2007 Portland Century

destination: unknown corners of my lovely town
distance: 54.81 miles
time: 286 minutes
maximum speed: 31.8 MPH
average speed: 11.4 MPH
end result: not too shabby

Despite my ranting and raving over last year's inaugural Portland Century, I gleefully signed up again this year and forked over my forty bucks. Being the optimistic type, I believe people when they claim big changes are in the works. Also, this event is sure to become the premier cycling event in PDX, and I just can't resist the opportunity to see more of the town I love.

I went to bed early (though not as early as I should have after the hostile events of yesterday) and was actually shocked to hear my alarm ringing the next morning. I diagnosed myself fit to ride, swallowed a fistful of Advil, and awoke The Boy. We dressed, readied our bikes, packed them into the car, and made our way to the start line.

Right away, the differences were obvious. To begin with, there were far less people at the start line, and almost none of them were waiting in a line. The biggest and most amazing change made by organizers this year was two fold: capping admission at 1500 people, and allowing those people to pick up ride packets before the event. This time around, riders were showing up with numbers already pinned on, having some bites of the free breakfast bits, and starting off at their leisure. I made myself a bagel with cream cheese + jam, mulled over half a banana, then set off.

Down from PSU, over the Hawthorne Bridge, and right onto the Springwater Corridor, we followed the former rail line for about 17 miles. The constant vibrations of a chip + seal path left my ankle (which was still smarting from the twist it took in yesterday's fall) throbbing by the time we pulled into our first rest stop. However, the scenery and wildlife was a nice start to the morning, and the ankle grew stronger over the course of the day.













I was surprised while eating my gluten-free bread with creamy peanut butter and strawberry jam to find that The Boy and I had maintained a steady 11 MPH on our first leg of the ride. Several times I had glanced at my computer to see us doing anywhere from 13 - 15 MPH, but we stopped at many stop signs and allowed a whole lot of really loud, annoying groups to pass us, so I didn't expect a very high average. Even more importantly, I realized that I liked strawberry jam for the first time in roughly twenty years. Interesting development.

We didn't linger long at stop number one, but ate our snacks, refilled our water bottles, and set out again. It was around this time when The Boy mentioned to me that a fellow bike blogger once joked that in order to get through a century, you only need to ride four sets of 25 miles. I decided then that the best way to ride through persistent body aches (did I mention that I somehow bruised my coccyx yesterday? wtf?!) was not to get hung up over the larger ride, but to break the ride down from rest stop to rest stop. We pulled off the path, followed the route through some neighborhoods, and before I knew it, we were at our second break. It worked!













The second rest stop (28.22 miles) was by far the best of the day. Not only did I psyche myself into it without so much as a second thought, but upon arriving, I was greeted with a slice of pepperoni pizza. No shit. Do you live in Portland? Have you tried Hot Lips pizza before? If not, you're missing out. Not only are they one of the great businesses in town with an actual conscience, but they go out of their way to make some kick ass pies. And today, they were making them piping hot just for us, fresh out of their mobile pizza ovens! How cool is that? I even got a good laugh out of the pizza girl when I asked if she'd stamp my slice card...

Once again, checking my computer at the rest stop gave me some good news. Despite the fact that The Boy and I had pedaled most of the last nine miles into the wind, we had raised our average to 11.5 MPH. Now, with my new reasoning still in tact, I wasn't thinking about riding the rest of the route, but only the 16 more miles to our third snack of the day.

Unfortunately, the next leg would feature a constant headwind and an occasional crosswind. Fun! We did what we could to keep our spirits up and our revolutions constant. Sometimes this meant quietly riding with our heads down. Other times it meant The Boy singing intentionally off-key bits of Total Eclipse of the Heart with the intent of infecting the other riders. I don't know if the latter was at all successful, but it made us burst into occasional snicker-fits, which greatly helped pass the time.













At just over 44.5 miles, we pulled away from the wind, and into our final rest stop. This, by the way, was the unmarked rest stop so many people missed last year. Today there were flags and signs and lines of people entering and exiting the park, so we were sure not to miss it.

I enjoyed a second pb+j, refilled my water bottle, ate some cookies, smuggled some candies into my bento box, and relaxed a bit before setting off for our final ten miles. We had made fairly solid time, we hadn't stopped too much, and we were feeling quite good. Our average speed had dropped to only 11.4 MPH, which was rather astonishing, considering the wind of doom we had just battled, and we were anxious to finish.

Back on our bikes and nearly out the other side of the park, we were stopped by a train blocking the path, which (once again) cyclists were hiking their expensive bikes onto and climbing over. I'll never get over the stupidity of this, and I said as much to the guy atop the train who spoke to me like I was an idiot for refusing to follow suit. Hey, I'm more than thrilled to quietly watch you risk your life–or, at the very least, your property—but don't give me shit for not being raised retarded. In the end, I only had to wait five minutes until some poor bastard who works for the train had to walk all the way back from the engine to yell at the yahoos to get down so they could break apart the cars and allow people through. From what I gathered, the train was delayed for some time, and that was their intent, but they couldn't do it with all the ding-dongs on top of the thing.














The funniest part was how, once the employee walked off frustratedly to radio in instructions, the group of cyclists on my side of the train ostentatiously thanked the guy and applauded him, as if they didn't just have their own bikes in the air. Freaking wing-nuts.

A few minutes later we were back on the road—or, rather, back on the path—and only a few minutes after that, we were entering St. Johns. My favorite part of the ride, we pedaled through neighborhoods with tall trees and wide streets as we pulled away from the Mighty Columbia and once again entered Willamette River territory.

Following two delightful downhills, we crossed the beautiful Broadway Bridge, and made our way up the street of the same name. We finished our grand bouclé back at PSU, parked our bikes, and queued up for the catered dinner. It's not much, but after a long ride in the sun, it's nothing to sneeze at. We ate our chicken (salmon for The Boy) and rice pilaf and asparagus, picked up our goodie bags, and walked our bikes back to the car.

It was truly a great day, from start to finish, and so much better than I anticipated yesterday. My poor, bruised butt hurts like nothing I've ever felt before, but even than can't distract from a genuine good time. I offer a sincere thanks to the organizers for not only doing such a good job this time, but also for putting last year's mistakes so graciously behind them, and offering a fantastic ride this time around. Yay!