Chaos Love: love, life, design and more.

This last Sunday, Kim (Christine's sister) and I took part in the annual Portland Bridge Pedal. Unfortunately, Christine was working, otherwise she surely would have joined us.

Portland is situated on the Willamette River, which is crossed by 10 road bridges within the metropolitan area. From north to south, these are: St Johns, Fremont, Broadway, Steel, Burnside, Morrison, Hawthorne, Marquam, Ross Island and Sellwood. Of these, the Fremont and Marquam are normally closed to pedestrians and bicycle riders as they carry freeway traffic, so this ride is the only chance each year to ride across these bridges. The Sellwood and Ross Island are also very narrow, so riding over them while competing with traffic can be somewhat perilous.

We started just before eight in the morning and set out on the full 10 bridge ride. You could also do 8 and 6 bridge rides for those with children or less desire to cross all the bridges. It was an awesome morning, although the traffic jams when the three rides came together at a bridge were incredible... it resembled a bridge walk, rather than ride at times, as seen here:

In all, we covered over 30 miles (or around 48km) and were incredibly pooped at the end. In fact, we skipped the last bridge (the Broadway) and ended up at the Widmer Gasthaus for a cleansing ale (muscle relaxant, as the Hitch Hiker's Guide To The Galaxy tells you!) and a good feed. We'd already crossed a "tenth" bridge in the morning to get to the start, and we really didn't want to have to cross an eleventh to get back home again!

Posted in: chaosboy, portland, sport on August 15, 2007 at at 6:00:00 PM