Multnomah Falls Adventure

Sunday - up early, and wake up on the complete wrong side of the barn. Shower, eat well, have extra coffee to try to kick the utter Oscar (and I don't mean the shiny skinny statue) that has me by the ankles.

Growl.

Ride over to Stumptown on Division - last one in, but the crew waited for me, thankfully. A good turnout - at least one new face for me, and some returns from last week. Excellent. Off we go, up and over that familiar Tabor shoulder...

(I'm still not a stellar climber. The trick here: start @ the front, so when you get dropped by 95% of the group - you're just now at the back.)

...and out to Boring. Theo and Tom and I head off the front a bit, chattering and not, speeding up in bits and pieces and enjoying good pavement and flat, fast, clear pathway. Mmm. Feeling fast. (Probably shouldn't be doing this... but, wait, it's training - who cares? Push it and burn up and it's fine...)

After a moment of feeling lost in downtown Gresham (is this unusual? Unclear), it's out via the Cycle Wild route to Corbett. (Ben/I have ridden out a couple of different ways - Burnside, or Division, or Marine Drive -- but this route trumped 'em. Recommended.) Some great descents, some climbs, of course - up to Women's Forum and up into Corbett.

Aside one: Somewhere in here, we ran into what must have been A Real Racing Team -- they had a follow car crawling behind maybe a dozen dudes who weren't going a million miles an hour. The driver offered to teach Theo "how to race.... since you're clearly faster than the rest of your crew..." (somehow he missed Tom and Ed, who were out in front of *his* peloton...)

Aside two: Damn you, Fred. I now have a Pavlovian response to Corbett - I want mayonaise/pasta salad. You have ruined me. (And no, I didn't stop. And neither did Ben. Although we both thought about it.)

As we descend from Vista House (our group now thoroughly spread out- me, I'm glad for the space and the solitude, and hope that folks understand that we're all strong riders and rando is the style of the day...) I have the (heh) sinking feeling that this is a horrible, horrible idea. I'll never be able to climb up these hills. They're so big. There's so many of them. And they just keep going - and they're all in the wrong direction. And Kerlake (?) was a crazy descent- we have to go back up it (or ride Stark, which is awful - or Marine Drive, which feels oppressive)

Hmm... who do I know with a car who can carry a bike and loves me enough to come rescue my ass from the Gorge on a Sunday? Crap. Mental note: make more friends who have cars. Or get tougher.

The rollers toward the Falls go on more than I remember... and I think back to my first trips on this road, and swearing I'd NEVER do it on a bicycle. Too dangerous. Hee hee. There's great views, and little falls I'd never noticed before, crashing down by the highway. Little details on the bridges, pieces of lichen in the roadway. (Yep, when you're going SLOW, you've got time to see all the little things...)

Continued sense of slight doom as I keep dropping down down down - and getting further away from hot shower, cold beer, and non-diaper-pants...

Past Latourelle, past Angel's Rest... and we're there. There's Rob, waving - and a bunch of bikes piled up - our crew is getting coffee or a snack, refilling a waterbottle here, stretching there, talking hills. I'm not the only one worried about surviving back to Portland, turns out - phew?

Grab a coffee/cocoa cocktail and an absurd cookie. Drink the hot thing, pass around the cookie. Eat some form of Energy Food Product from a pocket. Stretch out, recharge - and get back on Janky, and head back up the road...

...and it's so beautiful. And coffee is so damn magical. I'm not as tired. Thank you, caffeine, and thank you, sugar, for doing your thing. I'm not going quickly up the hills - but it feels like a thing that's - well - possible. Slowly possible, but... hey, we're not here to *win* any races. (Yet.) Notice the clouds, notice the Gorge, growl at the impatient and close-passing cars. Cheer on our folks as we regroup at Crown Point, head off with Ben for the ride back for a bit.

The sun's out. My legs are still working on request. Fantastic.

