merziac

Hi jyl, I'm going to try and join in for some of the 20 mi. rides which sound perfect to me as I've got nothing for hills. gugie and I were discussing your rides a few days ago and so your timing is perfect. Jeff Wills had a couple of rides in the good weather last Sat. and today that should have gone on and there is a bike swap at Rosewood initiative on April 17th that I will try to stop at as it is near my house. Looking forward to some C&V stuff as it seems to be sorely lacking in PDX.

Velocivixen

@jyl - thanks for the updated info. My goal this year is to ride, actually ride​ more. This will encourage me. BTA has. Women's Group that I'm involved with so hope to do more with them.

Jeff Wills

I'll put a FWIW in y'all's ears: I've been visiting the Crystal Springs Rhododendron Garden for the last couple weeks, just to watch the blooms evolve. Generally they hit their peak in May, so maybe:

Southeast-ish around Mt. Tabor then
Southwest-ish to Reed College/Woodstock/Rhodedendron Gardens area then
West to Oaks Bottom trail then
North to Irvington area then
Return to Velocult

What you think?

fietsbob

Banks Vernonia Rail-Trail conversion Banks-Vernonia State Trail - Oregon State Parks and Recreation


47 connects 26 & 30

merziac

+1 for this.

jyl

Sounds terrific! Want to pick a date, maybe a Sunday morning? Like April 9 or 16?

Jeff Wills

25 or 6 to 4?

Given my druthers, April 9th. My regularly-scheduled recumbent ride is the 16th.

Another thing: if we want to go in to the Crystal Springs Rhododendron Garden, there's a $4 admission fee after 10AM.

jyl

Let's do it! Start at Velocult, I hope. When - 9 am? 10 am?

merziac

May be going to eroica the weekend of the 9th and would try for the next one if I do. My vote would be Sun. the 24th, wife works every other Sun. so much easier to toddle off on those days.

exmechanic89

My thoughts are.. preferably not in the rain, lol. I realize that's not exactly guarantee-able.

CliffordK

Yeah...
I think if I plan a week long trip... I can guarantee at least a little rain

Velocivixen

@jyl - the 9th & 16th are SATURDAYS. I know...I'm shouting. I'm likely doing a Women Bike ride (women's branch of the BTA) on the 16th.

jyl

Right, I got my calendar mixed up. I've put the ride on the Velocult C&V forum calendar for the correct date of Sunday, April 10. And let me take this opportunity to clarify the date here too. Details to follow. Can't have a C&V ride without seeing your Univega!

CliffordK

Well, I'm still planning on these two rides.

I just got my new Weight Weenie C&V-ish ride finished Look for a bright yellow Colnago.

It looks like rain is in the forecast. I should have come up for the rides last weekend, but I wasn't ready then. Anyway, I'm hoping to get to the start line around 9:00 AM both days.

Anybody else coming?

CliffordK

Oops, officially at 10:00AM at the starts.

CliffordK

Ok, exmechanic89 and I did the first ride, and I did the second ride. Or, 30 miles of each of them.



Perhaps a couple hundred riders for the first ride. Apparently by the time the second ride rolled around, quite a few of the riders got religion, and dedicated Sunday to the Lord.

For hill rides, they are absolutely brutal. What wasn't immediately clear from the RWGPS diagrams is that each main hill was interrupted by a dozen short descents and very steep climbs, including dropping down a steep slope into a cul-de-sac, with an arrow pointing right back up the hill. 6% slopes were considered rest periods. Repeatedly, a good number of the slopes hit over 10% for a few blocks.

It peaked with a 20-25% climb up Brynwood which forced me into several stop/starts, and my bike was creaking/groaning with every pedal stroke.

Is it even called a bike path when it climbs at 20% just east of SE 155th & SE Frye? Fortunately that segment was short as I can't keep up a 400W effort for long.

Oh, also a few sharp right turns at the bottom of steep descents. Good brakes help.

Saturday the weather was generally good. A few moments of mist, but that didn't hurt a thing when one was working hard. It rained briefly when we were near the zoo, but 5 minutes under a tree, and it passed over.

Sunday, there was a brief episode early when it hailed and poured. Then it cleared up until 4 or 5 when it began dumping buckets again.



Overall, other than the pain, the rides were absolutely beautiful, if one had energy to look around.

Next year?
I don't know. What I will have to do is much more extended and repeated high Watt intervals (climbs?). I'll have to carefully consider gearing. My 39x23 did well for most of the hills (with effort), but utterly failed on the 20+% Brynwood. So, with adequate endurance, it might be sufficient for most of the ride. But, an "escape gear" would be nice.



Oh, the "weight weenie" ride helped. But, I think I need to drop a bit more with personal weight, gear weight, and bike weight.

Andy_K 

Nice report. It brings back memories. I attempted the Sunday ride a couple of years ago. I think I made it about 25 miles in before noticing that the route was passing close enough to the start that I could slink back without anyone noticing. The way I remember it the route markers were entirely unnecessary as anytime you came to an intersection you could count on going whichever way led up the steepest hill. Good times. I keep telling myself I'm going to get in better shape and try it again one of these years. Maybe once battery technology makes it practical to use a small electric assist for that long....

jyl

My friend did Ronde PDX this year, installed a 32T cassette so his low was 39 x 32. He said it was really tough. 62 miles, 9000 feet, something like that. Chapeau to you guys!

exmechanic89

Thought I'd throw in my thoughts as well. I completely agree with Clif, some of those hills were absolutely lethal. I was honestly starting to get irritated with the whole ride after about 2 hours, lol. Just endless, endless steep hills with little to no rest in between. It was definitely the hardest ride I've ever done. I didnt return for day 2, had to work. But I wouldnt have done it even if I'd had the day off, I was just too tired after day one. And Clif actually rode up from Eugene a couple days earlier for this ride, which is quite a ride on it's own, so I was definitely impressed with his abilities.

If Clif does the ride again next year I may just join him again though, believe it or not, lol. One thing I'd highly recommend for this ride btw, is low gearing. Neither of us was very well set up for steep hill climbing on our sport/race bikes. So if anyone here plans to do it, ride something with a granny gear.

CliffordK

That is what exmechanic89 and I must have done wrong. We missed a marker at one place, and went down when we should have gone up. Fortunately, there were so many people whizzing around the mountain that we just jumped in behind the next group that whizzed past.

And, realizing that we were about 5 blocks of flat hilltop to the end, or a plunge back into the valley was quite a temptation.

While you could say "always choose the steepest uphill section", that route was so convoluted that the markers were absolutely necessary. It still amazes me that there was only one place where they overlapped courses in the same direction, and had to mark route choices 1/2.

A little more warning for the sharp downhill turns would have helped though. I think the Sunday ride actually did that a bit better.

CliffordK

When I go lower in gears, I just go slower... which may or may not be bad.

The one thing I'd also add.

If you're local, pick out a few longer steeper sections of the course and do hillside repeats, lots of them.
If you're not local, pick the steepest hill you can find and do hillside repeats.

Other than the first segment (NW Saltzman Road (30 to Skyline), also including gravel), most of the segments weren't very long. There was just too little time to catch one's breath between segments.