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June 30, 2005
Portland, Oregon (Finally, with Photos!)
I guess there is a lot to catch up on. It's been hard to write in here, due to the terribly event that took place shortly after we arrived.
After leaving Bozeman, we spent a day in Missoula, and rode some really fun trails. the we headed to west, and spent a fun evening and day with airielle in Moscow, Idaho. she has just finished college, and it seemed like she was gonna be moving to Vermont before too long. We had not hung out in 2 years, so it was very good to catch up. we also had a lot of fun playing with her chocolate lab, Cooter, possibly the dumbest lab i've ever met.
After that we drove to Portland, and met up with Andrew at his house in the Northeast. He's living with Billy Nickey and Julio, Billy's dog.
We went riding friday up at Topaz Creek with Dustin, Drew and Billy. It was one of the most beautiful rides we've done, there were times when the river that runs alongside the trail looked so amazing that it distracted me and i had to get off my bike and just take it all in.
Saturday we relaxed, and then went to River City Bicycles to hang out and drink beer with Billy Spaceman, my old friend from Reno days. We were lucky to get to meet Kristine, his girlfriend, and we had a really fun evening drinking beer at the shop, making new friends, and bike dorking out.
The next day, Mikey, Drew and i went riding up in the Columbia River Gorge, tearing down trails in a light drizzle that made all the roots very slippery. we had a really good time, and took some minor crashes that caused no injuries, only laughing.
On Monday, Mikey and I went riding with 2 employees from the bike shop up on Mt. Hood. the downhill trails were really well maintained, and even though we'd warned ourselves against riding with shop kids, we managed to hold our own.
On that same day, while working as a messenger in downtown Portland, Kristine, Billy Spaceman's girlfriend, was badly hit by a semi truck on Broadway st. She was taken to the hospital, and initially we were informed that they had her in stable condition. The next day however, we learned that she had passed away in the early morning. this was a terrible shock to all of us, and our hearts went out to her friends, family, and to Billy, who she'd been seeing for more then a year. we went over to his house on Tuesday night and sat shiva with him late into the night, and i felt so sad and helpless that there was nothing anyone could do. everyone kept describing what had happened as "insane, crazy and unbelieveable," but it wasn't any of those things, just the worst and saddest thing that can happen in life. everyone kept hugging Billy, who seemed so held together and strong, much more so then i think i would have been.
Drew was gonna come with us to Canada tomorrow, but he's sticking around for the memorial service. he also wrote some touching words on the graveltech website, worth reading i think.
so other then this tragedy, Portland has been ok. I've been able to hang out with Drew a lot, and all the mountain rides we've done have been top caliber. Yesterday Drew took Mikey and me to Alpenrose velodrome,and we took a track racing class. I've been riding track bikes for more then a year now, and it was really fun to finally get to ride them where they were intended to be used, on a closed track. Alpenrose has some of the highest banks of any velodrome in the U.S., and it was very intimidating riding up on them at first. by the end of the class, we were riding pace lines, racing, and making attacks and passes 15 feet up on a 43 degree bank, and Mikey and I agreed that it would be very fun to have a velodrome near to our respective cities. I know there is one in San Jose, but the 1 hour drive from San Francisco will be pretty impossible since i have no car.
We're heading up to Canada tomorrow for about 10 days, i'm really excited, i've never visited our neighbors up north. then we'll come back down and stop here again, and hopefully visit Jenny and Co. in Seattle and Bob in Olympia. then it's south to SF, for some riding in Marin.
In other news, i wanted to express how happy i am that grandma Dorothy did very well on her surgery, and i look forward to seeing her fit and well when i pass through reno again.
As you can see, Drew has showed me how to use Flickr to insert photos into my blog entries, making them much less boring i hope. You can look at my entire summer roadtrip album here, including the before, during and after photos of Mikey's tough crash scar.
I will try and continue to insert new photos as i take them.
Be well, all.
Posted by bendan at June 30, 2005 05:22 PM
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