Ladd's 500

Not as scary as it sounds!

The Ladd's 500 is the brainchild of David Barstow Robinson, a guy I've met through the Thursday Night Ride.  Today's event was billed as the "Second First Annual".  Yes, they did this last year too!
Portland's bike culture showed up en masse today, as did a few of us old fogeys.

My ability to grab videos seems to be not working tonight.  If you are on Facebook you may see the video I wanted to put here.... here.

It was a beautiful day, perfectly blue skies, perfect temperature to race bikes, only the slightest of breeze.

Dave, Doak, and Alan joined me as a 4 man team to ride the 500 laps of Ladd's Circle.

We set up a table and chairs under a canopy, just because.

Alan picked our team name. Roughly translated into "the slow bunnies of Ladd's Circle"  ;-)


 Each lap  is 0.2 miles in length.  It was a crazy day.  Tall bikes, fixed gears, swing bikes, cargo bikes, miniature bikes, unicycles, even skate boards.  All going round and round.

Despite the look of the peloton, the field was moving ~19 mph.  A few faster, and a few slower, but if you were out there at 17 mph, you were in somebody's way!

Vest and Kathleen each stopped by and we talked them into taking a few "guest pulls".

Vest tearing the course up, Kathleen was too fast to get a photo of!

There were plenty of things to keep us amused.  This couple were grilling hamburgers as they moved down the route at 20 mph, even passing out the finished product as they pedaled along.

There was no shortage of food, another bike was preparing burgers too, but there big claim to fame was the big propane blast that they'd set off from time to time.

It was one of those days where smiles were everywhere.

Even if T-Rex was hot on your tail!

We ended up finishing the 500 laps (100 mi) with a 21 mph average.  Not bad for a bunch of slow rabbits!

............Road Bike........Rollers.............MTB..........Lifecycle......Total
Today ...........21................0....................0........................0...........21
Jan..............304...............15...................0......................31..........350
Feb................0..................0....................0.......................0..............0
March..........18.................0....................0........................0............18
April...........109.................0....................0........................0...........109