| QUICK STATS | This Ride | 2010 Cumulative |
| Distance | 61.39 miles | 1,670 miles |
| Elevation Gain | 2,934 feet | 16.76 miles |
| Average Moving Speed | 15.5 mph | 14.8 mph |
| Dog Bites | 0 | 1 |
Quick weekend in Madras to visit family. Our ride started out quite cool at about 8:45 a.m., but the sun was shining bright and warmed us up quite nicely. For about an hour. Then the clouds came, along with some very cool air, and the rest of the day was actually rather uncomfortably cool. I never did put my jacket back on, but then again the arm and leg warmers never came off all day long.
The biggest lesson here has to do with our chains again. I cleaned them both before our trip. And then we drove over in the rain, and all the road gunk got on our bikes. I remembered while driving over yesterday that I needed to clean them off before riding today. And of course promptly forgot the moment we arrived. Mine felt okay but Amy was struggling with her gunked up chain. We put some oil on it while riding and it seemed to help some, but I'd like to prevent this problem in the future. There is a product out there for covering your chain when hauling your bike inside a vehicle. I'm thinking of trying it out to keep the extra road grime off since our bike rack is on the back of our Jetta, and that is road grime central.
| Maps showing all rides: 2010 Rides • 2009 Rides • All Rides |
I was quite pleasantly surprised about the road quality out around Round Butte, within the first 10 to 15 miles. I was expecting very poor condition black top but it was almost all semi-recently paved. Very cool!
We were heading down Clark Drive toward Gateway and came upon a "Road Closed" sign. We could have gone left and cut off the whole Gateway section of the ride, but we decided to try the detour and went right instead, to use Hwy 97 for about a mile and then make our way back to Clark Drive. As we arrive we see the next stretch is also closed, with another detour but this time on the west side. We take it and end up at a "T" with Fir Street. Again we're faced with the option of just heading back by going left, or going down to Gateway as originally planned. I vaguely remember that the road to the left is probably pretty cruddy and suggested as much to Aim, who immediately wanted to go the other way. To Gateway we go. The detour(s) only added about 2.5 miles, so no big deal.
The climb out of Gateway wasn't as easy as I thought it would be, though we didn't have any trouble at all. I just thought it would be a piece of cake compared to the shape we were in when we rode it last year several times. It is a fairly substantial climb, ranging from around 6 to 9 percent over about 1-1/3 miles. Not insignificant.
When we got back on the plains we saw rain falling all around us at a distance, so we decided to pick up the pace and pushed it a bit. Made it back without a drop hitting us.
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