Century

We made it to the beach! 104 miles from Beaverton to Pacific city!

The ride was a lot of fun and I couldn't have done it without Brian, Becky and Margie all taking their share of the work. We set a pretty good pace the whole way but made short breaks at all the rest stops.  There were rest stops almost every 15-20 miles and each stop had plenty  of treats to keep us going. At some of the rest stops we weren't even really hungry but were snacking for the sake of snacks being around.  Definitely happy with my first century and am excited to get some more long rides in soon! Blue B performed well with her new fancy blue stripped tires and nobody in the group had any technical bike problems on the ride! Good thing seeing as I did not bring a spare tube or pump with me.

Weekend around PDX

A few weeks ago a couple of my good friends came to visit, (Kalya coming from Nashville and her sister, Tai, driving up from San Francisco). They both made it in on Thursday night and I had a weekend of activities planned out! I say activities but all the places I had mapped out involved food, either happy hours, breakfast places or dessert places! Those three things involve some of my favorite things to do in Portland so why not share it with friends!

We managed to do a pretty good tour of the whole city. We started with the SE (my neighborhood) and went for a nice lunch on Friday at the "Bread and Ink Cafe". A great little restaurant with a somewhat french take on the menu. We followed the afternoon wondering down Hawthorne and Belmont to window shop and grabbed a mini cupcake at "St Cupcakes"- I went for the red velvet as I can't seem to turn down cream cheese icing these days.

I directed the girls off to Powells Book store in the NW as I went back to school for an exam. We met back up in the Pearl at Henry's for a simple pub like evening and ended the night with Voodoo donuts.

Saturday was filled with more Portland classics. We headed to the SW to "Mother's Bistro" for breakfast, followed by a nice stroll through the Saturday market and than made our way up to the PSU farmers market. We sampled everything from the cheese curds to the lavendar infused caramel! Yum. My favorite sample of the day was the fresh apply juice!

We headed back to the NW to check out the shops and went for a late lunch/happy hour at "Jo Bar". I had never been to this restaurant and we were all really happy with our choices with a lot of variety around the table. You really can't turn down happy hour prices for such great food, and I really liked the presentation of it all.

With such a busy morning and afternoon we went back to my place to just relax for a an hour while we came up with a plan for the evening. The original plan was to tackle three dessert places in a row. First crepes at "Le Happy" followed by Waffles at the "Waffle Window" and finish the night with pastries at "Pix". Well the plan fell through after we ordered two sweet crepes and needed something savory in between. So we found ourselves at "Bridgeport Brewery" for a late dinner and a sampler tray of beer.

We finished off the busy weekend with a Sunday hike/walk in Forest park from Lower Macleay Park to Pittock mansion. It was such a beautiful day out so the trail was busy with families, dogs and the regular runners. We ended the hike with my Forest park tradition of treats at Boulangerie de St Honere but this time we had lunch first before dessert at Kenny and Zukes.

The view of Mount Hood from Pittock Mansion

That evening headed over to the Alberta district for happy hour at "Ciao Vito" and of course we couldn't forget dessert so grabbed some slices of pie from "Random Order" coffee shop (another one of my favorites in Town)!

Definitely an awesome weekend with great friends and good food!!

Mileage..

Again this year I have signed up for the American Lung Associations ride "Reach the Beach". Last year my friend Margie and I did the 55 mile (88km) distance and this year we thought we should do the full distance of 104 miles!! (167km). I also convinced a few other friends (Brian and Becky) to join along! To make this possible I have been trying to put in more mileage, trying to follow some of Cyrus' exact advice "more time in the saddle!". This has been challenging with continuous exams at school and the weather being well...continuous rain. I have told the group that if the day of the ride is a wet rainy day I will meet them at the beach in my friendly purple van! Riding in the rain for such a long distance is just really no fun at all. But that being said that doesn't mean we haven't had some sunny days and great rides!

On the weekends we have been trying to fit in at least one long ride. These long rides often involve hills. I am trying to get over my dislike of hills and I know they are often worth a great view. Like this past ride up the historical highway along the Columbia river gorge.

B-Blue not shying from the view of the Columbia Gorge

A few weeks ago we happened to stop at this colourful sight!

I will update you on the next two weeks before the ride. This weekend being wet and windy a postponed ride is in the works for a hopeful dry Tuesday.