We have done a lot of bike rides since moving to Portland, but this one 100% deserves its own write up. It started out with such vigor and excitement. I got home from work and we made our plan for our night ride with our fancy new bike lights. Around 4:30, we saddle up and head north to the St. Johns neighborhood, blasting some Leon Redbone Christmas music, admiring the lights along the ride. Legs feeling great like we could ride all night. A pit stop to pee in Mcmenamins in St. Johns turned into a perfect treat of some tots and a beer.
Then it was time. Time to go the reverse way on the Leif Erickson trail in the dark! Ready to fly down the mostly downhill trail for like 7 miles, then exit the trail into downtown in search of our tasty Indian dinner that would be so perfect and warm and well deserved.
The initial hill to get onto the trail from this direction was a bear. We shamefully dismounted and walked our bikes most of the way up until finally getting to the entrance. I thought I heard coyotes in the distance and was about to give up as all I saw was uphill road with no end in sight. But we trudged on and finally made it to the path!
Off we go, cruising through the night, stoked. Stoked for the views of ferns lighting up the sides, pines above our helmets. Vikings through the night we were.
I started going through waves of feeling pretty fatigued in my legs. I try to give myself some grace and recognize that I did do a tough crossfit workout right before this 20 mile ride, but Dylan's flying ahead of me, I'm struggling, my mind starts to spiral. "Why can't I keep up with Dylan? Am I going through early menopause and my muscles are melting?" -- "No! Snap out of it, self! You're just going to cruise and enjoy this! Your body is strong!" --- "Maybe biking isn't for me. I think I may be done biking."
At some point, Dylan asks why I'm going so slow--
"Are you hurting? Are you ok?
"No I'm just slow!" I say in such frustration and disgrace.
"But this isn't normal for you. Something must be wrong?"
"Nope, I'm just not strong anymore. My muscles are all gone and I'm getting old."
We keep riding. My struggle worsens. I start wondering why I can’t enjoy things the way Dylan does.
Again, Dylan slows his roll to ask again, "No seriously, is something wrong with your bike?" My frustration grows again, already writing my Strava comment in my head: "A ride so slow Dylan thought my bike was broken." I begrudgingly get off the Space Horse to "just check" and boom. Flat as heck back tire. I'd been struggling for who knows how many miles just accepting defeat.
It's around 8:15 by this point, Portland restaurants all close at like 9, we still had an unknown amount of miles left to even get off the trail not counting the miles to the restaurant, Dylan's fancy light already died. Dylan starts to worry that we're going to get attacked by bandits. That both of our lights will die, our phone would die and we wouldn't make it out without a fight.
So I ran. I ran what wound up being a 5k holding onto my bike the rest of the trail and beyond. We got to the rode and I kept running. Our dinner plans now changed from our perfect butter chicken dream to a less than exciting pho (we love this pho, it just was not what we wanted). I wasn't even going go think about how I was going go get the rest of the way home yet. We just needed to focus on dinner. There was one questionable truck at the end of the trail that didn't seem like the truck to ask for a ride. So I'm running through the streets of Forest Park when I hear someone shout,
Do you need help or something? A ride? We have a bike rack!"
"Noo, we're ok." Two seconds later, "Wait! What am I saying? You have a bike rack? Maybe! Yes?!"
The most gracious couple threw our bikes on their rack and drove us right to our home, while I ordered some thai delivery along the way. Our night was saved. It was such perfect timing to have seen these two. They salvaged our night, may have become some new biking friends. And maybe even our therapist.
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