Urban Adventure League

Ride Wrapups
the Final Pedal Potluck Picnics

Well, the last of this season's Pedal Potluck Picnic rides took place on Tuesday. For those of you who missed the fun, you'll have to wait 'til next summer!

Ride 5
Tues 9 Aug
start point: the Hawthorne Hostel
ride passed through these neighborhoods: Sunnyside, Richmond, Hosford-Abernathy

grocery store stop: Wild Oats-Division
end point: Piccolo Park, a tiny, hidden, unknown park found off SE 27th Av between Division and Clinton. Piccolo is made from three (?) empty housing lots in a residential neighborhood, just like Two Plum Park (Ride 3). Unlike Two Plum, the houses here were torn down because they were in the path of the Mount Hood Freeway. This freeway would have traveled from the Marquam Bridge to I-205, going between Division and Clinton. (yikes!) Luckily it was never built, otherwise we would be eating dinner in between traffic! Although the highway never got off the drawing board, they did pre-emptively tear down some derelict property, Piccolo being one spot, the other at SE 47 and Ivon, which looks like vacant lots but is actually Richmond Park (which we passed earlier on the ride!)
Riders: 13 (though not everyone made it to the end)

supplemental Ride
Thurs 11 Aug
start point: PSU Library
ride passed through these neighborhoods: Downtown-University District, Lair Hill, Corbett, Fulton

grocery store stop: none
end point: Willamette Park, a park on the west side of the Willamette, of all things!
Riders: 10 (estimate)
Special Note: this ride was at the request of Alon Raab for the conclusion of his Sociology of the Bicycle class at Portland State University. This ride was more a history tour than the standard PPP fare, and we learned about the unique history of South Portland. This ride was also unique as it traveled into deeper SW, an area not usually explored by many bicyclists.
Most of us rode back along the Willamette Westbank Path to downtown, passing by all the new construction of the South Waterfront development.


Ride 6
Tues 16 Aug
start point: the Hawthorne Hostel
ride passed through these neighborhoods: Sunnyside, Kerns, Buckman, Lloyd District, Eliot, Overlook, Arbor Lodge, Kenton, East Delta, Hayden Island
grocery store stop: Zupans at Jantzen Beach
end point: Lotus Isle Park, the park referred to on my August 3rd post.
Riders: 7

Special Note: this ride was unique in that we utilized the MAX to get us from Rose Quarter to Expo Center, otherwise we would have not gotten to Jantzen Beach/Hayden Island until after dark. You might call it cheating, but oh well. Who said there were strict rules to the PPP?
After the picnic, most of us headed to behind the abandoned hotel for Columbia River watching and crazy picture taking.
Special Thanks: to Ed and Steev for taking photos!