A good week to end the month

I've had a good week of riding. Tonight I managed to be just in time to join about 15 members of my social bike group on a ride from Troutdale up into the hills of the Columbia Gorge in the Corbett area. The planned route was 28 miles with about 3000 ft of climbing.

As I pulled in right at the posted "pedals spinning" time I noticed that my RAO partner was there also. :-) We all pedaled eastward to the Sandy River then made our way up the river until turning up towards Mershon Rd. There was some good climbing that tested some and challenged us all. We reached Larch Mtn Rd via Louden Rd. At this point we paused to regroup. I arrived first but within a few minutes Lauren arrived .......and asked if I'd like to join her on a ride up Larch Mtn rather than down the hill with the rest of the group. Can't refuse an offer of bonus miles and bonus climbing so up the hill we went!

It was a good ride up Larch Mtn Rd. Lauren had been off her bike for a month while she traveled in South America. She has been back for only a couple of weeks and is still working hard to get back to her peak performance level. She did well tonight. Neither one of us had planned on the bonus miles. I only had one water bottle with me, and neither of us brought a jacket or anything other than shorts and a short sleeved jersey. The descent was going to be chilly!

When it got to be 8:15 we turned around thinking that we'd get back to Troutdale before it got too dark.

As we streaked down the hill we couldn't help but notice the beauty around us. The sunset was glorious. We both pulled into Women's Forum State Park (Chanticleer Point) to take in the view. It was one of those picture postcard moments. The long shadows had darkened the hill side but the sun still illuminated the Vista House on Crown Point. I didn't have my camera with me and by the time I could dig the phone out of my pack and get it into picture mode the moment had passed. I snapped a picture anyway.
We continued our ride down the hill to Troutdale. We both stopped to turn on lights. It was dark enough under the trees that we figured it best. We'd catch glimpses of clouds illuminated orange by the setting sun from time to time. It really was a beautiful evening to be on a bike.

Before long we were back to Troutdale and Edgefield, the end of our ride today. I had biked 41 miles and the gps tallied just over 5400 ft of climbing. I rode reasonably well tonight.
No time for post ride festivities tonight.

Tonight's ride meant I've biked 7 of the last 8 days. It also gets me 1152 miles for the month of June, my first month over 1000 miles this year. :-)

............BIKE............LIFECYCLE.....ROLLERS....TOTAL
Today.......41................0.............0..........41
Jan........618...............0..............0.........618
Feb........692...............0..............0.........692
March......940...............0..............5.........940
April......934...............0..............0.........934
May........905...............0..............0.........905
June......1152...............0..............0........1152
_________________________________________
TOTAL.....5256...............0..............5.........5261