We made it to Portland!

[rebeccmeister]

Hoo boy, what an adventure. I took photos on day one, but I think I want to go back to a non-smart-o-phone camera. Imminent battery death is irritating.

The pirate costumes and sea shanties definitely increased the net happiness in the world, as W put it. We had phenomenal weather, and aside from the "long" (1-mile) hill on day 1 and the hill up to the bridge on day 2, the hill-climbing was pretty tolerable. I didn't terrify my dad to death too badly on the downhills. Would I ever buy one of these contraptions? Probably not.

Today, my dad and I will take the train back up to Seattle so we can fetch the bikes. And that is all for now.

Comments

; )

[pigshitpoet.livejournal.com]

ah, portland! the land of milk and honey..

didn't realize this was a father daughter excursion? zen and the art of bicycle maintenance..

pedal on!

Re: ; )

[rebeccmeister.livejournal.com]

Poooortlandia! (said in a sing-song voice)

We didn't get to spend too much time appreciating all that Portlandia has to offer the world because we had to pick up our bicycles back in Seattle by 3 pm on Monday. But it's still a pleasant spot to see. :-)

You weren't the only one who didn't realize it was a father-daughter excursion at first. I'm going to compile some bullet points about entertaining moments in an upcoming post, but as a sneak preview, we heard, on more than one occasion, "He's making his wench do all the work!"

Still a-pedalin'! My main steed, the Jolly Roger, felt so twitchy and fast when I hopped on to ride home from the airport last night, heh. Most people think it's a beast of a bike.

Congrats!

[jamesfduncan.livejournal.com]

Rebecca, congratulations to you and your dad!. Has to be one-of-a-kind bike story! You know someone is an advanced randonneur to be able to do this not to mention possessing the genius and humor! Jim Duncan

[bluepapercup]

YAY! Glad yall made it, and very glad to hear that the adventures with the ridiculous tandem went well. Three cheers for good weather. Enjoy the train ride and I look forward to hearing the piratical stories.

[ivy]

Fantastic! I'm glad to hear that your voyage was a successful one, and fun.

[rebeccmeister.livejournal.com]

Thank you!

I have thoughts on your triathlon experience, and hope that I get to them sometime soon. The main one is, see about signing up for a women's triathlon. VERY different vibe from coed ones.

[ivy]

I don't know what the odds will be of them having a run-bike-run that I could do... there were like 120 people for the tri, and 10 for the duathlon. So it seems like most people who want to do that are willing to put up with the swim, and up here, nope. (My Mom recently tried to tempt Mayhem and me to go do one down near her, and I was actually thinking about doing the swim in warm water... and then I heard about their shark problem. NOPE!)

[rebeccmeister.livejournal.com]

You'll see my other comment regarding facets of my remark here - my only other thoughts are:

1. Are swimming pools ever a possibility, or is it more that you just can't breathe well enough while swimming?

2. Relay teams! :-)

[ivy]

There's a saltwater pool in Redmond that I suspect I'll be spending some time in next week... I'm supposed to limit my exercise to stuff that doesn't raise my blood pressure too much, due to dental drama. I'm guessing that means swimming, easy yoga, and maybe biking... we'll see. Swimming is a lot harder than it used to be, in that I used to float and last time I checked, I don't any more. But I'll try it out while I'm on the mend and see how that works for me.

[randomdreams.livejournal.com]

Well, rock on, I'm glad it went so well. Were the hills just slow, or were they awkward and wavery?
I'm told there are fairly-new-to-market clip-on generators that you can add to existing bikes and use to charge lights and phones. I need to find out more about this but if I manage to find one I'll holler.

[rebeccmeister.livejournal.com]

Hills were mostly just slow and steady chugging along...the kind of tricky part is that because we couldn't gear down especially low, we would wind up passing people going up the hills, and in a larger crowd of cyclists that means a lot of swerving around and such.

Clip-on generators sound intriguing! I know of units that will hook into my type of generator hub, but I am thinking of heading back to a uni-purpose camera for other ease-of-use reasons anyway.