bicycling – Riveted

All of the Bridges

Laura Domela — Sun, 10 Aug 2014 19:00:22 +0000

This morning we got up at 5am and headed down to the Fremont Bridge for the start of the 2014 Providence Bridge Pedal. This is a super fun ride (we've done it once before, on the tandem). There are several options for this ride. There's a 10 bridge option (33 miles), an 8 bridge option (24 miles), a 6 bridge option (13 miles), a kids pedal (3 miles over two bridges), and "Stride" which is a 5.5 mile walk over two bridges).

There's also the Fremont Express option, which is 36 miles, does 10 bridges, but gets to start just after sunrise from the middle of the Fremont Bridge. This is pretty cool because the Fremont Bridge is normally closed to pedestrians and cyclists — only cars allowed. So having a half an hour or so up at the top of the bridge was really neat!

They had water stations and a bunch of food laid out on tables for the riders (bananas, donuts, bagels, etc.), along with a string ensemble playing music for us as we waited for the start time (6:45am).

And we're off:

It's super fun to ride through the city on bikes with the freewyas and bridges all (or mostly) to yourselves.

We met a family who said they do this ride every year together and have done the last 10 in a row. There are friends, couples on tandems, parents with kids on tandem trailer-cycles, kids in Burley trailers, dogs in baskets…as well as quite a few of the "serious cyclists wearing logo jerseys" Geico!!!!! (Okay so what about the jerseys that have written on the back: www.cyclingjerseysdirect.com? That's it. The name of the online store where you buy this logo cycling jersey? I don't get the whole logo jersey thing for regular people who aren't sponsored. I don't. I'll admit it. But the logo for the store where you got it? It's one level removed from Nike, even. Weird.)

Anyway. This is a very well-managed ride. There are several different routes, several starting times and places, with routes merging and peeling off from each other like diagrams of DNA strands, and there are so many helpful volunteers and policemen working the traffic and the cyclists…it's pretty fantastic how smooth it flows.

At the start of the ride, the administrators reminded everyone (several times) to remember, "It's a ride, not a race." For some people though, those are just words. There are "those guys" in every ride like this (all levels, all ages), who just can't help themselves.

At one point when it got a little congested downtown and cycling traffic slowed, two guys in red jerseys (matching) came up on the left and I heard one say "Really? REALLY??" as if he couldn't believe there was congestion during a ride with OVER 10,000 RIDERS. Then his red jersey twin yelled out "On your LEFT PEOPLE! On your LEFT!" What a dick.

Beautiful morning view of downtown from the Marquam Bridge:

View from the Sellwood Bridge (back toward downtown, far in the distance):

On the Hawthorne Bridge:

View of the Marquam Bridge from the Hawthorne Bridge:

Riders on the Hawthorne Bridge:

Next up: the Ross Island Bridge, then the Marquam Bridge (again!), and then Burnside. The new (not yet finished) Tilikum Crossing, taken from the Burnside Bridge:

(Next year's bridge pedal will get to ride across the Tilikum Crossing before it's open to the public.)

Steel Bridge from the Burnside Bridge:

Ooooh, arty:

Burnside Bridge heading west:

After the Burnside Bridge, we crossed the Broadway Bridge, then the Fremont Bridge again, and headed out Highway 30 to conquer the St. Johns Bridge:

View back toward downtown from the St. Johns Bridge:

Details, looking down:

Steel Bridge:

The finish line was after the Steel Bridge, down at the Portland waterfront:

The Bite of Oregon is going on down at the waterfront this weekend (see below, food booths, music), and though we did get free admission tickets with our ride registration, we opted to ride back to our car (a few miles away at the base of the Fremont Bridge) and go home for a bite instead (crossing the Morrison Bridge on the way, since it was the only one we didn't do as part of our official ride).

Oh yeah, here's our route:

Ten bridges (two of them crossed twice!), 42.9 miles. Finished and home by noon. Nap time!

Downtown Nanaimo

Laura Domela — Thu, 17 Jul 2014 18:05:53 +0000

We rode our bikes into town late this morning and did a little sightseeing and picked up a couple Canada pins for our collection. Check out my bike bag now!

We rode all over the waterfront, and stopped and had some gelato and some fish & chips (in that order).

Great fish & chips at Troller's! We had halibut and salmon and both were great. (Not as good as the Bandon Fish House, but still quite good!)

Here's our route:

We rode just over 10 miles. Now we're headed down to Ladysmith to meet a guy about a boat.

