Trimet video

Very good video on how to ride your bike around buses and trains in Portland. 

Leading a group ride

Today was a beautiful (although chilly) day to lead a ride from River City. My first ever official lead. Kronda assisted in co-leading. There were five women who showed up to ride: Emily, Emily, Cherene (new to Portland), Laura (a new rider), and Therese. We took a NoPo loop, heading up the Esplanade, to Williams, Ainsworth to Interstate, through the Expo Center, west on Marine Drive to Kelly Point Park, through the industrial area, back down Willamette Blvd to Interstate and back to the Esplanade. Total miles--approximately 28.

All went well with some help from Kronda to Laura about a few riding techniques and lowering her seat height. Then, just after the industrial area in NoPo after Kelly Point Park, there were some RR tracks around a corner and Cherene took a dive on them head first and Emily and Therese also took a spill as a result of Cherene crashing. Cherene remarked that she was bleeding badly, so I yelled for someone to call 911 and for someone else to watch for traffic, even though it was a low traffic road, we were still in the middle of it. Soon after, we were able to sit her up and see that the bleeding did not appear to be too bad. She did a face plant so her lip was bleeding and she felt that her front tooth was damaged. She decided she did not want an ambulance, so we told 911 not to send anyone after all. We moved her off the road and Therese conveniently lived very nearby in St Johns and offered to ride to get her car and come back to pick up Cherene and take her home. So Kronda and Therese picked up the car, some ice, and other essentials. When Therese came back with the car, she shared some awesome apples and some sour gummy pumpkin candies with the group. One of the Emilys also worked for Kaiser dental and had a great connection to call and get Cherene (who just moved here from Canada to be a student and did not have health insurance yet) some phone numbers of dental clinics that provide low cost care to the uninsured. It sure was a team/group effort. Everyone really did provide support of some type. It was great to see a bunch of strangers jumping right in to help each other out.

So after Therese and Cherene were on their way, the rest of us headed back toward River City, as originally planned. One Emily cut out in NoPo where she lived and did not head back with us to RC. At the Rose Quarter, I noticed I had a flat. Since we were already running late and there were only two more girls to lead back, I told Kronda to head back to River City with them. Boy, was I glad I had an awesome co-leader! So on the side of the road, I fixed my flat. One biker who rode by even asked me if I was ok. Just as I finished fixing my flat, Kronda was back at the Rose Quarter so we could ride home together.

BIKEpooling

I know it has been a really long time since I have posted anything.  And still, there won't be much I will be writing for today.  However, I must link to K's blog because she posted a video and short story about my bike commute the other day.  I actually bikepooled.  Yes, I said bikepooled, not CARpooled.  I picked up one of my coworkers on K's new Surly Big Dummy bike and biked her in to work.  It was tons of fun.  You should watch the video. 

Let me roll...

Last weekend I did a couple of cool things, but the most notable was my first ever bike ride since breaking my wrist.  It was the first gorgeous spring weekend, starting with Friday.  I told K I was going to ride around the block per my physical therapist's suggestion.  Since the weather was so nice, of course I wanted to go farther.  We were going to head to Little Red Bike for our first spring ice cream, but we called and they were closing the bike-through window in a few minutes.  :(  They are now closing their shop at 2pm instead of the usual 3pm.  So instead, we just headed out through the neighborhoods north of our house.  It was a good route since getting on and off my bike and breaking proved to be the most difficult tasks.  I held myself up mostly with my left arm, but getting on and off a bike really requires the rider to put equal pressure on both the right and left arms.  Huh.  Well, I still managed to ride 3 whole miles! 

 

On Sunday, we decided to go to Little Red Bike, again, this time for breakfast.  So we headed over there on our bikes to find out they were closed due to refrigeration issues.  Boy were we bummed and starving.  Now I had to make a decision about where else to go and could I make it there on my bike our would we have to go home to get the car.  Well, there was a place, John Street Cafe, in St John's that I had been wanting to try, and the bike route there was mostly non-stop (not too many stop signs/lights).  So I decided I could probably make it there and back since we would be resting in between by eating breakfast.  I managed pretty well both there and back.  Breakfast at the new place was decent, but nothing to brag about.

 

I then spent the afternoon in the yard--weeding and planting.  I got some more raspberry plants from my friends T&L and some new ground cover.  Along our sunny new fence, I planted the raspberries.  And in the back, shady part of our yard, I have a plan in my head for how I would like to landscape that area.  I need to consult a few people and get ideas on what plants would work back there.  I also repotted my tomato seedlings into their own pots so their can grow their root systems properly.  This gardening thing is entirely new to me. 

 

Created with Admarket's flickrSLiDR.

 

Going back to Saturday...since it was such a beautiful day, the best we have had yet this year, I wanted to get outside.  The weather was predicted to be sunny and temps in the high 70's.  K had gotten up early to lead the Sorella Forte ride from River City Bikes.  I sure wish I could have gone, but since I cannot ride that far, I planned a hike with T&L.  I decided we should go to the gorge since I had been to Forest Park for the past several walks/hikes I have done.  The Triple Falls hike was gorgeous, but seeing that the weather was amazing and it was a weekend, there were TONS of people on the trails.  The people ranged from serious hiking children using their fully-loaded new backpacks to train for backpacking this summer to people in flip-flops carrying their coffee cup and cigarettes.  The hike was definitely worth dealing with the crowd.  Afterwards, I went to T&L's to pick up our very desirable raspberry suckers to plant in our yard.  I cannot wait to have those succulent right-off-the-plant raspberries in our backyard.  They are to die for.

 

Created with Admarket's flickrSLiDR.

 

It was an awesome spring weekend.  Much unlike this weekend which consisted of cold rain, lots of hail, some sun, and not much outdoor time.  I did have a great time at the Ani DiFranco concert on Friday (read K's blog for our night's event) and at our friends L&S's for dinner on Saturday.