First Ride of the Year

A friend (+Andy Schmidt) invited me on a "20-mile" ride on New Year's. I failed to take into account the getting to and from parts, so it ended up being around a 36 mile ride--a new record for me. I find it difficult to get away from my duties as salary-man, husband, and father for more than a few hours at a time, so I was grateful to +Megan Asay for understanding and filling in for my void.

After making sure my mountain bike was sound for a long ride, I left around 10:30 to meet Andy and his friends in NW Portland. Within about 15 minutes of arriving, our group of 13 set out for a ride of varying degrees of difficulty and terrain. Riding on a holiday proved to be quite excellent, as the previous night's drunks were all in jail or passed out at home and thus not clogging and endangering the world with their cars.

Our first destination was Pittock Mansion, and to get there we had to ride up some very steep hills and portage our bikes up at least three different sets of stairs. These stairs average about 150 steps and gain about 100 feet in elevation. I was surprised at the number of people milling around the mansion, but that made finding a tourist to take a group photo easy--I mean, as a tourist, can you experience the city any better than taking a picture of one of its most colorful and friendly groups of people?

Saltzman Road in Forest Park

Now that we were up in the tree-covered hills, we began to encounter icy roads, although nobody crashed or had trouble navigating the roads safely. We meandered through the west hills, taking several breaks along the way to let the back of the pack catch up. I wasn't expecting the ride to be a race, but I thought we stopped more than was necessary. I was hoping to return home by the mid-afternoon so I could accompany the boys to a dodgeball game that their peers had invited them too, so that influenced my perception of the pace. Eventually we reached a trailhead that went down the hill to the St. Johns Bridge. We hadn't experienced any rain for about a week, so we were lucky to have frozen dirt to ride on instead of a muddy bog. My hands were frozen solid at this point (I was wearing my heaviest set of gloves), so I was glad the downhill was gradual and I didn't need to rely upon much quick and tight braking maneuvers.

Tacos: great recovery food

One of the perks of riding in a large group is that you can take-the-lane without much fear of being run over by a car, which is necessary when crossing the St. Johns bridge, which doesn't have any dedicated space for bikes. Basically, we rode two-abreast in the middle of the lane, which doesn't allow for cars to try and pass you in the lane. As soon as we crossed the bridge into St. Johns, we rode a few blocks to the center of town, locked up our gaggle of bikes, and had lunch at a cheap, authentic, hole-in-the-wall Mexican restaurant. My hands had defrosted a little after the descent back into the valley of the sun, but they rejoiced at feeling actual warmth again. My belly didn't mind being warmed by tortillas and onions and chorizo either.

Portland Skyline from Pittock Mansion

After lunch we ended up leaving together, but I bid farewell to the group by dropping into a higher gear and trying to get home as quickly as I could. Much of the ride home followed the same route as the last 10-or-so miles of the Portland Marathon, which I have very un-fond memories. I was feeling a little better than I did that fateful October morning in 2002, but trying to ride fast after eating tacos turned out to be a not-so-good idea. What made my ride overall longer than anything I'd ever done before was the extra miles to the church and back to check on the dodge ball game. I arrived just in time to console a recently-hit-in-the-face-Edward and attempted to avenge him of his nemesis (I failed, sadly--but I'd like to see you play dodge ball with the young-in's after the longest ride you've ever done) and play one game.

And thus concluded the first ride of the year. Despite being a sort of misanthrope, I have liked the few group rides I have done and would consider doing another one in the future.