Comically Bad Service at the Taproot Cafe

Laura Domela — Sat, 12 Jul 2014 15:01:49 +0000

The morning after our incredible meal at the Willows Inn we got up, showered, dressed, then headed downstairs to the Taproot Cafe for breakfast.

This is a cute little cafe with inside and outside seating. We walked inside to ask about breakfast and the gal at the counter told us they had two options: A fritatta, or the Willows Inn breakfast which included a soft boiled egg, a biscuit, a bowl of sauteed kale, blueberries, and a small charcuterie plate. We ordered two Willows Inn breakfasts. When she asked us if we wanted coffee, we ordered two cappuccinos. She got our room name (Sunrise) and told us to sit anywhere we liked and they'd bring out our coffee.

We chose an outside table for two, where we sat for about 20 minutes before anything happened. We could hear the milk frother going inside…over and over again, but not for us. After the first 20 minutes the same gal came out and asked us if we wanted coffee or anything. Um, yes, we still want coffee. I said "Yes, we ordered two cappuccinos when we first came in." She said she'd get right on that, sorry.

About 15 minutes later (still, no coffee), one breakfast arrived. She was explaining what each thing was on the plate, and I interrupted quietly and said "We ordered two of these…" She said "Yes" and continued with her explanation and then walked away.

We had no silverware or napkins still, and I wasn't sure she'd registered the second breakfast reminder, so when I went inside to get silverware, I clarified… "Just to make sure…we're waiting on one more Willows Inn breakfast, right?" She said, "Yes." Okay then.

About 10 minutes later (and after far more milk frothing sounds than two cappuccinos would ever need…where are all those containers of frothed milk going, anyway??) we got our cappuccinos. Still only one breakfast on the table.

I urged Kevin to start on this breakfast and I'd wait. We both picked a little at the sharable things while he had the egg and the kale, since they were warm. So the first breakfast was completely finished (even though we lagged a lot while we waited for the other one) and 15-20 minutes later, the second breakfast arrived. She said they were sorry for the wait, and that they would be sure to give us a 10% discount. Whoa. A whole two bucks off.

Toward the end of our second round of single breakfast plates, our waitress came over and asked if we wanted more coffee. Kevin said he would like another cappuccino (he was almost done with his first one), and she said she'd check back in about 5 minutes. I guess he needed to have an empty cup in order to get new coffee. At least she didn't completely forget about it, like the first time. About five minutes later she came back to see if he was ready. He said yes, but asked for the coffee to-go. (It still took ten minutes before said to-go coffee arrived.) Crazy.

Part of the deal was how incredible and perfect the service had been the night before for dinner (upstairs, different restaurant, same Willows Inn). It was spot on…friendly, fast, efficient. This was in SUCH stark contrast to that, and so spectacularly bad, that it became comical. (The food was actually quite good though!)

After breakfast we checked out and headed out to the courtyard to work for a bit. Here's a shot of our "office" from our room:

The smokehouse out behind the restaurant:

Down on the Sunset Beach in front of the Willows. Looking left:

Looking right:

After work and a quick walk on the beach, we took off on the bikes and did this ride:

As we were riding along the shore at Legoe Bay (or near it) there were some cute beach houses on the left, driftwood beach on the right, we were again laughing about how bad the service was for breakfast. We came around the corner as I was saying the words "spectacularly bad service" and two ladies on the porch of a beachhouse on the left yelled out "Are you talking about the Taproot Cafe??"

What the heck??? Yes! We slowed and stopped the bikes as they both gave us air "high 10s" and said "we hear ya sister!!" They'd apparently been there this morning too (inside at the counter) and had terrible service (even sitting right there at the counter!) and they'd been talking about their experience all morning, flabbergasted. However, they said the service was always that bad, and that perhaps it's even gotten worse over time. We told them about our experience, and they told us about theirs, and we laughed and shook heads and said "Nice commiserating with you" and headed back to the road. So funny!

We stopped at the Otto Preserve at the Lummi Island Heritage Trust for a short hike and a water refill, and continued on around the island. It was a lovely ride.

We returned to the Willows Inn and back to our patio spot to do some more work, and the concierge said if we wanted any lunch, we could order it from the Taproot and they'd bring it out to us in the courtyard.

And yet, for some reason, in we went. We ordered two dry sodas and two salmon paninis. They brought our food out to us promptly, and the service was lovely this time. The sandwiches (served with a side salad) were delicious.

I'd love to think the service fiasco at breakfast was just a fluke, but as we've heard from the locals — it was not.

Nice Ride on the Springwater Corridor Trail

Laura Domela — Sat, 05 Jul 2014 20:05:55 +0000

We headed out for a bike ride this morning (while it was still cool out…76 degrees at 10am). We started down at the Portland waterfront where the Waterfront Blues Festival was getting underway. (That's it over in the park, behind all the boats parked out front.)

