Susan is still recovering from her wrist surgery, and borrowed a friend's Catrike so she could keep riding. She recruited me to ride the North Plains Banks Vernonia 100k, and after some waffling, we settled on Monday, because the weather was going to be perfect. She'd checked with Ray to see if the trail was open; it had been closed with landslides, trees down, and washouts.
We met up at the North Plains McDonalds, and she was on a mission. "I think I'll need the entire time to finish this. Might not even finish in time!" And, fortified by second breakfast, we were off at our 9:30 start time. Susan said riding the trike was like doing leg presses over and over and over and over and over...
Fresh gravel on Vadis Rd by the lumber mill.
The weather was perfect. Clear. Sunny. Bright. Freshly washed!
Got to Banks, where I needed to stop for a bit. Susan was twitchy. "You go on ahead, I'll catch up." Did those words just come out of my mouth?
Shortly thereafter, I did catch up. Said hi to Callie and Romulus/Remus (the dogs). Eventually we started climbing. It was the most relaxing pace for me ever. Usually I am working hard trying to stay not too far behind everyone else!
There was some silt on the trail near the summit; made riding tricky for me. The trike has no stability issues.
Susan did really well; she even made it up Tophill without having to walk the trike. I paused to pull on a jacket for the descent; thought Susan would too, but she took off. I caught up again.
We passed McDonald Rd, where I'd turned back last time. Eventually we found many large cut up trees, which had probably been lying across the trail.
The Vernonia Lake detour is still in effect, so we had to ride on Hwy 47 up the hill and then down to the lake, rather than take the flat, log truck free trail.
Back to the convenience store - someone thought we'd not have enough time for a stop at Black Bear. We would have; I've left Vernonia later than this and finished in time :-) So cheesy crackers and Gatorade, plus my pbj sandwich from home.
By now it was warming up. The air had that "hint of Spring".
Some stops on the way up to document the big logs and downhill trail-side landslide. There is also an embryonic sinkhole, but I didn't get a picture. Safety cones and hazard tape mark all the caution spots.
The trip down from the summit (once past that slippery silt) was as fun as ever, but as we got closer in, we found a horse, more cyclists, and many pedestrians.
Given that we had plenty of time once we returned to Banks, we stopped for a few pictures of Mt Hood over the last 9 miles.
Finished with almost a half hour to spare :-)
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