Riding into Portland

Thursday, May 31, 2012

We rode our bikes from the state park back into Newberg, OR and made our way out of town.  We climbed out of Newberg and started out on Hwy 219 as recommended by the bike shop owners.  James thought there was too much traffic (I thought it was fine and there was a shoulder) and opted to take a left onto NE Mountain Top road.  It was a steep climb and by that time I wasn't very happy about climbing steep terrain.  But, the scenery was beautiful and we got a great view of Newberg and the Valley we were about to descend into.

The road on the ridge turned into gravel for a short period of time and then started going down.  Fortunately it wasn't a very long stretch of gravel and it turned back into asphalt.  The grades were steep, some at 9% and one got as high as 17%.  Luckily we were going down but it still required some bike handling experience.













Once we completed the descent, we were into the valley and rolling through beautiful country side where the farmers were growing wine, nuts, and just outside of Portland, landscaping trees, bushes, etc.

Nike Headquarters

We rode into the suburbs of Portland from the west.  There were bike lanes that made it easy to get around.  We past the national headquarters for Nike and made our way to our host's house.  We did make one mistake.  We were advised to avoid going into the city since our friend lived on the North side of town.  Next time I'd go into the city.  We ended up doing 2 mile climb up Thompson road through some very expensive neighborhoods and then taking a big descent back to the river so we could cross the St. John's Bay bridge and ride to our destination.  It turns out that this climb and the roads that are off of this climb are frequently ridden by local cyclists but they generally avoid riding on them during the time we were there.  We hit it during the beginning of rush hour and ran into a lot of traffic as we were getting off the mountain.  As I was going down the mountain, this empty school bus was riding on my tail and wouldn't let off.  It was so unnerving that I slowed down (forcing him to slow down) and then pulled over onto the side of road onto a gravel area.  The bus driver was mad and honked at me.  Very frustrating.  I don't know why a full-sized bus was on that road in the first place and he shouldn't have been racing down a windy, curvy, steep mountain.

St. John's Bay Memorial Bridge

We made it to our friends house (the owner of Bike Flight's) and he really hooked us up.  He had already secured two bike boxes for us to pack our bikes for him to ship out and then took us to a wonderful burger and ice cream place.  Little Big Burger is a Portland chain that makes most of the food they serve from scratch -- the ketchup, french fries, and the burgers are freshly made in house (not frozen like other fast food chains).  The ice cream we ate was homemade and they had a wonderful dulce de leche with salt ice cream.  Unfortunately I didn't write down the name of the shop.  The burgers and ice cream were very tasty especially after our 50 mile day and the climbing we did.  I've learned that the people in Portland are foodies and value restaurants that use fresh ingredients (preferably grown locally if it is logistically possible), and take pride in making food that tastes good, not how fast the food is made.