Colleen and Deb Do a Multimodal Adventure

A few months ago my friend Deb and I were talking about doing a riding adventure in Portland. To make it even more fun, we decided to take the train. 

Fast forward to today, and we have successfully completed our adventure. It started with Deb boarding the Amtrak train in Tacoma (where she lives). I rode Grayson, my road bike over to the Olympia/Lacey station, and got on the same train. Interestingly, it was not the Talgo. It was one of the regular old Amtrak trains (no double decker though, that’s the Coast Starlight). What was significant about that was that the baggage car door is up much higher than the Talgo cars. Good thing I wasn’t riding a heavy bike! 

I found Deb in the train car, and we settled in for the ride to Portland. The time passed quickly as we had to catch up on all of our trips (last time I saw Deb was when I was housesitting in Tacoma for my niece).

Soon we were pulling into Union Station in Portland. We fetched our bikes and got ready to ride. Deb had created her first RWGPS route for our ride today. I only had one request, and that was to ride across the Tilicum Bridge. She put it into the route. The whole route would be 35 miles and about 2800 feet of elevation. Perfect for the amount of time we had before catching the train home at 5:55pm. 

Heading out on the route.

We had our biggest climb right away. It was over 3 miles and 1100 feet with an average grade of 5% (but at one point I saw 14%). We were going up Cornell Rd. There are two tunnels. BUT, the bike route goes around them. 

The path around

The tunnel

The second tunnel and path

We continued climbing. There was a “Road Closed” sign the way we were supposed to go. It said “Local Traffic Only”. We decided we were “local traffic”. It was fine, but then we came to where the road was actually closed (it was a slide). There was a guy working, but we could see where we could just go through. We showed our gratitude by walking our bikes. It was great that we were able to go through because we were turning just after the closed part. 

We weren’t done with the climbing though. This was where I noticed the 14% grades. I would have liked to have Wanda’s gearing. At the top I noticed we came out onto Skyline. We might have had less climbing if we had just gone to Skyline instead of turning onto the road we came up. Maybe…maybe not, but it was pretty. 

We came down Skyline, and I to Washington Park. We could smell the zoo as we rode by. 

We stopped for a break at the Rose Garden. There was a food truck there, so we got some food. 

View from the Rose Garden 

Hotdog!

We rode past the Japanese Gardens, and the rest of the way through the park. That was the end of our first “loop” (it wasn’t really a loop, but we were back toward downtown). Next up was the Terwilliger Trail. It was another climb, but not as steep as the first one. After turning off Terwilliger, we made our way to the Riverview Cemetery. It’s a lovely ride by all the dead people. Many of Portland’s founders are buried there. 

Descending out of the cemetery, we came down to the Willamette River. This was the flat section for the day. 

Now it was time to start segment three. We would cross the river on the Tilicum bridge. Tilicum means “For the People”.

The bridge is only for bikes, pedestrians, and public transportation.

On the other side of the river, we worked our way to Mt Tabor. The plan was to ride to the top, but we went part way, then changed our minds. We were getting hungry, and wanted to have time to eat dinner before we got back on the train. 

The start up Mt Tabor

It was mostly downhill back to the river where we went across on the Hawthorne bridge. Deb had a place in mind for dinner, so we worked our way through downtown to get there. 

Hawthorne Bridge

China town!

We had a filling dinner of burgers and sweet potato fries. Deb wanted to go to the New Seasons Market next door. I watched the bikes as I had no more room to carry anything anyway. It was just a

Couple miles back to the train station. 

Union Station

We got the tags for our bikes, and headed out to the train when it was time. This time it was the Talgo train. It looked like an on-time departure. Alas, in true Amtrak fashion, it was not to be. We ended up departing about 30 minutes late. 

Time for a little nap. 

A good day on the bike!

This was a lot of fun. Now we are thinking of doing the same thing, only going to Seattle. I think the cycling infrastructure is better in Portland, but Seattle is coming along. 

Today’s route

SF Sly Dog Day 5-So Many Things

We woke up this morning to…rain. We pulled out our rain gear, but more importantly, we realized we would need to alter our route. The trails we were supposed to be on today didn’t work if it was raining (mud). We had a tentative plan. I google mapped us to the beginning of the route. We would at least be able to do the route as far as Union City…so we thought. 

We started on the route. It was raining, then it quit for awhile. We were riding solely on bike path, some paved, some crushed gravel. 

By the time we got to the Dumbarton Bridge, it was raining pretty hard. Going over the bridge on the bike path, a truck went by and sent up a huge wave of water that landed smack on top of me. Catherine was a bit ahead, so she didn’t get quite as much as I did, but still a lot.

