Bridge of the Gods Training Ride

8 brave souls left River City Bikes at 7:30 am Monday morning on our way to Hwy 14 and eventually The Bridge of the Gods....It was a nice sunny morning as we met at the bike shop, Beth showed up coughing up a lung but we are kinda use to that so it was not a big deal as we knew she would tough out the ride and be fine....It was a group mixed of Hammer Velo members, Lindsay, Dave, Sam and Jeff, Mo from Sorella and Bryan and Aaron....
We got to Camas and Dave and Mo pealed off to head back around Lacamas Lake as Mo is still not up to doing real high mileage yet...The rest of us kept rolling and making what looks to be our permanent stop on this ride in Washougal at a little road side coffee shop for some caffeine for a few people....We stopped here a few weeks ago while up there and now they know us by name...: ) Or by Beth's Cough and several Oh Fucks thrown in there....So off we go heading east and keeping a good tempo, we come to the first real climb up to the Viewpoint of the Mt. Pleasant area, a good long steady climb and then a great downhill into the flat lands along the river....Some rolling terrain along the way until you reach the next smaller climb up and over the Beacon rock area and then fast and flat into North Bonneville where we make our next fluid stop....Then it's up over the Bridge and the grating, Sam and a few other's first time over the bridge and it is alittle spooky if you look down through the grating your first time....The nice lady at the toll booth let us roll through without paying again and down the ramp we go, just about then we see all the Guinness Boys across the street so we had to go say hi, we left before them and never saw them again on the way home as we kept up a good pace heading back west on the Oregon side. The traffic was crazy through the falls area, people parking all over the roads blocking traffic but we weaved our way through and hit the short hills and rollers out to the base of the Crown Point climb, at that point, Sam and I waited for a few minutes for Beth, she was feeling the ride at that point and being half sick was catching up to her....So we started the climb, Lindsay, Aaron and Bryan were out of sight, Sam and I started picking up the pace and caught Bryan with a .5 mile or so to go to the top, he was not happy about that : ), this was his longest ride ever and he rode strong all day....We re-grouped at the top and rode down into Springdale where we made our last stop for cokes..YUM..YUM, a great way to end the ride the last hour or so, riding a good hard tempo all the way back into town into a little head wind....I was ready to be done as my eyes were so messed up with allergies I was seeing good only out of the left, the right was kinda glued together at that point....But a great ride, we kept everyone together for the most part, got out 100 miles in and then headed home....Fun times.....