We regroup, we split up, we have a plan: get the folks who want to multi-mode it back to Portland to the MAX station - the rest of us can ride the remaining bit home. Perfect. Ben and Ed and I drop Steve and Erinne near the Cleveland Ave MAX stop and take off up Burnside.

There's the distinct sensation of being tired of riding - of being ready to stop - but still having enough "go" to get places efficiently. (We apparently topped out at 22mph?) Here comes the Blue Line behind us -- and there's our crew. We outrode the train! I sprinted up past 'em, just to be That Guy ... fun.

Go go go go go... ... and the sun's getting further away, and it's really starting to rain now, which is obnoxious but I'm trying to ignore it...

We pass some hilarious things, a sign that advertises SOFA AND LOVE only $599! ... but much of the ride up is sort of a blur. Burnside's big and busy - even when it's just one lane of traffic and a bike lane, it requires attention.

Legs definitely would be okay with a break, now. Rain could stop, too. That'd be fine...

We bumble up Burnside, and there's tracks ahead. Mmm. The tracks turn. Hmm. Tricky. Gotta be perpendicular to tracks.

(And I'm tired, and a bit out of it, and it's cold, and it's really raining now, everything's soaked...)

...okay, pick your angle, pick your line, and...

WHAM!!!
sliiiiiiiiiiiiiide

...
...
...

...ouch.

Quick assessment: nothing's broken. Head's okay. But %#@*... that hurts.

Ed or Ben says "oh shit!" and somebody grabs my bike. Traffic stops. Owwwwww.... "are you okay?" ... owwww.... "KJ, are you okay?" ..... 'uh, yeah, no, yes, I just have to make noise for awhile...'

...owww....

Like the pause that happens when you stub your toe or really clock your knee... I laid there on the road and eventually convinced my legs that they wanted to get up. My hands hurt. My left elbow hurt - and my rainjacket was torn in a number of spots where I'd skidded on my elbow.

And my left thigh - HURT. Already swollen up in one hell of a contusion - painful, yes - but protecting. Thank you, big ol' legs, for being such great landing pads. (And shame on me for every time I've cursed your non-stick-nature.)

OWWWW.

I got up out of the road, waved at the (god bless you) patient white minivan. Had Ed/Ben check out my bike while I hobbled around and breathed a lot and remembered that I was really fine. Ouch. Yes, I'm riding home. Yes.

(Editor's note: it wasn't the tracks that did me in - it was the wet rubber boundary on either side of them. Imagine an old-school railroad crossing, with wood inbetween the tracks and as a border surface to the asphalt? Like that, but rubber. Slick-as-snot rubber. Cars were losing traction going over it, too -- so my front wheel just turned and down I went...)

Some of our other riders caught up - we explained why I was hobbling and had speedholes in my jacket - and off we trundled, Ben splitting off to grab lights and a lock (thankyou,benstar).

MAX-folks, riding-all-the-way folks, and Ben - met up at Migration Brewing (NE29th/Glisan - not so bad, if you haven't been) for some beers and snacks and tales of great descents and killer climbs and other silly post-ride nattering.

After a pint or two each, and some amount of post-ride foods, we split our separate ways - I headed home to a hot hot shower and careful scrubbing of all road rash, then over to Ben's to lie on the couch like a proper damsel in distress, icepack strapped to my - ahem - thigh, while he made a delicious food for dinner. Washed down with our recent mole stout (mmm) - a good end to a long day.

Both of us took Monday off - just to get some chill time together, after too-much-busy for far too long. It was great, really - a day of sleeping in (what?) and much food-dorking - finding ingredients for cooking Yucatecan foods, oohing over the international aisles at Food 4 Less (What is in that jar? Look at all those spices! Um, also, here's a HUGE spoon?), creating a tasty dinner from various food-finds. Fabulous, vacation.

Two days post-crash, still pretty sore - somehow I think I'll be missing Ed's 445am - and 645am, if you want to sleep in! - Council Crest/Pittock Mansion loop...