"Portlandia" - Special Guests: Cervelo Girl and 1.0

1.0 and I had a blast in Portland!  We left my house just after 5pm.  Traffic was pretty dumb on I-5 south getting to Seattle.  The first 10 miles took an hour.  I remember thinking that I could be like 15 miles further, had I been on a bike.  Ugh.  I hate traffic.  Luckily things lightened up after that.  We passed a few hairy accidents in Tacoma, but they didn't seem to affect traffic flow too bad.

Side note: Why is it that I can never pass through Tacoma without seeing a nasty car accident??  What is that??

The trip down was fun though.  The radio played a collection of random rad songs: More Than Words - by Extreme, and Fat Bottom Girls - by Queen, to name a couple.  Jess and I laughed, sang, and talked, and really enjoyed ourselves.  We made it to the hotel just before 9pm, dropped off our stuff, and I jumped on the bed for awhile, (something I insist on doing at every hotel I stay at.)

Being that we were both starving and in the mood for "Portland nightlife," we decided to hit the town.  1.0 has an old friend who lives down there and we texted him for a recommendation.  I believe we said something like, "Can you recommend a good pub in Portland?..We're looking for a lot of bearded folk, just so you know the type of establishment we're after...you know...hippy/cyclist places. :)"  He was pretty much useless and I'm pretty sure he thought we were crazy.  We ended up in the Hawthorne District, which is where I used to hang out when I used to go to Portland before I had kids.  It is a funky little part of town with cool little shops and cafes.  We ended up at BridgePort Ale House.  I had a butternut squash soup, which was ridiculous good, and POUTINE of all things!  It was amazing!  I was a bit nervous when I read that it was topped with feta, instead of cheese curd, but I was pleasantly surprised by its yumminess.
 

Portland is very cool.  Have I mentioned this yet??  There are bikes everywhere!  It totally reminds me of Vancouver BC, except it's like a cute quirky little city where all the men have big sexy manly beards.  Mmmm...yummy.  The bike lanes are everywhere and they are very well marked.  This place is definitely not like Everett, where cyclists are rare because of the white trash, who consider it sport to see how close they can drive to us without actually hitting us, or my personal favorite - sticking their pit-bull's head out the car window to let it bark as they pass at top speed.  Now I am going to go out on a limb here and say that people may actually like cyclists in Portland!  Jeez...should I move??

Is that creepy or what?!

I would like to say that I slept well, but I didn't.  The gentlemen in the next room were rather loud.  I ended up taking 2 Benedryl and putting in my swimming ear plugs to fall asleep!  All in all, I got less than 5 hours of very crappy sleep, and did not put in the run I had promised I'd do in the morning.  I decided to eat breakfast instead!  1.0 and I headed back to Hawthorne and had a light breakfast at The Bread and Ink Cafe.  It had a very creepy painting.  I honestly don't know why you would paint the teeth after you'd painted the lips...  *shivers*

River City Bicycles ~ Portland, OR

After breakfast it was time to meet my new lady friend!  I was so excited that I had butterflies!  The shop was super cool from the outside.  It had paintings on the wall and a rad logo.  It also had metal sculptures on it's roof of people riding bikes!  I could tell I was going to like this place!  River City Bicycles was huge, and it was like I was walking into my own personal DisneyLand!  I immediately recognized Stefan, the guy I had spoken to on the phone on Thursday, (I had checked him out on their website.)  He knew exactly who I was and dropped everything to show me right to my new lady...AND SHE WAS BREATH-TAKING!  I didn't like the saddle however, and if it's one thing I know, it's my heinie and my girl parts, and they would NOT have been happy.  He was very understanding, and let me pick out the saddle of my choosing, as long as it was $150 or less.  I was pleased.  Bothell was a bit resistant about this, so I was very impressed (although, Bothell did give me my way too.)  He quickly got my pedals and new saddle on her, and put her on the trainer for me to try her out.

First time on the saddle.

She felt amazing!  She felt sexy and I loved the new smaller frame!  I was going to switch out the bars for my old carbon ones, but the ones she had on her were 40cm and ergo-fit, but not carbon.  Mine are 42's, but not ergo.  I figured it wouldn't hurt to at least give these a whirl.  I can always switch them out later!  At this point, we took her back downstairs and put her on the scale.  She was 17 lbs and change.  I didn't see the actual number.  I was a little disappointed that she seemed to be a tiny bit heavier than The Girl, but i wasn't terribly concerned.  With the money I was saving by buying her in a no-sales tax state, and the $1000 off discount I was getting, I was planning to look at some possible new wheel sets, which would likely drop her weight.

Chris King R45 Hubs

Those are the rims. Spokes and hubs are different.

After much debate over aero wheels, verses carbon light weight wheels, and me "just not feeling" anything I had seen yet, Stefan pulled a rabbit out of his hat!  He
 brought out a pair of custom built Stan's Notube Alpha Pro's with Chris King R45 hubs...for $765!!!  1.0 nearly wet himself.  The Hubs alone are worth $550!  The retail on the rims is $240.  Do you see where I going here??  What an incredible deal!

OK, so this shop gets even cooler.  They put the new wheels on for free, which was really nice, considering that everything needed to be switched over from the old wheels.  They even threw in 2 free bike wheel bags for my old wheel set!  And if that wasn't enough, they gave me a free Oregon State biking sticker, 2 water bottles each for 1.0 and I, and a free cycling shop hat worth $14 for 1.0!  Oh, and did I mention that they had a free espresso bar in the store with free cookies??  *screams*  I totally hugged Stefan when I left!  So total damage for everything: $2860.  Actual worth: ~$4400.  Damn.

A picture is worth a thousand words.