June 22, 2004
Miles: 76
Weather: Cloudy all day
The
weather was great for riding, but not so good for photos. I left
my leg warmers and wind jacket on for the whole ride.
Breakfast was the hotel's continental breakfast. We overwhelmed
their reasonably spacious breakfast room.
Judith, Andrew and I started out, sometime before 7. I spent most
of the day with them, sometimes a bit ahead, sometimes behind. We
cruised down Hwy 30 to Portland with the commuters, not pedaling hard
but still maintaining a good pace. Some people were a little
stressed that we had to cross over a bridge with a lot of construction
activity but that probably made it easier. The bridge was down to
one narrow lane in each direction, hemmed in by barricades. We
had no choice but to ride in the middle of the lane with the cars
(patiently) following us. We went over with another group and it
was a piece of cake. The only picture I have is this, shot while
waiting for the flagwoman to send us up the access road.
We then worked our way over to the north side of the airport, mostly on
bike paths. It was a complicated route but relatively easy
because Mike and Karen preceded us and painted arrows on the
pavement. We continued past the airport along the Columbia River
until it was time to turn south to catch the highway that goes to the
south of Mt. Hood. Here is an interesting waterfront development,
seen from the riverfront bike path:
Normally we would be able to see Mt. Hood
in the distance but not today due to the clouds. Hopefully I'll
have a shot or two for tomorrow's report.
We had sandwiches at an Italian cafe in Troutdale before climbing away
from the river. Here is a typical road we rode between Troutdale
and Sandy. As we approached Hwy 26 the amount of traffic
increased.
Bumps in the road: One lady failed to unclip her shoe in time for
a sudden stop by her group and received a pretty deep gash in her leg,
probably from the chainring. A couple of doctors in the group
gave some thought to stitching her up there but decided that a trip to
the ER was a better idea. She won't be riding for a few days but
should be back in action after that. (Update: after a day or two
off, she was back in action and riding without apparent difficulty.)
Judith's mechanical troubles continued, this time with a frayed rear
derailer cable. She sat out the last 20 miles but is now all
fixed and ready to go tomorrow.
Russ' son Ian also had to quit early after busting a spoke for the
second day in a row.
Our hotel for the night--The Inn at the Mountain--is very nice.
There is a nice looking 27-hole golf course next door, along with
timeshare condos and some new residences.
After two days of pasta and lasagna, tonight we had Chinese. I
don't think the kitchen appreciated how much we eat though, The
last quarter of our group had to wait about 10 minutes for the buffet
trays to be refilled.
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