We rode up the Springwater Corridor, stopped at Cartlandia for a lobster sandwich, then rode further up the trail a bit before turning around and heading back to the waterfront, where the Blues Fest was in full swing:

We rode about 35 miles today. Hot (84 by the time we returned) but the nice thing about bicycling is that you make your own breeze.

Tomorrow early we'll head up to Port Townsend for a few days at Point Hudson Marina!

Ravenna to Brisighella (Ride Day 5)

Laura Domela — Fri, 16 May 2014 13:38:06 +0000

Well, we're in Florence now, so again I'm behind a day. First, I'll take care of yesterday, then I'll post about our ride today, cool? Cool.

After breakfast in the hotel, we left Ravenna and were treated to more back roads and great weather. We rode past cherry orchards, vineyards, kiwi orchards, corn fields…and more crops we couldn't identify.

Oh yeah, here's a map. See that last part there? Those are some hills!

And here are pics from the ride:

Eurobike stickers say "turn right."

But I kinda want to go left!

Once we got to Faenza, we stopped and had some lunch at a busy pizzeria just inside town. SUCH good pizza! We ordered two small pizzas — one tartufo (bufala, mushrooms, truffle oil) and an "Italia" special (bresaola, raddicchio, parmesan, bufala, tomatoes…not baked, more like a salad on top of a thin crust). Both were delicious!

Riding through Faenza:

We stopped for a quick caffè before heading on out of town:

Back on the road:

We arrived in Brisighella and checked into our hotel (Hotel La Meridiana). We took showers, did a little work, and then headed out (again on the bikes! crazy!) up the hilly roads into the town of Brisighella.

Brisighella is the smallest town we stayed in all week (about 7,700 residents). You can read some about the town here in this article we found online when we were doing some research.

Exploring Brisighella:

Brisighella is surrounded by (backed by?) three tall craggy chalk spires, topped with (1) the Sanctuary of Monticino (religious), (2) the 14th-century Castle Manfrediana (military), and (3) the 13th-century clock tower, the Torre dell’Orologio (civic) that strikes the quarter hour all day long. You can see the clock tower in the two photos below:

The famous Via Degli Asini translates to "Street of the Asses", and is so named because donkeys once used it traveling to and from the chalk quarry up above.

The via is covered now, and houses business and apartments (that first open door was a dentist's office):

Via Degli Asini, from the street below:

We sat and had a glass of prosecco and people-watched for a bit. We also stopped in the tourism office and grabbed a map. The helpful woman inside told us all about the famous Brisighella olive oil (seriously, see same article referenced above re: olive oil), and then she led us down a few doors to a shop where we were greeted by Daniela. "Her English is very good, you can ask her anything" the tourist info woman told us, but then Daniela never spoke one word of English to us, which was fine…just funny in response to such an introduction. Daniela let us taste two different olive oils from Brisighella.

Pieve Tho was the first oil we tried, made from olives from several different Brisighella growing areas. (The three are Nostrana di Brisighella, Ghiacciola, and Orfana.)

The second oil we tasted was the Brisighello DOP (our favorite, and the one we bought):

"The trademark "Brisighello" is related to a specific region with peculiar features, different from the surrounding areas, and mainly from an unique variety of olive fruit, the "Nostrana of Brisighella".

The extra virgin olive oil "Brisighello" DOP can only be obtained by the above mentioned variety of fruit, and its percentage cannot be less than ninety percent. Small amounts of other fruits coming from local olive trees can also be added." (from Brisighella.org)

We also bought one jar of tartufata that we will probably eat while we're in our apartment in Florence over the next two weeks.

Our bikes and the street, taken from the Via Degli Asini (and that's the spot on the left where we hung out with our prosecco for an hour or so before dinner):

This was the view from our little prosecco spot, where we had a very nice dreadlocked server and got to listento a reggae soundtrack

We did a little research about where to have dinner and, well, that article I linked to above really convinced us to try La Cavallina.

