River City Ride

Today was the first hot day of spring so I thought it might be a good time to get requainted with my road bike. To keep me honest, I agreed to lead the Saturday ride from River City Bikes. We had a great turn out, no surprise, considering that two weeks ago, hardier rider than I were slogging though snow and hail on their morning ride.

About 14 riders showed up including Chris, Laura, Anne, Ronda, Shari, Connie, Julia, Bree, Shari M, Shari J, two Emily's, two Amy's and a partridge in a pear tree. As someone who doesn't remember names well, I always appreciate it when my odds go up so thanks to all the doubles. :)

We started out on my not-very-original-but-out-of-shape-friendly two mountain loop route heading south on the Eastbank Esplanade. I don't have photos from this section, since it would've been worth my life to try any on-bike photography amid the mass of humanity out enjoying the sun. As it was we watched a clueless, helmet-less (isn't that the same thing?) women on a mountain bike with headphones on almost take out some pedestrians on the trail as we passed her and then, a mile later, after she decided to sprint ahead of us, she came to a dead stop right in front of our group, on a bridge, with no warning. Happy trails to you too.

Thanks to Sage for reminding me about all the construction on the 205 trail right now. We found the detours and they're not too bad. There was a baby hill passing Lents park to get us used to the idea before we got to Rocky Butte. :) Speed varied widely amongst the group but we regrouped fairly often. We took a circuitous route to the butte by way of looping around Prescott, 72nd and Skidmore. We lost Shari M, Connie and Chris to a vicious plastic bag that decided to attack Chris's deraillure but they took a short cut and beat us to the start of the climb anyway.

After a screaming fun descent (41.7mph :), Julia split off with 2/3rds of the group to head up to Marine Drive while I took a small bunch south towards Mt Tabor. We lost a couple more who needed to get back or were passing by their house and the four remaining riders decided one mountain was plenty for the day, so we skirted Tabor and headed down the loveliest bike blvd in the city and through Ladd's Edition back to the shop. As we sat on 7th waiting to turn left, the car in on the opposite side of the street started honking and I heard my name being yelled.

"What is that guy's problem?"

But it wasn't a jerk driver, it was Jon Benenate, giving very enthusiastic greetings. We met up at a red light at Belmont and MLK. "You guys are looking really fast," he complimented. The key word being 'look' at least in my case.

The light turned and we started across the street. A postal worker was crossing the other direction and she too, turned and yelled my name. I turned just in time to see a familiar face, but couldn't place a name or a context. I'm used to that by now and I gave her hasty wave.

"Wow, you're famous," said Laura.

Inside River City, we ran into Sandra and I met Sage in person finally. Sage and are signed up for the Urban Assault Ride next month and it should be a blast.

Now I've had some lunch and ice cream and I'm off to visit my new boyfriend.