Newberry Road

July 13, 2025

Today and apparently every day for the next two weeks looks like a scorcher, with highs in the low nineties or above. If I want to get any sort of real ride in, I'll need to take a pass on my morning coffee routine and start biking while it's still reasonably unhot. Today I'm out the door before eight, after having been up for about two hours finishing off a post and waiting for the prednisone to put my eyes on. Afterwards I went back to bed and was startled to find it was after six when I came to, and Rachael was already up in the next room.

Rachael is still nursing her injured toe, which means biking and a strenuous walk are both out, as is being out later in the day when it's too hot to be enjoyable. Later she'll take a relaxed eight mile walk up toward Leif Erickson Drive again, and even that is pushing it.

I'm glad she's up though, because she can mentally frisk me before I leave. And I have a lengthy list today: glasses, wallet, phone, Garmin, Canon, GoPro, car keys, iPad, iPad adaptor. And the bike of course, which startles me at first when I can't find it, having forgotten I left it in the car last night.

Finally I've got everything though, all loaded into the rucksack or in my pockets. I'm downstairs and just about to hop in the car when Rachael calls to let me know that in spite of our best efforts we still failed and my garmin is sitting on the table.

Really, I'm still waiting for the day I make it out of the room without forgetting something. It's another reminder that hopping on a plane before my head is back in order just isn't a bright idea.

Today's ride is of a type I've been intending to do for probably two weeks now - one with more serious climbing than up to Council Crest or Powell Butte. That was my thinking yesterday when I had designs on Chanticleer Point, but there have been a couple of other days recently when I thought I'd ride up to Skyline Drive. Today we're really going to do it.

And looking back now, I think it's taken this long because I've been so sabotaging myself by actions like hanging around so long in coffee shops that by the time I finally leave it's really too hot. Because the truth is I'm a little scared of this ride. A bit scared that I'm not really ready for it yet, but probably more scared of the idea that I can make it, but it will be hard enough that it's not really enjoyable. Time to find out, Scooter.

I start out by driving back to Chapman School to get the car out of the parking zone so we won't have to either feed the meter periodically or risk getting ticketed. After that the plan is to ride up Raleigh to its intersection with Cornell; and after that I'll climb up Johnson to the crest at Skyline Drive. This is the part of the ride that makes me anxious, because it probably rates as a Cat IV climb or maybe even a Cat III, climbing over a thousand feet in roughly three miles. There are a couple of miles in the 9-10% range, but the hardest part starts immediately on Raleigh, and I've barely biked a few blocks when I'm grinding up at 13%.

I manage to stay in the saddle to the first plateau at 29th, but then I stop there for a breather and wait for my heart rate to drop down to its resting range again. While I'm waiting at the corner a bird flies across and lands on a brick post across the street from me. I zoom in with the Canon, but it's a no go - I'm still breathing to heavily to be able to hold the camera steady. Fortunately the bird is patient with me and stays around just long enough for me to confirm that it's another song sparrow.

And then I resume climbing, still at 13%, until i finally make it to Cornell and the gradient drops to something manageable. From here it's basically uphill for the next 2+ miles, save for a 200' drop. And I do just fine with it. I don't push myself to see if I can hold a 10 mph average (which includes the half mile or so of flats when we's start from home), but I just keep plugging away at a slow but steady pace and eventually the final straightaway comes into sight, a few hundred yards at 9-10% that ends at the four way intersection at the summit.

I feel an immense sense of gratification as I sit in the shade and look back down the way I came. If I can do this ride, it opens many doors - both here and elsewhere. It's a bit premature to say that mountains are back in my life, but that's what it feels like today.

How many times have we met here at the top Rocky, with me pushing myself while you kept your more conservative pace. It must be a hundred.

And then I start east and ride Skyline for as far as I choose until it finally comes to its final drop off at Rocky Point. When I started today I had the opinion of riding to the penultimate descent at Logie Mountain Trail, but now that I'm up here that sounds too ambitious. I could do it but I'd probably regret it in a day or two. Instead I set my sights on the first one Newberry Road. With the scorchers in our future I'll plan on getting out early two or three days a week and keep building up. There are at least a half dozen additional rides up here that I could take without even coming close to repeating one.

And because we've got the GoPro along and we'll be up here again soon I mostly just ride other than briefly pulling off at the cemetery for the view west, enjoying refamiliarizing myself with the lay of the land. After several rolling miles I drop to the gap at Germantown Road, climb out the other side, and shortly after drop steeply down Newberry Road to the highway.a

Once I'm on the highway it's a swift ride to the Saint John's Bridge where I cross over to Saint John's and continue south along the Willamette Bluff. Along the way I get passed by a dozen or more riders with event numbers on their backs, all pedaling hard as they near their finish line at Peninsula Park; because this is STP weekend.

the view toward downtown from Willamette Bluff.

I've picked a new coffee stop today: The Stack, a well related place on Killingsworth. I've never been in a place quite like this, with two entire walls covered with floor to ceiling bookcases. I ask the server about the place and its history, thinking it must have originally been a bookshop or library. It's neither though - it's a free book exchange, a little free library on steroids.

The stacks in The Stacks. Bring a book, take a book.

It's hotter than blazes when I step back outside ninety minutes later. The bike has been in the full sun this whole time, and both the saddle and brake levers burn to the touch. It doesn't take more than a few blocks to get cooled down though, and before long I'm dropping to the Broadway Bridge and climbing back up Pettigtove to retrieve the car.

In Overlook Park, my favorite elm tree in the city.

Xxx

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Sound track: I want to be Happy, by Stan Getz and the Oscar's Peterson Trio

Today's ride: 27 miles (43 km)
Total: 140 miles (225 km)

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Karen PoretThat was inspiring! From the beginning shadows of Scott on the ride to the ending rolling pattern of the railing along St. John’s Bridge, it was fun..and not a hot one..for me! :)
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1 month ago

Scott AndersonTo Karen PoretIt was a lot of fun for me too, obviously. And I was really pleased with how the music worked out with it. It's from an album Frank passed on to me from his garage scale browsing.
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1 month ago