Aaron Baer - Connect the Dots

Another good riding weekend this time around. I rode both Saturday and Sunday for a total of around 47 miles. Pretty good. Keep this up and I’ll be in prime condition for tour this year. Which is only 4 weeks away!! And for gawds sakes this year I’ll be in wookie land for a week. That makes me want to weep with joy. There’s nothing like the weather, the trails, the wookie hunt that goes down in the Siskiyou National Forest in June. I truely can’t wait..

Anyway back to the rides from this weekend. Saturday morning I woke to what I knew was inevitable, a flat front tire. After a new tube and a couple of flats I knew there must be something coming through the side wall of the front tire I had been riding for over a year. So I changed the tube and put on another tire that I had from before, made some espresso, filled the camel back with a few snacks and water and hit the road. 9:55am. Hitting the city at that time of the morning on a Saturday and knowing that you’re going to be riding great trails soon is a fantastic feeling. After decending to the River and Climbing up to NW 21st I arrive on Darrin’s porch minutes before our intended rendezvous… it’s 10:20am.. What transpires over the next 2 hours is what makes this city one of the most amazing places on this big globe of ours. We climb.. Darrin leads since it’s his hood, but in the back of my head I know I have a surpise that I figure he’s not ready for. Suddenly I can’t figure out if I’m still in Portland or if we’ve been transported to Stepford. This is one clean freakin’ city.. neighborhood eutopias of beautiful houses and amazing parks. On the weekends there are people outside in all the parks, playing baseball, soccer, laying in the grass walking their dogs.. We’re lucky.. But this neighborhood.. it’s a trip.. the houses are incredible I was a little scared of how tranquil it really was up there. After taking in a great view point on Cornell I decided it was time to stop f’ing around and find some dirt. We headed back down with me in the lead and worked our way a few streets north to Thurman and head up again. At the top of Thurman where it meets Aspen there is a trail head to Forest Park. Specifically Leif Ericson trail, which I rode just the week before, and I drop it on Darrin.. “Just remember, we just rode off of your front porch Darrin.. ” We climb 5 beautiful miles into the 11 mile trail.. find a great view point overlooking the River and back over to North East Portland have a snack and shake out the arms. Then the true gratification of punishing your body climbing up. We turned around and dropped the 5 miles back to the trail head.. Sick trails.. I ask myself “Did I really ride out of my garage this morning and now I’m riding this?” Happy to know the answer is a resounding YES we continue to drop all the way back down to the water front. Catch a couple of ripping skate boarders shredding the upper stairs at the start of the East side esplinade and eat an orange.. Nice ride.. We split.. and I head back up to North Portland to the house… 23.8 miles down and back by 2.. LOVE this city. A few more rides like that and some egg beaters and Darrin will be kickin’ some ass on the trail.. (quit smoking cigs hommie )

OK, Good ride on Saturday but I’m in training right.. And I knew that there was no question about it.. Must ride on Sunday.. Yoga class was awesome. Sunday morning yoga with Eden is really the best way to start a Sunday.. and it felt great to stretch out the Forest Park ride. Back to our house after for waffles and fresh New Hampshire maple syrup with Danielle. Yum.

Got a couple of work things out of the way and ran a pipeline so that commissions accounting would have numbers to look at first thing Monday morning and clearing up the rest of the day and night for a ride and relaxation. I’m super happy that worked out.

Breaking sun off and on all day.. I called Tim around 2:20.. Ride at three sounds awesome. As I’m finishing up preperation for riding in the garage I hear a few bits of rain start to hit the roof.. So donning the outter shell I hit it.. Good thing too, by the time I get half way there I’m in a down pour. Drenched, I show up at Ivan’s. After some cordial “how do you do’s” we head off to Mt. Tabor to hunt Wilderberries! And do we ever. We ripped Mt. Tabor to pieces, we found a trail that we both had not before, which was exciting, and made a few harrowing ascents combined with some of the best Urban single track descents you can find anywhere. The trails were wet but pretty sticky on the up hills. Going down however made for some high speed mud slicks that were stomach to the throat fun and on the last decent we picked a line that seemed to be just about the longest downhill you can find on Mt. Tabor. Man it was fun. Both of agreed that we had just left our little volcano smoking and whimpering. Spliting from the base I kicked it back to North East Portland taking the high road (60th/57th) and then weaved my way back over to to home in North Portland.. Somewhere around 23.5 miles total round trip.

So I guess I got about 47 miles or so in this weekend. I like the sound of that. I feel like I’m riding really strong this season. I haven’t felt this comfortable on my bike in a number of years. I’m totally stoked for tour.. New tires and a few little tweaks here and there and I feel like Trek is going to do just fine in her vintage age…

“You can’t be lost if you don’t care where you are.”