May

I closed out April with a week long trip to Arizona to provide kayak support for a SCAR swimmer. (Saguaro, Canyon, Apache, and Roosevelt Lakes).  This month might not be much better.  At least I got on the bike today.  A good friend inquired about a ride.  I only have 1 day this month available, and it was today.  Lucky for us, after rain yesterday, today it cleared up and reached into the low 80's.  It would be a nice day for a ride, with nice company to ride it with.  In the past we rode together often, but in the last couple of years life has taken its toll. She got married, and I began doing a lot of bike race crewing.

I was glad she contacted me.  We took off on Portland's 40 Mile Loop.  It was a beautiful day.

Early in the ride, along the East Bank Esplanade

We left the shores of the Willamette River and made our way along Interstate Ave and Going Street then around the bluff at the University of Portland.  We were having a great ride until we turned onto the Peninsula Crossing Trail.  It seems that they were working on repaving the approaches to the Columbia Slough Bridge, and failed to put up any signage until right at the closure.

We backtracked to Columbia Blvd then detoured nearly 6 miles out and back to Interstate Ave to get an alternate crossing of the Columbia Slough.

My friend had a morning appointment that precluded getting started before 10 AM, and she needed to be finished up by 1:30 PM.  The added miles were going to put us in a time crunch.  I kept the pressure on the pedals of my fixie, trying to at least get her to the half way point, where there would only be two turns on bike paths left,  before cutting her loose.

We pedaled along Marine Drive taking in the sights.

At 39th Ave we exited the road and got on the Marine Drive Path. I was holding a good 17 mph on my fixie, but I knew that wasn't good enough to get her back by 1:30.  I told her to just take off.  It didn't take long for her to agree, and within minutes she was out of sight.

I slowed down a bit and took in the view.

I was getting hungry, so stopped for tacos as I made my way southward along the Interstate 205 path.
From there on I just pedaled.  With our little detour around the Columbia Slough Bridge I got 42 miles.  It was a nice ride on a day that would reach 83 degrees.  It was quite a change from the rain of yesterday.


............Road Bike........Rollers.............MTB..........Lifecycle......Total
Today ...........43................0....................0........................0...........43
Jan..............304...............15...................0......................31..........350
Feb................0..................0....................0.......................0..............0
March..........18.................0....................0........................0............18
April...........113.................0....................0........................0...........113
May...............43................0....................0........................0.............43