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There are four different route
options available: 100, 80, 55, and 26 miles.
We rode the "century" (100 mile). Our
journey began at an elementary school in Beaverton, then
the route took us through a wide variety of landscapes
from rolling hills in wine country, through small towns,
coastal forests, and finally to the surf and sand dunes
of Cape Kiwanda in Pacific City.
Here we are in the picture to the right, all ready to
go! I hope you enjoy all of our pictures below.
You can click on each of them to see a larger version. |
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Awesome support from volunteers... |
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Beautiful scenery along the route... |
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The Finish Line... |
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One more thing... there were other "weird" vehicles (besides
us) |
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Yes, 4 of those pictures above are unicycles! they
rode all 100 miles! |
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This was an amazing experience! First of
all I want to say how much we appreciated all
the fantastic volunteers that made this event
possible. Rest stops are a welcome sight on
a ride like this, and they were all very well
staffed and equipped with everything you needed
to be refreshed and get back on the road.
While on the road, there were guys on
motorcycles cruising up and down the route
looking for riders in distress. When we
had some mechanical problems, two of those
"knights in shining armor" spent time with us
helping to fix the problem and get us going.
Thanks again! At the end of the ride, a
nice dinner was waiting for us. Fantastic
organization!
As you can see from the pictures above, the
scenery on this 100 mile route is beautiful and
quite diverse. The weather on ride day was
perfect. Most of the day it was in the mid
70's to mid 80's, comfortably warm but not
oppressive. The first third of the
ride had more climbing than we were
anticipating... our bike is comfortable but it
doesn't climb well. There was a steady
stream of riders passing us going up the hills.
But on the other side, it was our turn to go
flying past them. We are quite fast on the
downhill run! My only real negative
comment has to do with the condition of the
pavement. The last third of the route took
us on some old sections of roadway that were in
poor condition in places. You had to keep
a very sharp eye out to keep your tires from
catching grooves and deep cracks in the asphalt.
But all in all, it was great!
Overall, we were pleased with our performance.
We completed our first "century" for goodness
sakes! That's an amazing accomplishment
for us! Both our average speed and riding time
were better than we had anticipated. It
was a little discouraging at times seeing so
many riders fly past us, until we realized
that over 90 percent of them were younger than
we are!!! We have said many times that:
"Our bike is not a Ferrari, it's a Lincoln Towncar." On a long drive, the Lincoln is
a lot more comfortable. The kind of riding
we like best is just spending time together,
enjoying the journey, and taking in the beauty
of God's creation... and that's exactly what we
did. We definitely weren't the fastest,
but we did finish, and had a great time in the
process!!! :)
(For more on our riding philosophy, check out
the "Ferrari vs.
Towncar," and "Route
66" pages.)
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