We are so glad we did! We arrived early (7:30pm) and decided to sit outside. We had this view:

The owner came out and explained the whole menu to us slowly in Italian but with hand gestures (shellfish, this big, round…a scallop!) and a few English words. It was so charming. We ordered a bottle of a fantastic local wine he recommended, Iaia (so fantastic we bought another bottle to take with us on to Florence…also, it's biodynamically produced — bonus!):

The owner helped us decide on some dishes, telling us he had an extra antipasti not on the menu that he wanted us to order — a formaggio di capra (goat cheese) that he made himself (it was garnished with an olive relish, thin green beans, and shaved parmesan, and it was incredible!):

We also had a beef tartare with shaved truffles, salad, and toasted bread (battuta al coltello di razza Romagnola con tartufo di stagione e pane brioches)…

… a local pasta dish (passatelli asciutti su fonduta diu formaggio e tartufo), a veal dish, and a fish dish (filetto di orata in crosta di erbe aromatiche su crema di sedano rapa e tartar di olive) which was an herb-encrusted sea bream with a celery puree and an olive "salsa".

They brought us a "surprise" dessert, a light pannacotta with strawberries, and two glasses of grappa. Everything was incredible, but the special goat cheese dish was our declared winner.

We rode our bikes back to the hotel from the restaurant (9:30pm-ish) with our nice bright headlights and taillights, carrying in my handlebar bag (1) a bottle of Iaia Sangiovese from Brisighella, a bottle of Brisighella olive oil, and a jar of tartufata. The moon was bright and almost full, and the three craggy pillars were lit up and shining tall above the town.

Buonanotte Brisighella! Domani…Firenze!

Chioggia to Adria by Bike (Ride Day 2)

Laura Domela — Tue, 13 May 2014 13:18:58 +0000

Well I'm a day behind because we didn't have internet at our hotel in Adria, so probably by now I've forgotten most of the details (because they've been replaced with the details from today's ride), but I'll do my best!

Mostly, I'm just going to show you photos from our ride.

Our new cycling friends from the UK I mentioned yesterday (Ruth & Cathy) on the dirt/gravel part of the route (there was quite a bit today, actually):

Entering the town of Cavarzere:

The four of us stopped here for some lunch and caffè right near the piazza in Cavarzere:

And then, more gorgeous scenery:

We said goodbye to our friends in Fasana, as they headed right on the loop ride they were doing (it ends back in Venice) and we headed left toward Adria. We had so much fun with them it was a bit sad to part ways!

Once in Adria, we stopped immediately for gelato at Gelateria Erika:

View from the bench outside the gelato shop:

Wandering around Adria:

We had dinner last night at Ristorante Albergo Molteni and it was great!

We ordered antipasti of Piedmont beef tartare and a seared tuna with capers and olives and tomatoes, then a squid ink pasta with squid, and…ink, and a grilled fish dish but I don't remember what fish it was (and I forgot to take photos of our main dishes, and the antipasti shots were blurry…low light, iPhone) but I managed to capture the ambiance when we first arrived, along with the fabulous Valpolicella Ripasso we had:

Our hotel in Adria was the Hotel Stella d'Italia and it was great. Cool design, good pillows…what more could you ask for? Oh yeah, Wi-Fi.

Our room:

The breakfast room this morning:

Next stop: Comacchio!

Oh yeah, here's our map from this ride (51.5 kilometers — about 32 miles):

Bicycling Along the Willamette River

Laura Domela — Sat, 26 Apr 2014 19:13:58 +0000

Portland is such a great city for biking. I know, this is not a newsflash. Portland has Platinum level status as a bicycle-friendly community (one of three Platinum communities in the United States) and Oregon is #3 in the rank of bicycle-friendly states in the U.S. Pretty cool. Anyway, we took our bikes downtown and did a nice 16+ mile ride today. Here are some shots from the route:

The ride we did was a nice loop around the downtown part of the Willamette River, starting near OMSI (the Oregon Museum of Science and Industry) and going north along the east side of the river, over the Steel Bridge, past the Portland Saturday Market on the west side of the river under the Burnside Bridge (Note: Saturday is perhaps not the best day for riding this trail next to the river as it is packed with peds going to and from the market. But hey! Great day to go to the market!), and all the way down to the Sellwood Bridge. Crossing the Sellwood Bridge is a little tricky (narrow sidewalk!) so walking your bike might be best. Plus you can enjoy the view a little more if you're less worried about falling into oncoming traffic. Bonus!

After we crossed the Sellwood Bridge we headed out the Springwater Corridor trail for a few miles, then back, catching up with the path that led us back around the river to our car (car, being the green dot on the map below).

It was a beautiful ride without much elevation gain, so aside from the peds along the waterfront it was a nice relaxing ride. Our Bike Fridays sure get a lot of attention! The other day we took Kevin's bike, and the instructions for packing, and managed to get it nicely packed up into its Samsonite roller suitcase without any snags. His is the larger bike, so if his fits, mine will fit. Nice to have a practice pack so we know how it all works before doing it for real for our Italy trip in a couple weeks!