When I left my house it was about 5:45pm, and somewhere in the neighborhood of 70 degrees. Wow did it feel like summer, I couldn’t believe it. Unfortunatly for me, a lot of people were in agreement with this and had decided to take a long weekend (also b/c of Easter) so the traffic was really bad, even at 6pm. I rode straight up Dosch, to Humphrey, to Skyline. It wasn’t too bad until the Burnside/Skyline intersection; the cars were backed up forever, and I stupidly attempted to bypass all of them by riding down the center line. Turns out turning left was insanely impossible, and I only made the situation worse. Whoops! Won’t be doing that again!
Once that was over I had a great ride, kept my heart rate in the neighborhood of 160-175 the whole time; Skyline is great for just constant rolling hills. Plus it was insanely beautiful out, although along a few stretches where there’s little blocking the wind, my bike got pushed around quite a bit by a few big gusts which scared me a bit, since there’s no shoulder and its so hard for cars to see and/or pass you.
All in all I rode about 22 miles, hour and a half. I think I could definitly start cranking up the intesity; thankfully next week Portland Velo starts its Wednesday night rides from the NW Lucky Lab. Whoo hoo!
