Multnomah County Bike Fair

We dropped the kids off with Grandma and Grandpa so we could attend the Multnomah County Bike Fair. This year was the first time, there was a kids tent but alas a mixture of overly progressive folks, with 12 kegs of beer on a hot day is probably not the best environment for kids.  
Patrick McMahon joined us and was brave enough to bring both kids, so I guess we missed out.  
The event was good overall except for the chicken jousting, where on the first heat we saw a participant (the one with a straw helmet on) go down with a skull fracture. This made the event seem misguided in the worst way, but the rest of the activities on the tennis courts were tame considering the crowd and some of the participants.
 
It was another excuse to bike around the City going on different routes, so all in all we enjoyed the unseasonably warm day in our fine City.
 

Sunday Parkways NoPo - 1st of 3 in 2009

I love Portland. The bike events in the summer can not be beat by any community. It used to be that there were a few here and there, now there are so many that you have to make tough choices.
We chose to do Sunday Parkways the day after Tour De Blast, which was a bit questionable, but Susan and I decided that it might be a good idea to get our legs moving again, so we didn't just bike from Dad's house in Overlook, we biked from Sellwood to the event stopping to pick up the folks for the ride.

We got a bit of a late start and it was fun to see so many people on the way there. We ran into Greg Raisman who works at the City and he wanted to show us the new park that's going in next to Beach School, part of my old stomping grounds.

We took it slow with the girls (Abby on the trail a bike and Mia in the Bakfiet), but still got to Pennisula Park to see the Sprockettes. Abby said she wanted to be a bike dancer and that one of the girls was dangerous because she was standing on an upside down bike.

We ate a quick bite to eat and then ran into some friends (Jamie and Annie Parks and Carl Sundstrom). It was good to see Carl and we kept bumping into him throughout the ride.

Susan remarked at how many people I ran into on the ride. I saw Ellen Vanderslice, Mia Birk, April Bertelsen, and a few others from the transportation world. Susan also spent a little time talking the our friends at the Bike Gallery, it's fun to hear her talk about her bike and how much she loves it. (That's the third birthday in a row we've bought her a bike... and she thinks I have too many :)

On the way home, I asked the girls to pose for a picture before we headed back home. It was a combination of my favorite things... my family, biking, and Portland. It's a wonderful world.

Tour De Blast

Susan and I did Tour De Blast with our neighbors Matt and Tina Farley. Tina's friend Chris and her Dad joined us. Little did we know that we would meet up with friends along the way as it was a popular ride with almost 1,700 people tackling the mountain. The ride goes from Toutle High School up State Route 504 (Spirit Lake Highway) towards the national monuments on Mt. St. Helens.

The Tour De Blast website has a video summarizing the pats of the course, I think this picture of Susan is of the bridge that they highlight in the first minute.

Tina Farley and Susan at Mile 20, pounding on the pedals and taking it to the road. It was a chilly morning for the ride. We started about 8:30 AM after leaving Portland about 6:45 AM. It was a nice drive up to Toutle and the miles in the car flew back because of my excitement about the ride. This was the longest either of us had attempted to ride and while we had been training pretty regularly, it was a lot of elevation.

Details on the event include:

• 87K (54-mile) round trip to Elk Rock. (we cruised by that!)

• 132K (82-mile) round trip to Johnston Ridge viewpoint.

RIDE PROFILE:
Mile 0: 500 ft. (Toutle - Starting Line)
Mile 11: 1,000 feet (Sediment Dam)
Mile 16: 1,400 feet (Hoffstadt Bluffs - Pit Stop)
Mile 24: 3,000 feet
Mile 27: 3,800 feet (Elk Rock - Pit Stop)
Mile 34: 3,159 feet (Coldwater Ridge - Closed)
Mile 41: 4,314 feet (Johnston Ridge - Pit Stop

We encountered Jen Bachman, a cohort from DKS Associates and Lynn Petersen, a Clackamas County Commissioner and Current Chair and a few others.

It was a fun time, except for the last 10 miles.... I don't think the training prepared us for the downhill tucks that we did. We were trying to get back to the kids who were staying at Mike and Sara's.
They had a big sleep over at their house, which was a fun event for them. They didn't nap during the day on Saturday, so while we were exhausted, they were too, which made for a fun evening. It was for the best, we all went to bed about and hour earlier than usual.