(Photo © J. Maus)
It’s been raining cats and dogs pretty much all day and night here in Portland. Add to that some very gusty winds, impatient road users stuck in traffic and wanting to get home, and the mini-floods and street rivers from drain gutters clogged with leaves and you’ve got the recipe for some pretty intense bike riding.
Judging from various sources, some readers have had a pretty challenging time out there. Here’s how my friend Hau put it:
“Just past Widmer [on N. Interstate, past Russell], the wind picked up and it was raining sideways into my eyes. It was raining so hard that it hurt my head. I didn’t know if that was worse than the sloshing of my thoroughly soaked wool socks. I could have used a paddle to get home on the evening commute, better yet, an ark.”
I thought I’d put up this post to capture your experiences, route tips and alerts (heard of a major flood in the bike lane on SE Hawthorne today), and maybe you can even some methods you use to keep yourself motivated to keep on riding through these wet, dark days.
If you’re looking for tips and tricks, you might want to refer to the comments of a story we published just about this time last year on the same topic.
How’s it going for you out there? Are you still riding or have you packed it in and opted for the car/bus/MAX? If you have been riding, let us know what the conditions are like. Remember, if you see any trouble spots, keep 823-SAFE on auto-dial and let PBOT know about it. (I’ll keep a link to this post over in the sidebar so you can easily refer to it later.)