Out on the line
Since the weather forcast claimed it would be sunny-ish today, I decided that this would be a good day to load a small picnic lunch (2 bananas – at 185 pounds, I carry enough spare kcals so I don’t need something huge) and ride somewhere. I wasn’t sure exactly where I’d go, except that if I rode up to the mighty Columbia I might be able to get up to a round 100km, and when I reached the Columbia the wind out of the gorge blew me eastwest far enough that I figured that Kelley Point Park would make a nice lunch and turnaround spot.
I didn’t manage to break 100km – I fell short by ~2700 meters because I started running out of usable daylight (not sunlight, because the sunnyishness only lasted about until the time I reached Kelley Point Park) 5km into my proposed side-trip to Troutdale – but, modulo the wind out of the gorge (which was very nice for going west, but, ahem, not quite so nice for going east,) my cold toes, and my legs, neck, butt, and hands starting to bitterly complain about this trip starting at 75kms (about all that got me over the “hill” on i205 was the thought of getting home and having a nice hot cup of tea in a hour or so) it was a nice way to spend ~5½ hours (~4½ hours riding, 1 hour eating, taking pictures, or sightseeing) of a cold and damp November Friday.
(This will have to take the place of riding in the Wine Country Populaire tomorrow, because even though I’m pretty sure I could survive 112km of programmed ride I’m equally sure the additional 80-odd km r/t to get out to Forest Grove would result in someone finding my dead from exhaustion body somewhere along a country road in Washington County. I’d love to get into shape to ride R[23]00s, but I’m not in that shape now and I’m not going to jump from 80-100km all the way to 200km during the colder end of November.)
Oh, and the trip average was a whopping 21 km/h. The Xtracycle is slowing me down, but I’m not racing against anything other than my mortality so it doesn’t really matter as long as I can meet brevet time constraints.