As part of our summer fun, we decided to sign up for the Providence Bridge Pedal in Portland with friends Tiff and Jeremy, who recently moved there. For this bike ride, they block traffic on all the major bridges and streets connecting them, including a portion of I-84. We chose to do the 10 bridge ride, about 36 miles in length, cause we’re extreme like that. To start off our weekend, Tiff and Jeremy took us out on a brew tour of Portland on Saturday, where we hit up such breweries as Amnesia, the HUB bike bar, Mash Tun, Cascades, and Breakside. Along the way, we checked out nifty shops, street festivals, and hipsters and also had some good tots (yup, you can find tater tots on most menus here). The beer was pretty delicious, too! The weather for most of the day was overcast, but the sun peaked out a bit in the afternoon. All in all, a good start to our trip and an excellent way to carbo-load for our bike ride the next morning!

The gang outside the new Hopworks Urban Brewery Bike Bar.

We headed out Sunday around 6:15am and decided to bike ride to the starting line (yeah, cause we’re extreme). It was about 5ish miles and we cruised our way through the quiet streets on a chilly, overcast morning. When we finally got there, holy bikes batman! There were about 18000 riders signed up for the event, but were spread out over 2 or 3 starting areas. If you’ve never bottlenecked on a highway on-ramp with hundreds of your closest riding companions, you’re missing some sweet natural highs. There were riders of every age and bikes of every design, bands, entertainment, refreshments, and fun. The sun decided to show itself and the weather could not have been any better. Unfortunately, we didn’t end up doing all 10 bridges as planned because a volunteer steered us in the wrong direction. But we did do 8 and if you count our ride to and from the race, that’s 10!


Tiff and Jeremy cruising up one of the bridges. LOTS of bikes!




The gang atop another bridge. 

We cruised on over to the Lucky Lab brewery (Chester's fav) after the race and had some delicious eats and drinks as a reward. We finished out the night by visiting Hopworks Brewery, the Baghdad, and the Side Bar. It was a perfect buddy/bike/beer-filled weekend! Thanks Tiff and Jeremy!




Who doesn't love a lucky lab?