Today I again led the Training Series and 3 of us began in NW Portland with the plan to ride to Rainier and back on Hwy 30. Hwy 30 is the bane of many who ride STP. Training Series helps get folks ready to ride primarily Reach the Beach and STP so today's plan was to face the demon that is Hwy 30.
It really wasn't all that bad. Nice wide shoulders, only the most gentle of hills, and today not a lot of traffic. The weather was perfect, high near 70, only a slight breeze.
I had some strange noise coming from the bike yesterday anytime I coasted down a hill faster than 25 mph. In an effort to isolate that (rear wheel? bottom bracket?) I put in my "badazz" wheels today.
My badazz wheels are only as "bad as" the legs that are pushing them. Today the legs where pushing them pretty quickly.Our little entourage today was comprised of two of us.....ahem....older guys, and one young buck. We took off from NW Portland and Fred and I took it up to 21-22 mph and held it there. Fred and I took turns pulling and young Armando did his best to hang on the back. The first twenty miles he did okay, from there on things continued to disintegrate for him. We averaged 19.7 mph to Rainier, the 45 mile mark, and turn around point for us today. Fred and I slowed up a bit on the return but still held a pretty brisk pace and dropped Armando significantly.
We'd hold up for him and regroup from time to time. His comment towards the end of the day was "I don't know how you old guys can do this" ;-)
When we got back to Sauvie Island I took my leave and sent them on their way back to Portland. I took a loop of the island just so that I'd have 100 miles today. Woo Hoo..........200 mile weekend, 5 weeks in a row! ;-)
Soon I was back on Hwy 30 rolling towards Portland. We really do live in a scenic part of the country, and even in the industrial wasteland that is Hwy 30 there are some pretty sights.
Before long I pedaled back up to Wallace Park and the ride was over.
............BIKE............LIFECYCLE.....ROLLERS....TOTAL
Today......103................0.............0.........103
Jan........618...............0..............0.........618
Feb........692...............0..............0.........692
March......940...............0..............5.........940
April......934...............0..............0.........934
May........203...............0..............0.........203
_________________________________________
TOTAL.....3401...............0..............5.........3406
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