North Plains Lafayette 100k

Still not wanting to be away for long, I cast around for some company on a local 100k perm.  I am also recovering from a cold, so wanted an undemanding one.  The weather this past Sunday was supposed to be less bad than this past Saturday (hail, monsoons, floods, apocalypse).

Ray was up for it, and at the last minute, Kevin L joined in the fun.  This only works if all your riding buddies are perm owners :-)

The North Plains McDonalds construction is finished, so we assembled there.  Time for coffee and paperwork.  Ray told me that he's thinking about getting a GPS.  Those words are So Very Wrong coming out of Ray's mouth.  He'll call himself a Luddite, so I am not sharing anything new here.  So Very Wrong.  I mean, his cell phone, which he carries under duress, only makes phone calls!

It wasn't raining when we started out.  I was prepared for rain, because there were clouds on the radar, but not wearing any rain gear at the start.

We did have a not-unexpected headwind, and were looking forward to the tailwind on the return.

This route is familiar (at least from Forest Grove) to all the local riders - south through Forest Grove, and then to Lafayette through the usual and expected (paved!) route.

Vignettes from the ride:





The wetlands on the west side of North Valley Road are so very flooded that all the causeways to homes are awash.  One homeowner parked their car at the street.  One homeowner had a boat moored at the end :-)





Carniceria Abastos in Lafayette is the traditional stop.  They've got an inside eating area, a hot counter, and an awesome refrigerated case.  I wanted something from the hot counter, but didn't see anything that called - I wanted a quesadilla or tacos with known fillings, and those weren't on the list (yes, I understand Spanish food descriptions.  They just didn't have many up; just the food.).  We all went for some variety of flan in the refrigerated case, and I added a banana and a Red Bull.



After a nice pause, we headed back out.  The remains of the Red Bull went into my electrolyte water bottle.

Yeah, that expected tailwind?  No.  Unidirectional headwind.  Boo.  The guys would get ahead, then pull over for some reason, and I'd leapfrog them.  Then they'd easily catch up.  Discouraging.



We did get heavily drizzled upon, but I didn't pull on anything extra.  Two long sleeved layers of wool and a reflective windvest were just fine.  We could see heavier rain up ahead.  Ray cautioned us about riding too fast and catching up with it.



Ray noted that as we approached Forest Grove, that in 3 or so weeks, we'd be very happy to be at this place.  We can see the finish of the 300k from here :-)

But we had a few more miles to go to get to North Plains.  Less than 10.

Someone has been shopping at the RUSA store.

Finished at 5:34 elapsed, whereupon we ordered some of McDonalds finest (the cheeseburger Happy Meal includes apple slices AND a toy), did paperwork, socialized, discussed our respective leather saddles, and finally went our respective ways.