A ride with friends.

Today Jordy and I went on a nice Sunday ride with about 20,000 of our closest friends. The event was called Sunday Parkways and it was the fourth and final ride of the season. This one was held in South East Portland and the course was 9 miles long. Coincidentally, the Sunday parkway overlapped, both in date and route, with the Hawthorne Street Fair.

Epic 9 mile route.

We left our apartment at 10:40 to make the 20 minute ride to where we were gonna hookup with the route. The ride there was uneventful but felt different because we had decided to try out not wearing helmets. The culture of bicycling here is so entrenched that helmets, while a smart choice, are not a requirement. Because there is a crap ton of bicyclists around cars always seem to drive in a manner that is very friendly to bicyclists.

Standard blog self-shot photo. Notice lack of helmet. Eeek!

The parkway started at 11am and, punctual as always, we were on the course at 11am. It started out slow belying what was to come.

We wound our way down to the Hawthorne street fair and tried to find somewhere to lock up the bikes. This proved to be a bit of a challenge even tho the city had trucked in row after row of temporary parking.

Once parked we walked around the booths and I met President Obama.

 After meeting the President I needed a beer.

I'm not smiling because I am in shock from meeting the Commander In Chief.

Getting back on our bikes after walking around and drinking a beer really showed us how many people had come out today. It was a mad house. Jordy, who doesn't really feel comfortable riding in crowds, commented how it was like being in a sober FBC ride. She was right.

This was how it was on a straightaway.

Jordy guiding us to a busy intersection.

Many intersections required dismounting and walking.

John would like many of the prints available.

The ride continued like this until we were back at our starting point. We headed off back to home but stopped to have one last beer on the way. The beer I had was called 'Hot Tamale'. It was a golden ale infused with habaneros and jalepenos. Sounded good on paper, not so good in real life. Now that I think of it, it doesn't even really sound good on paper.

All in all we had a great time. You know you are in a city that cares about pedestrians and bicyclists when they close down over 9 miles of road way for 5 hours of human powered entertainment. I can only imagine all the time and planning an event like this must take. Kudos, Portland. We both really enjoyed the days events.