Sandy's Saturday Century

Another week, another century.
I turned the Community Vision training ride into a century by riding there, and riding back, with an assist to Russell for making a wrong turn that caused me to make ANOTHER wrong turn that tacked on the extra 5 miles that made it a legit century.
The AM was C-O-L-D. I didn't think I'd have to start a ride in May at 34 degrees F, but there you have it. The ride over to the start at Orenco Station was uneventful, and the coffee was welcome.
We rode to Roy via Mountaindale - not a bad jaunt overall, and everyone was in good spirits.
A few of us stayed afterwards to have lunch at Swagat which was MOST EXCELLENT. They had a lunch buffet going, so I tried a little of everything, including the curried goat. I wasn't sure how I felt about goat, but it was tasty - like lamb but with a little more....oomph.
After lunch I started pedalling home, rather gingerly due to all of the good food in my belly. I modified my goals for the return trip to: less than 2 hours total riding time, and not letting the West Portland hills (quite literally in this case) get my goat. So I decided to finally find the Highway 26 bike path, which is supposed to be a flattish way home. Plus, I've never met a bike path I didn't like, right? It took me a surprising amount of juking around to actually find the thing, which miffed me. Seems to me that it could be marked from the transit center. Once on, it was pretty well marked, though, and it dumped me out at the entrance to the zoo.
I wound through the Arboretum and found Kingston without much fuss, which Susan had told me was my route outta there, and headed down into town. I took the Burnside Bridge which kept me out of most of the 5 de Mayo crowd, and (conveniently) took me past Citibikes, where I found nothing of any particular note other than a quick break.
Just a couple blocks past Citibikes, I ran into (almost literally) a Shift2Bikes moving party. They were putting the mattress and box springs onto a bike trailer when I rode by. I stopped to ask a few questions, which of course made me look like a volunteer, which I had to politely decline on account of some accumulating goat issues (gotta get home....). But it was really cool, even though I have to say that I think that heavy hauling is what internal combustion engines ought to be reserved for.

Other than that, nothing of particular note except that I have FINALLY bowed to convention and gotten a cyclometer:
It works fine, I guess. I put it on my commute bike, which is a Fuji Absolute DX (flat bar road bike with fairly standard geometry and a carbon fork). I have discovered some things that I suppose I kinda knew....

• First, I go slower up hills and faster down hills. But I don't go quite as slow up hills as I'd feared, or quite as fast down them as I'd hoped.
• There are areas on my commutes that I'd thought were flat that are really slight up or downhills, and that really affects my speed, at least in the moment.
• I watch the cyclometer too much. I really suspected that I would, which is why I've been resisting. People tell me that I'll learn to tune it out.
  
• I ride faster when it's chiding me. I have mentally set my "where's your pride, girl???" limit at 6.0 mph going up Thompson Road, and lo-and-behold, I can deliver on that. Next month, maybe 7. Or at least 6.5.
  

In the past 9 days I've ridden 245 miles on the commute bike and an even 100 on the road bike (at the Monster Cookie). I guess now that I have a computer I've got some numbers to throw around.

See y'all up the road,
Sandy