Well, this wasn’t thought out very well.  It’s nice having a break from blog duty, but along with it went some of my motivation to get out the door on my bike.  Slug that I am, it’s all too easy to talk myself into taking a lazy loop along the waterfront or just sitting the day out completely.  Rachael doesn’t have this particular character defect and is faithfully getting out on 42 mile rides or 10 mile hikes every day, without fail.

I must need to shake things up a bit if I don’t want to fall badly out of shape and find myself spending all of June and July struggling to keep up with my fitter friend.  Fortunately, a bit of inspiration just arrived with my coffee this morning and I’m happy to announce that another quest is in the offing: the Greater Portland Hill Quest.

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So here’s the plan.  If you’ve been following along for awhile, you already have a good idea of what Portland has to offer.  We haven’t built any new bridges lately, we’ve still got the same old bird list, the flowers and trees look much as they have before, and the new wall art in town is a pretty depressing gallery of political commentary covering the plywood sheets protecting the downtown storefronts.  There are a few new heritage trees that have been dedicated over the winter, but not enough to add up to more than one good workout.

Portland has a lot of hills.  Rachael has a GoPro, which is just sitting on the shelf doing nothing at the moment.  So here’s the plan: I’ll take you all on a spin around town, focusing on the highlands and featuring video from the descents.  It shouldn’t take much blogging work to put up a few photos, a map, and a video from time to time.  And if I stick with it, I should be able to keep up with Rachael when we get to the hilly Adirondacks this summer.

There’s no official list of Portland’s interesting downhill cycling routes, but at least a dozen immediately come to mind.  Here’s a starter list, to give me something to aim for.  If I run through all these I can always go a bit further afield or stare at the terrain view map for inspiration.

1. Council Crest
2. Washington Park
3. River View Cemetery
4. Mount Tabor
5. Rocky Butte
6. Powell Butte
7. Thompson/Cornell Road
8. Springville Road
9. Newberry Road
10. McNamee Road
11. Logie Trail Road
12. Rocky Point Road

That should do for a start.  Let’s get to work.