My Pedalpalooza Week in Review: Thursday June 21 to right. About. Now.

Last time I left you cool cats April and I had stumbled home from the Solstice Ride. It's been a busy week or so since then, since the Pedalpalooza excitement just doesn't let up. Here's the almost painful blow-by-blow:

• Thursday June 21st: Didn't do much as we were recouperating from being up all night. I managed to catch the beginning of the Folding Bike and Tea Ride, at least the tea part, as I had no bike to fold (and had to meet someone later.) As I was quoted on Facebook: "I came for the tea."
• Friday June 22nd: There were a few rides I could have done (which is fast becoming my Pedalpalooza theme) but only ended up participating in the Central Eastside Industrial District tour, led by my friend Nim. About 20 of us rode around looking at places while vainly dodging raindrops. Quite informative!
• Saturday June 23rd: A fairly big day. I caught up late to the West Hills Architecture Tour co-led by my friend Carl. We peeped many a classic mid-century house designed by the likes of Yeon and Belluschi. Then down from the hills and into the NW neighborhood for the Northwest Neighborhood History Tour, aka The Dream of the 1890s is living in NW Portland ride. About 50 folks spent a couple hours looking at many a historic site in the hood.
• Sunday June 24th: Another busy day. Despite April and I waking up late, we managed to enjoy an hour and a half of riding on Sunday Parkways in North Portland, one of the five times a year the city closes off a 6-8 mile circuit of city streets to car traffic. But more importantly, Sunday June 24th was yet another installment of my Three Speed Ride series. You'll get a full report soon!
• Monday June 25: I led another installment of my Dead Freeways Ride, touring the sites that were freeways or could have been freeways, with a sampling of the current freeway system thrown in as a comparison. We had ten people total (seven made it for the entire five hours of the event) and I talked myself hoarse.
• Tuesday June 26: The last ride I've led for Pedalpalooza this year, my Pedal Potluck Picnic. The weather was problematic with on-and-off rain through the day. While it didn't rain during the ride, my original destination would suffer from wet ground. So I pulled out a back-up location: the picnic structure at Abernathy School in Ladd's Addition. (So what if it made the ride less than a mile?) Thirteen folks (eleven adults, two kids) enjoyed a sumptuous feast.
• Wednesday June 27: A ride that I used to lead, but passed on to my friend Chris, the Epic Pizza Ride.  Five pizzerias in five hours. The most clever bit about this year's ride was all the pizzerias were within a three-mile section of N/NE Killingsworth Street. But the loopy, circuitous ride meant the ride was actually fifteen miles long!

And after that? Nothing. No event on Thursday or Friday particularly captivated me. And to be honest I'm a bit burnt out by all these bike rides. I'm glad that Pedalpalooza is barely longer than three weeks, I don't think I could handle a month. I can barely handle the three weeks!