bpcyclist

Love to hear what your experience was. I did it for the first time in a very long time this morning early. I am going to hold off communicating how that went. But I would really love to hear what other folks' experience has been, if you are out there.

CliffordK

I did the Nieuw Ronde PDX - De Ronde van West Portlandia ride a couple of years ago.

https://ridewithgps.com/ambassador_r...an-west-portla

A mighty intense ride!!!!

Skyline Blvd came pretty early in the ride. Generally relaxing after the first big climb (which was dirt/gravel).

One cuts off of Skyline to Brynwood, a far more memorable stretch!!!

tim24k

I just rode it late yesterday morning all the way down to Old Cornelius Pass Rd. It was a very wet ride.

bpcyclist

Hi-viz yellow shoes and in the drops, by chance?

bpcyclist

I think I'm gonna do that--thanks. Yeah, I used to live just, like, right near Brynwood. Very hilly part of town. So, I haven't done the part of Saltzman that is after the parking lot. Can it be ridden on road tires? Cuz if it can, that might be a much better option than something like Germantown or Logge or Newberry.

CliffordK

I did the climb up to Skyline with 25mm road tires. The official ride is in the spring, but you have the map, and lions markings on the road, and it can be ridden any time, although perhaps not in the pouring rain.

It is possible to dump the map from RideWithGPS to Strava (or find the route from someone that did the ride). 3 different rides, of course.

I think that first trail was wide, but OK with the road bike.

The different rides have a few cutoffs on dirt trails which weren't my favorite sections.

Of course that one was a climb up. Others descending aren't as bad, but occasionally I've looked for options when the path didn't look pleasant.

Some of the steeper climbs were a reason to experiment with a bit lower gearing. I haven't gone too extreme, but it is a ride that one would hurt with classic gearing of say 52/42 x 13/21

Make sure your brakes are in good shape!!!

CliffordK

Oh, one note about those rides:

Nieuw Ronde PDX

La Doyenne

Le Foglie Morte

The maps are deceiving. They are INTENSE rides. Every corner you go around changes from descent to climbing. And most are very steep.

50 miles on the hills are worth at least 100 miles on the level.

bpcyclist

Hey--thanks a ton for all this terrific info. I really appreciate it. I don't belong to a club or group or anything, so I'm always just kinda flying by the seat of my pants. I totally agree about the general quality of the hills around here. I was talking with someone from Dallas (I'm a Texan originally) and I told him about my ride up the front of Mt. Scott and then down the extremely terrifying (I have a fear of heights I am trying to get rid of) backside on this ridiculous thing called Monner Road the other day. What a JOKE. Anyhow, the total distance on that ride from my place in the Pearl out and back was, like, 36 miles or something. My friend just kind of scoffed. I tried to gently explain the hill situation here, but, God bless him, he lives in DFW. Just not a hill guy. Maybe they have speed bumps or something.

But you sound like you like to climb. If that is true and if you ever have the opportunity, I would suggest tackling Mt. Scott from the back or east side and then coming down the west side. I've never gone up that way, but I might try it. I do believe it is significantly steeper than anything on Thompson or Cornell or Skyline. It's maybe like Hazeltine in Forest Heights, if you know that one. Anyhow, as I say, I can't comment on Saltzman. If you wanted to do this coming from the Springwater Corridor Trail, which might be fun, you would just go: Springwater onto Jenne Rd., moving southeast on Jenne to Foster. Left on Foster and then not long after, a right onto SE 172nd Ave. Cruise that for a bit past the 7th Day Adv. Church and then a right on Hagen. To a left on 162nd. Right on Monner. Say some prayers, then hopefully up Monner (no problem for you) and a right on 147th to roundabout, becomes 145th. Then left on King. Becomes Mt. Scott Bd. and takes you all the way to the bottom and becomes SE Flavel. Under I205 to 92nd, and then you can go where you want. The Springwater Trail picks up on 92nd, conveniently, 3 blocks to the right, if you wanted to take that back into town. Or whatever. Google mapping this shows how easy the nav part is. The riding part, not so easy, IMO.

