A few bonus hours

After the extended nice weather, it was predicted to rain by early evening.  But it is Thursday, and time for the Thursday Night Ride!  My friend Julie is going to Burning Man in a few months and wants to bring a bike, but does not want to put her good bikes into the dust, sand, and other risks involved.  I talked her into getting a cheap "throw away" bike to take with her.  Yesterday I bought just such a bike at Goodwill.  Today I planned to take it out for a test ride to see what might need to be done to it.

I decided that I'd work a test ride into the Thursday Night Ride.

I started from my usual starting point for TNR, Sellwood Riverfront Park.  I started early enough that I rode out to Cedarville Park.  Along the way I stopped to adjust the derailleur stops.  Other than that, the bike did perfectly.  I rode back to the TNR start location at Salmon Street Springs just in time to see our fearless leader being interviewed.

Despite the forecast, the weather was pretty nice.  There were about 180 attendees.

A good percentage of the people were wearing purple, in honor of the entertainer Prince, who died today.

We rode across the Morrison Bridge to begin with,  as is our custom.  We rode through the near east side of Portland. Several of the bikes have sound systems that rival those found in cars (you know the kind, the ones you can hear for blocks away!) Tonight Prince's songs were in heavy rotation. There was even an impromptu sing along when Purple Rain came on. I'm not a big fan of Prince, but I still thought it was pretty cool.

Nathan J photo

We rolled out to Fred Meyer for our first stop of the night.   After about a 20 minute break, we continued on our way.

The next stop was at Jackson's, our normal supply point for the after party.

They are happy for our business.  It would appear that they put on extra staff on Thursday nights to handle our numbers.

After 15 minutes we continued the last mile or so to our traditional post ride party spot, under the Hawthorne Bride.

Tonight I joined the celebration for a bit, then pedaled back to Sellwood. With the 26 mile "preride", 10 mile TNR, and 4 mile ride back to Sellwood, I ended up logging 40 miles tonight.  As I was driving home, lightning flashed and rain poured down.  It was a little late, but that was fine with me. I enjoyed the few bonus hours of nice weather!

.........Road Bike.....Rollers.............MTB..........Lifecycle......Total
Today ........40................0...................0.......................0...........40
Jan...............0................0...............,...0.......................0............0
Feb..........124...............0...................0.......................0...........124
March......277................0..................0........................0..........277
April......463................0..................0........................0..........463
YTD...... 864...............0...................0.......................0...........864