The Night Ride

In a day full of bicycling, we ended it with the Night Ride. The first part of the day was spent on a scavenger hunt put on by Pix Patissire on Bastille Day which was entitled a Gastronomical Tour of Portland. More on that later when I have the list of 30 things that we had to acquire for the event (know what epi is?, how about an absinthe spoon), yeah it was a little more difficult then we expected.
 
So we started and finished at Union Station in Downtown Portland. Last year there were more than 2,000 riders, I don't think they had that many this time, but it was a good time had by those that did participate. The route was a little sketchy because it took us on the Columbia Slough path which is not well lit at all and there were some rough patches on some of the routes along the way that made me question whether they wanted someone to flip over the handlebars like I did in 2004 on the ride. Not the best experience on a ride.
 
The ride did have a cool Filmed By Bike showing in North Portland at one of the parks, and they looped some of the tamer movies from past FBB shows together. One in particular was an animation short that looked like it was a stuffed doll and the 6-year old had a visit with a friend that could ride her bike and this 6-year old couldn't without training wheels. When the advanced riding friend helped take off the training wheels it made the timid girl not want to ride her bike for a long time. Sounds a bit familiar, although Abby rode her bike without any help for the first time last week. I got some video of that, which was really great to see. We haven't been worried about it and Susan and I were wondering if something just switched on in Abby related to physical activity, because she seems to be running a lot faster than I remember too.
 
So another successful ride on our season of bikes!