Mount Hood or Bust...

Rode from Oak Grove (south of Milwaukie) to Government Camp and back last Sunday, details to come...

(Sept 6) Well, ok.... photos and details to come, when I get around to it.

Breakfast on the Bridge

This morning, I managed to stop by Breakfast on the Bridges, a monthly event run by SHIFT! to Bikes. Shift is an awesome organization - a loose, informal group of people who just want to share the joy of cycling and encourage people to do it more. BotB on the Hawthorne Bridge had the beautiful and personable Kirsty Hall present, along with the ever-present coffee and pastries. I've managed to stop for 5 or 6 BotB events this year, and met some wonderful people. BotB is on the last Friday of every month, from about 7am to about 9am. If you get a chance, try it out!


Ride Details
11.15 miles
Top Speed: 34.8 mph (Oatfield downhill)
12.6 mph average speed

Cumulative 2006
2,272 miles at an average 11.6 mph
195 hours, 35 minutes in the saddle

Tonight I'm going to the Critical Mass ride - my first. It's the anniversary of Katrina, which was a wake-up call for a lot of people. Oil is on the way out, and fossil fuels help cause global warming. Tonight's CM ride will focus in part on that.

As a side note, sometime next week Tropical Depression Five should become Hurricane Ernesto (it should reach TS strength tonight). A lot of projections show it skirting the south end of Cuba and heading into the Gulf, so it'll be interesting to see where it goes. Katrina & Rita shut down nearly 20% of Gulf oil & gas production last year, and with half of Alaskan oil unavailable, a similar disruption this year could cause a massive increase in the price of gasoline. Makes me glad I ride a bike.

Progress Report

Well, originally I wanted to ride 6,500 miles this year. It was ambitious, perhaps overly so, and I expected that events would likely prevent it.

I was right, but I still should rack up a respectable 4,200 miles for the year, and I have at least one formal century left in the year (and likely an informal one this weekend).

So far this year, I've ridden 2,250 miles at an average speed of 11.6 mph. In the 209 days since I started riding regularly, I've averaged 10.77 miles per day and spent a total of 194 hours in the saddle.

Before this year, I'd never ridden more than 50 miles. This year, I've ridden 50, 74, 85, 101, 107, and 204.5 miles (the last being over 2 days - Seattle to Portland). Unfortunately I missed the bridge pedal this year, since GenCon in Indianapolis was the same weekend.

This Sunday, I plan to ride to Timberline Lodge at Mt. Hood and back, after being inspired by Aaron Tarfman's account here. It's going to be a LONG ride - probably 130 miles when all is said and done, since I'm starting from my house. I expect the best part will be the 40mph+ ride down Highway 26 from Government Camp to Welches. Hopefully I'll make it ok - there's 6,000' of climb from Milwaukie to Timbeline, not counting any ups and downs. Hell, there's 1,000' of climb just from Govenment Camp to Timberline. If I can do this, it's a MAJOR accomplishment.

So, that's about it. Aside from my riding, I've been looking at what I want to do with this blog. I'd like to have something here besides ride reports - some reason for people other than the 5 or so who actually care about what I write here to stop and look around. There are already so many good cycling sites and blogs out there (see the sidebar of this blog for the short list) and unless I fill a particular niche, I'll basically just be parroting bigger, better sites. So, we'll see.

-M