I Want to Ride My Bicycle!

You may recall that I wasn't feeling too good there for a while.  But I'm doing much better now.  And it is summer.  And I'm having all sorts of bicycle adventures.  

Christopher pausing in the shade

A few weeks ago we did one of my favorite rides starting out in the Hillsboro-ish area.  It was a nice 44 mile ride with easy rollers through farmlands.  It was a little on the hot side (102!) but we started early enough that we didn't get toasted.

The next weekend were in Bend and did a pre-breakfast 42 miles with some slightly more serious hills (2K of climbing total) on tops of a bit of elevation.  We managed to work in a pit stop at the home of some friends and that was nice.  We also saw cows and I always like that.  And donkeys.  Donkeys make my day any day!

Who doesn't like a nice lil' donkey?

And then last weekend.  For some reason we decided to increase our mileage by 25% and throw in three killer climbs.  But it was a very beautiful set of climbs in & around Skyline with more of that lovely farmland as the backdrop.  At the end of the day my fun lil' GPS app pegged us at 6,700ish ft of climbing.  That'll earn a girl her cake!

Along the way we picked up a stray.  I recognized a kindred spirit when I saw him munching blackberries.  He isn't from Portland, was asking some direction questions and then ended up tagging along with us for our ride.  

The stray came in handy when we got to the "road closed" section.  Signs mentioned "Road Closed at Bridge."  I didn't recall a bridge on the route so assumed it was after we made our next turn.  And if it wasn't we would probably be able to go through on bikes.  It was probably that vague "utility work" or new chip seal or something.

But when they said "Road Closed" they were for serious.  The bridge was gone, the road totally chewed up, tractors strewn about and there was even barbed wire.  We had just spent a couple of miles descending a fairly steep slope though and I wasn't down for trying to re-route our rural course with such serious hills looming around us.  

We were undeterred!

So we fire-brigaded the bikes across.  I held bikes while our stray (Eric) and my Christopher got one bike down the hill, across the creek, up the hill, over the barbed wire, through the construction mess, over some more barbed wire, through some more construction mess, etc.  And we made it through.  With no barbed wire snags!  Eric, however, encountered a cow patty.  His shoe cleat was...  "gummed up" shall we say?  And then he used his finger to clear it... ewwwwwww....  I did NOT share my trail mix with him afterwards.

Horsies at the end of Skyline

Bye for now