One Long Ride

Ok, so the ride went well.

Tomas and I rode 101 miles yesterday, from Champoeg State Park in Aurora to Independence, Oregon, a small city southwest of Salem, the state's capitol.

We started riding at 7:30am yesterday and got to Salem, the state capitol 4 hours later. After stopping at a bike shop so Tomas could get his crankset adjusted, we stopped for lunch at "Best Little Roadhouse". The food was good, and reasonably priced. The only disadvantage to parking a bike at a place like that is having to remove the camera, GPS, headlights, battery pack and rear bag from the bike when locking it up. (and, of course, putting them all back on afterward) We then continued on south to Independence, and got there at about 2pm. (an hour after leaving Salem) By 3:20pm we were back in Salem and stopped by the state capitol building to snap a couple of pictures. Then we headed back up to Aurora partially by a different route than we took down - a little shorter and flatter. We got back to our starting point at about 7pm, 20 minutes or so after sunset and just before it started really getting dark. Total time on the bike pedalling was about 8 hours and 40 minutes, for an average speed of 11.7mph. During the course of the ride we had 2,400' of elevation gain, bouncing up and down between 100' and 500' above sea level.

Highlights on the trip out were crossing the Willamette on the Wheatland Ferry, riding through a good chunk of Oregon's wine country, and seeing a couple of giant nurseries. Highlights on the way back were the state capitol, some railroad stuff that only I have an interest in, and the interesting creeks that thread through Salem next to houses and apartments. A highlight on both legs was the town of Saint Paul, population 322. Saint Paul is home to an annual rodeo known statewide. It has a bank, a tiny post office, a Catholic Church (Saint Paul Catholic Church, of course), a hardware store and a John Deere dealership. That's about it.

As near as I can figure, I burned about 6,800 calories yesterday. I had with me a big box of Mike & Ike's jellybeans (pure sugar, no fat - fat slows digestion), most of a loaf of italian bread and a couple of Powerbars in my bag - about 2,500 calories of food. That plus lunch is about 3,500-4,000 calories for the day, which means I burned somewhere around 3,000 calories more than I ate. Every 3,500 calories equals a pound of body fat, so I should have lost almost a pound yesterday.