Portland Cycling Weekend

Roanne and I have been meaning to head down to Portland to visit our friends Ben and Emily for almost a year now, and on the last weekend in May we finally made it. We arrived Saturday morning, and after feasting on delicious baked good that Emily and Ben had procured in advance Ben and I loaded up our mountain bikes and headed west to some trails at an area called Brown's Camp. We rode two 8 mile loops as detailed in the link below, the trails were super fun though pretty muddy from recent rain. The one stinker was that I had forgotten my mountain bike pedals and was using my road bike pedals, speedplay zeros, which have cleats that are shaped like a cup and filled with mud as soon as I put my foot down. Here is a link to our route, definitely check it out if you are ever near Portland with a mountain bike in hand:
And here is a photo of Ben and I after our ride:


That night Emily, Ben, and I had a marathon session playing Kinect Sports (with some of the activities being boxing, table tennis, bowling, and volleyball) while Roanne played cocoon (that is a game where players wrap themselves in a blanket and sleep).

The next morning we all suited up in our road biking gear and headed out for a ride, with Ben and I doing a good hilly circuit up and down Skyline Drive which has some great 10-20 minute climbs really close to the city. Here is a link to our route:
After the ride we ate some delicious pizza from a place called "Hot Lips", and then browsed bike shops and Powells Books while waiting for Roanne and Emily to return from their epic shopping session (they had started the ride with us but then headed back to the city when things started heating up on the climbs).