Please do ignore every bit of this if you are not interested and I do apologize if I've wasted your time. Happy riding and be safe!!

CliffordK

There is a quite a group of vintage bike enthusiasts up in Portland.
@gugie @jyl

But, they are happy to meet any cycling enthusiast.

I'm not sure about Mt. Scott. The Doyenne route I mentioned does a lot of hills on the East side, but a bit further east.

Mt. Tabor is a favorite cycling destination, and much of it is a low traffic park.

Those rides I mentioned have some steep ascents, but also steep descents, and a lot of them.

Much of my riding is flat land riding. I periodically do the ride from Eugene to Portland which hits a few hills, but a lot of valley riding.

My primary route takes me along the Willamette Valley Scenic Bikeway. A beautiful route winding through the valley farmlands. But, unfortunately the Portland end is at Chapmpoeg park, and about 20 or 30 miles out of town. I do ride there, but HWY 99W is busy. I found a nice route to the East of there, but it has some narrow winding hilly roads with moderate traffic.

I've ridden quite a few parts of the Springwater trail. It has improved over time.

There is also a nice trail near Forest Grove. Called the Banks Vernonia trail. Old rails to trails conversion.

tim24k

The wife and used to ride the Springwater trail a lot. It’s been nickname “Felony Flats” for a while now. I wouldn’t ride it alone these days.

We, the wife and I rode Banks to Vernonia Trail again late last summer, it’s a nice ride but watch for potholes! Most of them are marked with a white pant around them. In Vernonia we always stop to eat at the Black Iron Grill. It’s bicycle friendly and has never disappointed us.

BritishV8

I ride some section or other of Skyline fairly often. I'll attach a map of Sunday afternoon's ride...

My favorite way to get up to Skyline is Rocky Pt Rd. Three miles of constant 7% climb! (I set a new personal record on Sunday!) Conditions at the top: somewhat foggy and also very, very quiet. I hardly saw any cars from there until I got back down to Rt 30 at the end of my ride. Coming South, I turned off of Skyline at Moreland Rd. It's newly paved, and I figure it's a pretty safe place to go fast. Jarrell Rd and Pederson Rd on the other hand are "stabilized gravel", which slowed me way down. They're also mostly uphill. But I'd never ridden those roads before, and they're quite nice. The woods are especially pretty. I liked the cascara understory trees and all the ferns... Some very nice homes there too. I was greeted by some friendly (barking) dogs... the kind that aren't really all that intimidating even though they run right up to you. The climb on Beck Rd back up to Skyline is a constant 5% grade. I expected a steeper grade there, and I was tired by then, so I was just fine with that. And, by the time I got back up onto Skyline, it was getting dark. I had both taillights on, and also both headlights but aimed low, because the fog was really thick there. It cleared off around Cornelius Pass Road. Now, I would've preferred to come down from Skyline on McNamee. (I love that road! It's my favorite way to get down off of Skyline during daylight hours, but it has lots of rough pavement and potholes, and sections can get slick with leaf cover in the autumn.) But I was late for dinner and anxious to get on home, so I took Newberry Road down instead. It's steep, and the pavement is smooth all the way down... so it's VERY fast.

I didn't actually say much about Skyline, did I? I guess Skyline is just a road that connects me to other more interesting or more challenging roads.

bpcyclist

Thanks for this. You are further north than I usually am, so I need to study what you did. I also have never started on Sauvie Island, though I live in the Pearl and so that would be easy. Must say, not a fan of Hwy. 30 for cycling.

