The Day After...

I had a choice of two rides, both involving coffee shops. One would be populated by people who like to go really fast. One would be populated by people who wanted a social pace. A brief moment of common sense kicked in, and I went for the social ride.



Of course the start had to hurt - rode over the hill to Cecil's (ouch! quads!), then off to meet up with Beth.

Brief aside - I'm getting less creeped out riding into Portland. Sun and dryness help a lot. But the descent through Washington Park, and down Park/Salmon to Lincoln HS is still, well, a steep descent on substandard pavement.

Cecil and I had hot drinks and scones at AJ's waiting for Beth to show up. I introduced her to the joys of N 7th and 9th for going to N Portland, rather than N Williams. (Cecil: but there isn't a N 7th or 9th here! We can't turn! Me: yes we can - right there!)

I had gotten home last night, and completely forgot about my noisy pedal. Cecil and I decided to see how long it took Beth to notice :-) Somewhere on Marine Drive..."what is that noise?"

Then off through North Portland, heading past Portland Meadows, PIR, Heron Lakes (stopping to admire a heron in the slough), Smith and Bybee Lakes, the Marine Drive bike path west to Lombard, looping back, stopping to admire Mt Rainier, Mt Adams, Mt St Helens, and Mt Hood. All at once. It was clear and sunny.

Through St Johns, ending up at Anna Banana's coffeeshop, for coffee, bananas, bread and a really nice goat cheese spread.

Then to Willamette Blvd, south to Ainsworth (stopping to admire Mt Hood over Swan Island), and Ainsworth to Interstate, where we all went our separate ways.



Another common sense moment - I decided to spare my quads and knees and take MAX over the hill. 35+ miles.

While on the MAX, I twiddled with the pedal. It has a definite catch in its rotation. Swapped the pedal off my MTB (ahhh, silence); now I'll have to track down a rebuild kit. This bike maintenance is starting to add up...