked much lately and was really out of shape. I assured him that we be perfectly matched in that case!
He had family commitments until 5 PM so we arranged to start from his house at 5. I went out for a little preride. I had planned to ride a 53 mile route to Multnomah Falls and back, but remembered that the Historic Columbia River Gorge Highway was closed for upgrades. Instead I jumped on Portland's 40 mile loop, a favorite of mine during the dark winter months. Today I chose it because it was handy. Ken lives near Mall 205, which is very near the I-205 bike path, that is part of the 40 mile loop. Off I went on a beautiful sunny day with a temperature that reached 86.
After riding the 40 mile loop I arrived at Ken's with about 10 minutes to spare. I used my time to chow down a few oatmeal-date cookies that I was carrying. I didn't know Ken's route, but he did. I followed.
The season's are changing, and while just a few weeks ago it was daylight to well past 9:30PM, we are 2 hours shorter than that now. The shadows were quite long as we pedaled out just after 5PM.
I was really traveling light today. I didn't have my heart rate monitor on, or the Garmin GPS. Good thing Ken knew the route, because I sure didn't! I can tell you that we headed south from the Mall 205 area and connected with the Springwater Corridor trail. After taking that east for a bit, we took a series of roads heading south, and eventually got out onto rural roads in the Damascus area. We played around in some hilly areas and worked our way east of the end of pavement on the Springwater Corridor. We connected with the trail and put the hammer down. Well, hammer down as hard as two out of shape riders could muster.
The bell on my bike got a good workout as we scampered down the path into a rapidly descending sun. If we didn't make good time the sun would set before we'd wrap this ride up.
We did make it back to Mall 205 and my waiting pickup before the sun set, but barely. It was down before we finished our post ride debriefing.
It was good to get out today, good to get a good brisk ride in. I should do this more often!
........road bike.......rollers.........mtb.....lifecycle.....total
Today..........76..............0.............0..........0...........76 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.........1558..............0.............0..........0.........1558 Aug...........531..............0.............0..........0..........531
Sept...........293...............0.............0...........0..........293 YTD..........7220............142............20.........46.........7389
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