Day Eight
61 miles, Troutdale to McMinnville
Hello and welcome back from the brief intermission (of nearly two weeks). I’m back on my new bike after a few days of rafting the Deschutes River, then returning home to attend to some family business, and most importantly, TO BUILD UP MY NEW BIKE! Today, I’m riding my Priority 600 bike for the first time.
Recall that I rode my Cannondale CAADX across the southern tier, 3100-ish miles, last year. The CAADX is a cyclecross bike and I love it, but it has some serious drawbacks as a touring bike. I was following the “ride the bike you’ve got” mantra. For this trip, I thought towing my gear in a trailer would be an elegant solution, but it was not to be. The aluminum frame of the CAADX, specifically the chainstays, was not robust enough to handle the stress of all that mass back there in the trailer. The chainstays flexed and then unsprung in every turn, creating a whipsaw effect that was difficult to control, even dangerous. It was also probably bad for the bike, and I didn’t what to wreck this bike I enjoy so much just to prove a point. So I decided to redesign my whole approach, and get another bike.
My choice was the Priority Bicycles’ 600 model, a robust tourer with a revolutionary feature: the bottom bracket features a 12 speed, fully enclosed transmission built by Pinion, and a Gates carbon fiber drive belt. The Pinion and Gates setup replaces the traditional setup of chain, derailleur, and all those sprockets at the crank and rear hub. I’ve been interested in this Pinion/Gates combo since I saw it on the bikes of a couple of New Zealand cycle tourists I met in Texas last year. They absolutely loved their Pinions. Today was my first ride on mine.
Simply put, the Pinion/Gates drivetrain is everything it’s cracked up to be: clean, smooth, easy, and oh-so-quiet. The Priority 600 is also very different from any touring bike I’ve had. For starters, it has flat bars instead of drop bars. A completely different hand position. We’ll see how that goes. But the other big difference is in the tires. When I rode the first 6,700 miles of this trip, in 1981, my tires were narrow and high pressure, as in 23/28 millimeters pumped up to 110 pounds of air pressure. Skinny, high pressure tires are very precise, but transfer so much vibration into one’s body that lost tooth fillings and hemorrhoids are a real concern. On the next 3,100 miles, last year on the above mentioned CAADX, I ran with 38mm tires at 70 pounds of pressure. More comfortable indeed, and with “supple sidewall” tires, no loss of efficiency. But the Priority 600 takes this cushiness to a whole new level, and I’m a bit skeptical. The tires I am now running are 50 mm wide (yes, that’s a full 2 inches), running at only 50 psi of pressure. Will this feel more like snow shoeing than skiing? I will find out.
Enough tech stuff and on to today’s ride. I started where I left off on July 30, in the parking lot of McMennamins Edgefield Hotel in Troutdale. Today was to be a scorcher, reaching the upper ‘90s, so I started early and enjoyed mile after mile of cool morning on forested, dedicated bike paths pretty much all the way from Troutdale to the Willamette River, which I reached just up stream (that is, south) of Portland. I crossed the river on the Sellwood Bridge and climbed switchbacks out of the river canyon through the nicest cemetery I have ever seen, the River View Cemetery in Burlingame.
I topped out and continued west on SW Multnomah Blvd…
…where to my delight was a Grand Central Bakery. My brothers and I hung out as kids at the original Grand Central Bakery in Pioneer Square in Seattle, and my office for several years was in that same Grand Central building. To my taste, they still make the world’s best cinnamon rolls, so I enjoyed one of my favorite treats of my youth.
The temperature continued to climb. The bike fit different from my other bikes. As the day wore on, I realized that 61 miles was too much for my new bike’s inaugural ride, in this heat, in the degraded condition I am in. Remember my last blog posted, written after that hilly trial in SW Washington? My prideful “the beast is unchained” thing? Well, the beast went back to sleep. After 2 weeks off the bike, from July 30th to August 12, today’s ride became a suffer fest in an inferno. There was nothing wrong with the road. I worked my way back onto highway W99 towards McMinnville, and it was smooth pavement and lovely riding, even with afternoon traffic. It was me biting off more miles than I was ready to chew.
I limped into McMinnville and to my sister-in-law’s home along the Yamhill River, giving myself a garden hose shower as soon as I was off the bike. I guess I can say it was a chance to practice mental alertness as my cognition diminished due to hyperthermia, but that’s a stretch. Being that 65 year old, not-so-conditioned dude riding 61 miles in 97 degree heat, seemed necessary, but was not necessarily smart. But, I made it. The plan was to continue on to Lincoln City and the beautiful Oregon Coast tomorrow. Not going to happen. Just one day into this stage, I already need a day off.
