Portland Area Group Ride — Mt. Hood Loop

[Guth_imp]

I had the pleasure of riding with cooldrum, Jonz, husky385, husky385's nephew and pdedse today. Jonz, cooldrum, husky385 and his nephew met up with me at a local coffee shop for a quick jolt of caffeine and then we headed east where we met up with pdedse. Our timing was perfect as pdedse was pulling in to the designated meeting spot at the exact same time as the rest of us. Then we headed out from Troutdale on the historic Columbia River Gorge highway. The historic highway is a two lane road that can get a bit congested, but it rewards the rider with some wonderful scenery.

Our first stop was at the viewpoint overlooking Crown Point and the Gorge.


From left to right: husky385, the nephew, Guth, cooldrum, pdedse and Jonz.

We had a nice group of beautiful bikes: five CB1100s and one nifty Ducati.



The guys let me follow them from the viewpoint on down the road a ways so I could capture some video of everyone riding. Here are a couple of images from the video.





After finishing up with the historic highway, we hopped back on I-84 and made our way to Hood River where we fueled up. Then we headed south on Highway 35 through the fruit orchards on the east side of Mt. Hood. We stopped in Parkdale for some lunch.



Then it was time to hop back on the bikes and get back on the road.



We made our way south until Highway 26 and then we headed back west towards Portland. We managed to catch some backroads before arriving in Portland. It's a really nice ride until you come across a truck hauling a trailer with a huge hot tub aboard. But the driver was kind enough to stop and let us ride on by. pdedse spit off to head back home shortly afterwards and the rest of us continued on into Portland before husky385's nephew had to make his way home.

Jonz, husky385, cooldrum and myself finished up the day at the coffee shop where were started off.



All in all it was a great time. I was a reluctant ride leader, but it went okay. No one got lost at least, lol. A couple of times I got so busy keeping up with what everyone else was doing that I forgot to cinch down the strap on my helmet so everyone had to pull over along with me so that I could correct the situation, but no one gave me a hard time (thanks guys). The weather couldn't have been more perfect. It started off a bit overcast and cool but the sun came out soon enough and the temps stayed in the 70s.

It was a pleasure meeting all of you guys and hopefully we'll get together to ride again soon. I'll add some videos to this thread after I've had a chance to do some editing and post them up.