I started this thread because I had not been up there in awhile and what I found in terms of traffic at 7 AM on a foggy (up there) Saturday was alarming. I would say the average speed on a non-sharp corner section of Skyline that morning was maybe 46 mph. Mostly SUVs. I will just come out and say that in my younger days I worked at a busy Trauma Center. With the combination of zero shoulder, horrific surface pavement topography, and the ever-present risk of ice at that elevation (5 degrees too warm that day) or just slipperiness due to wet road +/- leaves, my personal opinion is that it was not a safe riding environment. There's no room and people are just driving way too fast. I can only imagine how bad it must be at noon.

But maybe out where you were is better. I will check it out. Thanks!!

BritishV8

I recommend all those farm and forest roads on the north side of Helvetia. Also, though I prefer paved roads, that loop back around to Scappoose (Dixie Mountain Rd / Otto Miller / Dutch Canyon) is an exceptionally nice gravel ride. I usually do that loop clockwise / downhill. There are spots where you can see at least four volcanos (Rainier, St Helens, Adams, Mt Hood...) and I nearly always see wildlife there. Lots of deer.

Rt 30 wouldn't bother me so much, but I get a lot of flat tires on it. Sunday, I picked up a staple.

bpcyclist

Thank you for that. I might check those out as well.

As for 30, what sort of debris do you commonly find there? And what tires are you running at the moment?

BritishV8

I'm currently running Continental Grand Prix 4-Season tires (700x32). They're just "okay". The rear tire was punctured Sunday by the sort of staple you might use to attach a poster to a post.

I installed the Continentals after giving up on Pirelli Cinturato tubeless tires (700x26)... which were obscenely short-lived. One of those was gashed (on N. Lombard) on a rusty little scrap of bent sheetmetal... just 0.7 miles after installing it! Unrepairable. The second Pirelli Cinturato lived a couple hundred miles, before being cut by a piece of common gravel on Route 30. (5mm sidewall cut... repairable, but I'd lost faith in Pirelli and in tubeless tires for that matter. Rubbish. A complete fraud, IMHO)

Before that, I ran Continental 4000 S2 tires in various sizes. At one point this summer I experienced four punctures in five rides. (That's why I decided to try tubeless tires.)

What sort of debris on 30? I've picked up little pieces of steel wire a couple times. I'm not certain, but I think those wires probably came from failed automobile or truck tires. But I've run over all sorts of weird metal debris. Schnitzer Steel has a steel mill in Saint Johns, so countless tons of steel crosses the Saint Johns bridge daily to be recycled. Some of that steel falls off the trucks and trailers... I tend to ride whenever I can, night or day and rain or shine, so I can't possibly see or steer around all the obstacles.

bpcyclist

I decided long ago that not getting lots of flats was a major priority of mine. I don't race and, while I do use RWGPS, I really don't care about my times other than just as a casual after-ride observation. I switched to the Gator Hardshell, which has poor rolling resistance compared to the 4000S2/5000, but not that dissimilar from your current tires. Now, I just do not get flats. Like, ever. I can ride right through a pile of glass (because I am an idiot and do this occasionally) and it's just a non-issue. I ride almost exclusively in the dark, so this has really improved the quality of my life. If you ever decide you want a tire that is maximal in puncture prevention, the Hardshell is definitely the one.

DrFeelGood

Its too bad about the Springwater but true. Flying bottles, trip-wire across the trail or worse a trip down that in the evening is like entering the DMZ.

bpcyclist

I've only been riding it for a few months (the entire thing), but so far, I haven't been hassled. The city or county or whomever has completely cleaned/cleared out the campers around I205 and actually, last time I rode it, I encountered about maybe 8 campers on the whole 50 miles my ride consists of. I see more than that riding downtown for 20 miles. There were only two piles of abandoned trash. The trail itself was pristine, but for the leaves. Plenty of walkers and runners and cyclists out and about. Granted, this was like sort of 0630 to 1000 or so.

But I am about to find out about riding it in the dark, because I am leaving a 0430 hrs PST to do the whole trail in just a bit. 3 hours will be in the dark. I have good lights. Full safety report to follow, assuming I'm still around... I am imagining it will be just fine.