Ira Rides His Bike: Portland Oregon to Grande Ronde Oregon

Tuesday, June 17, 2008

Portland Oregon to Grande Ronde Oregon

After an uneventful trip up to Portland, we met Jerry Chessman, who flew in from Pittsburgh PA. Jerry, upon arriving in Portland felt it was necessary to ride 85 miles to "see the sites". Ahhh- to be young again (Jerry is 25). Daniel, Gary and I went to the hotel and unpacked our bikes - Jerry had already ridden so he was unpacked, warmed up and ready to go. After a good nights sleep, we rolled out the door at 7:00am for our first day of riding. The task today was to ride out of Portland south and then turn west towards the coast to our destination of Grande Ronde casino, a cheesy all-you-can eat Indian Casino destination in the middle of the Pinot Noir wine country of the Willamette valley wine growing region, a distance of 74.8 miles. We traveled today at an average of 16.1 mph and climbed 2400 feet, a flat ride by all accounts. We enjoyed a nice tailwind for much of the ride and enjoyed rolling through fields of grapes, hazelnuts and walnuts. Daniel did great, no major pains and Gary and I rode with no problems. When finished, we coasted into the Casino and checked-in. This is one day I think the Casino may have lost money on us - we headed straight for the all-you-can-eat buffet and ate ourselves sick feasting on lamb-chops, salad and desert. We'll go back to the room, watch the Laker game ands ready ourselves for tomorrow - a 60 mile day with approx 3500 feet of climbing.

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About Ira and his Bike(s)

My name is Ira and I ride my bike. I do lots of other things but all through my life, on again and off again, I have ridden my bike. When I was a little guy, I got into collecting stamps. I loved old stamps and in order to find them, I needed to ride my bike to far away post offices to search for the best. On the weekends, my friend, Steve Spengler and I would pack our lunch, fill our backpacks and ride our bikes to places like Lawndale, Torrance and if we were really ambitious, San Pedro. We would make sure that every post office in each city was on our route and we would visit each one in hopes of finding the oldest and best stamps.Back then, I rode a red Schwinn Varsity - 31 pounds and 10 gears. I would zoom "down the hill" from my home in Palos Verdes to Torrance and I would call my mom to pick me up and drive me back up the hill. Even back then, I didn't care for climbing hills. My Schwinn Varsity was a great bike, but I always had longed for Peugeot U10. The Peugeot was an exotic French machine and only weighed 28 pounds. With this bike, I figured maybe, just maybe, I would be able to ride my bike both down the hill and back up.When I was 15, I got a job at Mayers bakery cleaning the floors and dishes. I received $1.35 an hour and I socked all of the money away to pay for my new Peugeot. It was now 1973 and my new Peugeot would cost $179.00. After a few months working at Mayers, the new Peugeot was mine!I rode my Peugeot everywhere. In 1973, I got involved with American Youth Hostels. The AYH group in Palos Verdes sponsored bicycle rides on the weekends. I joined AYH and routinely rode 50-75 miles on the weekends. We would go up the coast to Malibu or Trancas or down the coast to Seal Beach or Huntington Beach. We would sometimes bring backpacks and camp on the beach and if I was really tired at the end of my ride, I would call my mom to drive me up the hill. (I still didn't like to climb).At the end of 1973 and early 1974, one of my friends, Tim Roach, invited me to ride in a "club race" with the Lomita bicycle Peddlers. I rode and raced and loved it! I began to ride almost every day and was bitten by the bicycle racing bug!Soon after I started racing, I bought my first racing bike, a Stella. Stella was a beautiful French machine with simplex derailleurs and Campagnolo brakes and sew-up tires. Sew-ups's are the tires that you glue to the rim. Back then there were no hi-pressure, low profile clinchers. In order to get 100 pounds of pressure in a tire, sew-ups were the only way to go. In order to patch a tire, you had to take the stitches out of the tire, patch the tube and stitch the tire back up!During my racing days I was fortunate to be able to travel throughout the US racing my bike. At the end of high school in 1976, I rode my Stella to first place in the California State Championships road race and 10th place in the National Championships in Louisville, Kentucky. I also rode a Raleigh track bike to 3rd place in the California State Championships on the velodrome.In 1981, my stamp-riding buddy, Steve Spengler and I rode our bikes, not to the local post office, but across the US - from Portland, Oregon to Burlington Vermont. On this ride, I didn't call mom to pick me up. It was a trip I will never forget.Over the years, I have ridden many different bikes, including Colnago, 3Rensho, Griffon, Teledyne and Masi and Merlin. Just recently, after wrecking my Colnago by driving my Porsche into my garage, with my Colnago bolted to my roof-rack, I bought a Cervelo. The Cervelo soloist carbon frame is one of the lightest ever made and I need all the help I can get.

Ira Rides His Bike

Tuesday, June 17, 2008

Portland Oregon to Grande Ronde Oregon

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About Ira and his Bike(s)

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