Bike Ride
It seems I am terribly out of shape. Went on a 32 mile ride yesterday with my dad and Josh. There was a time when I could ride that far before lunch, but yesterday it was basically an all day affair.
It was also only my second time biking into Portland. That part was easier than I remember, though we started between 6 and 8 miles closer, so that was a big help. Also, it couldn't have been better weather yesterday: not too hot, not too cold, not too bright.
We started by biking down to Multnomah Village for the Sunday Parkways to hear our friend Ellen sing with her big band. After that, we spent a while trying to figure out why my bike chain kept coming off. We got the cable adjusted better, but in the process discovered that my gear cluster was loose. The highest gear didn't work at all, and the others seemed to have problems. The Bike Gallery had a booth up and were doing free repairs. We'd known there were some problems with my gear cluster before, but they didn't become serious until yesterday. We thought we were going to have to replace it, and therefore never pursued it, since the gear cluster is basically the most expensive part of the bike. Well, it turns out the guy was able to tighten down the cluster with a special wrench head in like a minute. He also added oil in places we'd been unable to get to. The bike road much better after.
Then we biked along Twilliger, which was closed to cars for the Sunday Parkways, into Portland for lunch. After lunch, we road about 6 miles along the Spring Water trail, which starts at OMSI and is just beautiful. We'd intended to bike back to Beaverton through Washington Park, but were really tired by that point. Instead we got on the MAX at Goose Hollow and took the Zoo exit. The zoo is almost at the top of the big hill between Portland and Beaverton, so you take an elevator up like 700 feet from the MAX station in the tunnel. From there it was just a little more steep up to Skyline, and then the down was mostly along a trail that runs parallel to the freeway, where you have to use your breaks if you don't want to go like 30 MPH. It is quite a rush.
I didn't take very many pictures, but this was our furthest stop along the Spring Water Trail.
And this was the "Buddy Bike" we saw along the way. WANT!
Posted via LiveJournal app for iPhone.