Over the River, Through the Woods.............

To (grand)mother's house I went.  Mom had a list of things she needed help with.  The sun was shining. I hopped on the fixed gear bike and rode to Hillsboro.  Along the way (with headwind!) I crossed the Tualatin River.

Riding in nice weather has it's benefits, but also some negative aspects.  I was riding a path through Cook Park and the iPodded Masses were out in force.

As I was riding along Hall Blvd I saw a deer standing in the middle of the road.  By the time I could get the camera out a car came along and spooked the deer.  She scampered across a lawn then onto a side street.

She looked just a little befuddled.  
Shortly after the deer episode, I had a flat.  I've got an entire tube of Slime in each tire (because cheap bikes come with cheap tires!) but a piece of glass embedded itself and leaked out air with each revolution as the glass shard wiggled about.  I put in a new tube, fought with the pump a bit, and got back on the road.

I made it to my mom's, cleared out the "to do" list, then headed  back.   I retraced my route for the most part.   I had another flat on the west end of Beaverton.  Now without Slime, a small sharp rock had worked it's way through the high quality pencil eraser tires. Through Beaverton I took the alternate "one way" streets.  I zipped through Tigard, again dodging walkers, strollers, kids on bikes, and dogs on leashes. Everybody was out enjoying the 69 degree day. I picked up another piece of glass and got my third flat of the day. When I got closer to Wilsonville I stayed on Boones Ferry Rd.  They've done some work there and widened it substantially.  There was always a narrow twisty section that I tried to avoid, but that's been eliminated now.  They are still working on it, but it looks like it will be striped for a bike lane.  Stripes or not, it was a good ride through there.

I rolled back into home with 53 miles.  Fun, fun, FUN!

............road bike..........rollers........mtb.........lifecycle....total
Today..........53................0..............0...............0.............53 Jan.............710................0..............0...............0...........710
Feb........... 578...............0..............0...............0............578
March ...........492.............0..............0...............0............492 Total..........1780...............0..............0...............0.........1780