The wife and I have signed up for the Barlow Trail Century sponsored by RiverCity Bicyles on June 25th. Since the most miles my wife has ridden at one time is 35 miles we are going to do the 40 miler together. That’s right, TOGETHER!
I’ve also signed up for the Summit to Surf ride over the Cascade range past Mount Hood and down to Hood River on the Columbia. This is another sponsorship ride so if you want to sponsor me, send me an email to thekaostheory2005@gmail.com with “Summit to Surf” in the subject box and I’ll give you the particulars. This ride has about 4,475 feet of climb throughout the 54 miles so I’ll need your support big time.
[...] I mention back on this post that my wife and I had signed up for the Barlow Trail Century. Well the ride was this past Sunday which coincidentally happend to be the hottest day of the year so far. The wife hasn’t much experience on the bike so we decided to do the 40 mile route together. Still this is 6 miles more than The Monster Cookie ride she did in May so she was a little apprehensive about the ride eventhough she didn’t express it verbally. I could tell the night before. A little snippy to say the least. LOL. We fueled up on oatmeal, vitamins and fluids and headed off. The ride start was only about 5 miles away so we left at 7:45am for a 8am start. Did I tell you it was hot? We arrived at Paesano’s Cedarville Park and unload our gear. Since I had pre-registerd and I picked up our ride packs early, we hopped on our bikes and trudge off. Up the Springwater Corridor for 5 miles and then on to the back roads in and around Gresham. The roads were rolling and the wife was not having a terrible good time. I kept urging her along and giving her kudos for every hill we went up. About mile 8 we came accross a fairly steep hill and she exclaimed “I don’t think I can do this!”. I explained to her it was just the little gremlin talking to her and not to listen to him. I asked her if she wanted to turn around and go back but she clipped herself back in her pelddles and motored up the hill. I thought to myself “this is good, she didn’t succomb to the mysterious shoulder traveler”. Here’s the kicker, I had done a topo of the ride the night before with the intent of showing her but after I saw it I decided it be best that I don’t. I knew there were worse hills to come but I wasn’t going to tell her. She would have talked herself out of it for sure. After a few more hills, she seemed to get her second wind and the road also flattened out for several miles. Then the fun began. First a short but steep climb and then a super long, almost 3 mile decent down to the bottom of a river valley. I think it was the Sandy River we crossed on our way to Roslyn Lake for the only rest stop of the day. At this point I told my wife I’d meet her at the bottom, I love bombing hills. Hit 36 miles per hour on this one. On my way down I noticed some riders coming up the hill and I knew right then that we’d have to come back up this too. I didn’t let her know. She’d have called her friend to come and pick her up if she knew. Once at the bottom of the river valley it was about 2 more miles of rollers before the rest stop. The wife loved the downhill, it gave her time to get her wind back and cooled her off. She had already finished her Camelback allotment so the stop came at a perfect time. We ate some food, replenished the Camelback and got out of the sun for awhile. Did I mention it was hot? It was funny how she was grilling some of the support people, trying to get an idea of what the rest of the route was like. I already knew and still kept my mouth shut. We set off again. Why does there always seem to be a hill right after you’ve leave a rest stop? Well the road to us back around to the bottom of the hill we previously sped down. Then I told her, “We need to go back up that hill we went down awhile back”. To my surprise, it didn’t seem to phase her very much. I told her to put it in her granny gear and go up at her speed. We weren’t in a race. I’m beginning to like climbing ever since I got the new Campy gruppo. Something about the gear configuration makes it alot easier to climb while in the saddle as well as keeping a decent pace of about 8mph. Based on what I’ve read on how the classify climbs at the TdF, this fell between a Cat2 and Cat3. The climb was about 3 miles in length and a 3-4% grade. I wanted to get up the hill as fast as I can but I knew I better keep close to her. I didn’t want to get to the top only to have to ride back down and do it again. I was amazed at her. She did the climb only stopping 3 times to recover. There was only one more big hill to do and she handled it fine. Except at one point where she cursed the race organizers for not having more rest stops on the route. Did I tell you it was HOT!? The rest of the ride was a breeze and we got back to the start after 3hr 19mins in the saddle. Before the ride I promised my wife I would ride with her the whole way, I kept my promise. BTW, by the time we got back it was 102 degrees. [...]