A not so laid back ride

A Seattleite posted to a Facebook group that he would be in the South Portland metro area this weekend and looking for about a 50 mile ride on Friday or Saturday.  I'm already planning on joining Joe's  ride around Mt Hood on Saturday, and that's way longer than 50 miles.  I tossed out that I'd be willing to join him on 50ish miles and was hoping for an easier pace to better sandwich between two days of harder riding.

He thought that sounded perfect.

We met in Sherwood this morning and headed south to Wilsonville and across the Boone Bridge (I-5).
It was just a little cooler this morning than it has been for the last week or so, but still very comfortable.
We were outside the urban growth boundary and riding through an agricultural area. Low traffic was the order of the day.

I was expecting a slower pace, but as always, one person's relaxed pace is another's hammer fest.  We weren't at race pace, but were holding a 17-19 mph flat ground pace.  That's probably about 4mph faster than I had planned.  No complaints from me however, and none from Michael were verbalized.  We did stop for a bit at the Champoeg Park Visitor Center to rest legs and top off water. We remounted our bikes and took French Prairie Rd.

After about 26 miles of generally southbound riding we turned east and began a series of north and east turns, stairstepping ourselves back toward the Boone Bridge.

We still had a few good miles before crossing the Willamette River and getting back on urban roads.

From time to time, the City of Wilsonville solicits input on how to better attract cyclists to the area.  The business community recognizes the economic benefit of getting folks to ride here.  The City is pretty good about installing bike paths and bike lanes in town but they could do so much more if they would put pressure on ODOT to fix this crossing of the Willamette.  A good percentage of people on bikes won't ride the shoulder of I-5, and even those that might consider it face considerable issues.

A good sweeping would certainly help

We made it across the bridge and took the first exit, spending less than a mile on I-5.  We rolled along the last few miles of today's route without issues, not that we expected any.  Michael took his leave with a few miles to go, as he was staying very near Cipole Rd and had no need to ride completely into the center of Sherwood. I drove to the ride this morning, so I continued all the way back to our starting point.

It was a good ride, and over early enough to get some chores done and prepared for tomorrows early start.



...............road bike.......rollers.........mtb.....lifecycle........total
Today.................52...........0..............0..........0..............52 Jan..................93..............0...............0.........0..............93 Feb................411..............0..............0.........0............411 March.............653.............0..............0.........0............653 April..............696..............0...............0.........0............696 May...............900...............0...............0.........0.............900
June..............484...............0..............0..........0...........484
 July...............124................0...............0..........0..............124 Total...........3574.............0...............0..........0.............3574