On the other side of the bridge the route came back around, under the bridge, to a shoreline trail. Jana, who had been a little behind had joined us. Catherine was concerned about the trail, but we decided to give it a go. It looked okay, but oh no, it wasn’t okay! Catherine rode past me and her rear tire was fishtailing in the mud. I had stopped, and as soon as I put my foot down into the mud I said, “Nope nope nope!” I managed to turn around without getting too deep. Catherine was not so lucky. She had a hard time getting her bike out of the mud. I just walked my bike back and forth through a big puddle that was under the bridge. It cleaned my shoes too. There was a bridge worker under the bridge at the same time. He let Catherine use his broom to get some of the mud off. Her drive train was so muddy that the chain wouldn’t stay on. The photo below is AFTER she had cleaned most of it off. 

Billy came out pretty clean
Below is the puddle I walked through. 

Once Catherine’s bike was functional again, we rode back to where we had come down off the bridge. I had seen a bike route sign to downtown Fremont. We figured we would work our way there, then to Union City. We were hankering for some lunch. 

We found a diner in Union City, and had a hearty lunch. Over lunch we figured out what we wanted to do. First, we knew getting to Anthony Chabot campground was not in the cards. Jana called her friends to see if it would be okay if we came a day early (it is also forecasted to rain tomorrow). They were fine with that, so we set about deciding on a riding plan (the rain had let up for the time being). Jana and Catherine found some routes that went from BART station to BART station, but there was nothing in Union City. So, we decided to take BART to Hayward. 

It’s really quite easy!

We got off at Hayward, and loaded up the route on our gps units. It was a pretty good ride, through bike friendly streets.

After around 7 miles we arrived at the San Leandro BART station. We loaded up the next route from San Leandro to West Oakland. This one took us to the San Francisco Bay Trail (we had been on this trail early in the day).

We even went across the water on a dedicated bike bridge. 

After 15 miles we arrived at the Merritt Lake BART station in Oakland. 

We took BART to the station closest to Jana’s friends’ house. Jana had the brilliant idea to fire up the Garmin and have it route us to the beginning of the route from Crow and Sara’s house. 

So, due to mud and rain, we finished a day early by riding 50 miles. It was a long day, but pretty interesting riding through parts of town on really great infrastructure. 

This was, surprisingly, a very difficult bikepacking trip! The physical demands were pretty high, but the scenery was spectacular! 

SF Sly Dog Day 4- Our “Easiest” Day So Far

Jana was up and gone by 6:00 something (she had to teach a class online at 3:00). Jana and I were a bit more leisurely. We had breakfast at the coffee shop/cafe next door to the hotel, and left Half Moon Bay at about 8:30.

Ham and cheese croissant and a cherry pastry (I did have a banana and some hot chocolate in the hotel).

Riding the Coastal Path was great!

We stayed on the Coastal path through Half Moon Bay State Park and to a road named Poplar. There were these cool two trees. 

From there we had to get onto Hwy 1 for awhile. We were not following the SF Peninsula Travers route after yesterday’s trail debacle. We were not going to be duped twice!

We did meet up with the route, and rode up to Purismo Creek Trailhead. We had decided we would do that part, but not the other trail part. 

The first part was really nice. We were even able to ride most of it! Then we came to the turn for Grabtown Gulch Trail. From there my Garmin said it was 3 miles with an average grade of 10%! Well, time for some hike-a-bike…

since I k ew I would likely be walking the entire thing, I just took off my helmet and hung it off the back. It was a long walk! I ended up being able to ride about 150 feet, and that was at the end of the trail. We still had more climbing on the road, but it was a measly 6% average grade. 

In order to skip the second trail section, we headed over to Skyline Dr via a very steep road called Swett Rd. It was paved, and we still had to push our bikes up!

 

Fortunately, it wasn’t too long. We popped out to Skyline Dr. It wasn't all downhill, but it was more down than up. When we started the Purismo Creek Trail, we met a woman on her mountain bike (Jana met her too), who was very familiar with the area. She told us about Alice’s Restaurant at the intersection of Skyline and La Honda. She also recommended we take La Honda down to Palo Alto. 

We stopped at Alice’s Restaurant and had a good meal. 

From there it was a screaming good ride downhill. We decided to get to our hotel via Stanford campus. It was a little crazy, but after I fired up Google Maps voice directions, we finally arrived at our hotel. Jana was waiting for an old friend to pick her up for dinner. 

Catherine and I went to the Hilton for a quick dinner. I didn’t want to walk too far as my left knee is kind of resembling what it looked like on the AT. See? I don’t really like hiking! It doesn’t really hurt, it’s just very swollen. There will be some more hiking tomorrow, but a bunch of flat miles at first.