Well two more hurdles have been hurdled. I’ve gotten my in-state residency status and I’m officially enrolled as a full-time student at Portland State University.

I’ve got a couple more little hurdles and some paperwork to get done but the seas are looking smoother. This is good. School starts on September 27th and I haven’t enrolled in classes yet, I still need to get that done once I’m allowed to. I guess I need to figure out when that is; I may have to wait until I attend the mandatory orientation first, I dunno.

But the two biggest obstacles are overcome. In 4 weeks my blogging will drop to almost zero again as I become entrenched back the horrors of our education system.

Tomorrow I go out and get a Viking tattoo…

The same morning I published my last post about failing the first uphill climb on my new route I went for a bike ride. I headed south down to Sellwood and crossed the bridge like always. That’s when I had a decision to make, go north and call it a ride or keep going west into the cemetery and actually try that stupid hill again. I was feeling pretty good so I said fuck it and decided to hit the hill again.

Now the first time I tried the hill I started at what I considered a pretty reasonable gear and worked my way down towards the lowest gear as the climb became harder and harder. This time I tried a different strategy; I started pretty low to begin with and just accepted that this would take a while. I wasn’t athletic, I wasn’t quick, and I was by no mean impressive but I made it to the top! I wasn’t even in that much pain and I was feeling pretty damn good about myself.

Last time I got to this point I was walking; and when I got there I abandoned the rest of the proposed trip, turning right and headed home. But on this day I was still on the bike and at the top of the hill I turned left this time, to finish this ride. Stupid, stupid, stupid me.

It turns out that the cemetery hill wasn’t some silly biking challenge but rather the gatekeeper into some hidden chamber of hell reserved for morons who think they’re bicyclists. My vision of biking the hills west of Portland was not at all the reality that awaited me. These weren’t “yay, hills!” these were “holy fuck, I’m supposed to ride up that hill?” sort of hills. This time around I didn’t even feel bad when I dismounted from my bike. Which is good since I would dismount time and again during my ride. There were several hills that I’m not sure I’d ever be able to climb and one specific hill I don’t think any human being could ever climb.

The trip was supposed to be a little over 16 miles. My normal 14 mile ride takes me about 50 minutes. This ride took me 2 hours, 20 minutes. There were multiple places where I could have turned away from he planned course and go home, but I decided that ride or walk I’d finish this motherfucker (Unless of course I happened to run into an angry gang of mosquitoes). I was pretty disappointed when I got home and found that my phone had lost GPS reception and I was missing half of the ride or so. So unfortunately I don’t know what sort of elevation I reached on the climb up. That really sucks because I was pretty high up by the time I peaked.

I said in the last post that using google maps to plan out my routes isn’t ideal. Now I realize that it’s more than “not ideal”, it’s downright stupid. I need to find better tools for planning trips.

Having ridden/walked the entire loop I know for sure that this is more than I can chew at this point. If I’m going to ratchet up the rides I need to baby step it a little more. I haven’t looked at my options yet, but I’d like to find a ride which will incorporate cemetery hill still. Having summitted it once I think I can do it time and again, hopefully getting faster each time.

Maybe one day I’ll actually be able to finish a ride like this one. That would be something. That would awesome. But for now… baby steps.

When you’ve got the sad physical conditioning I do you learn to savor whatever little victories you achieve. One of those little keepsakes came a number of months back when I completed my first apartment-to-apartment bike ride without ever touching my feet to the floor. Hey, I told you it was a little victory.

Two days ago I tried a new route. Usually I just load up a map of Portland on google and trace out a new path that way. ` The problem with mapping a route using google is that there’s no real feel for elevation change. I think you see where this is going…

The first half of my ride is the same loop I’ve been doing for months now. I normally ride down to the town of Sellwood on the west side of the river, cross the Sellwood Bridge, and head back north on the river’s east side. This new route had me crossing the bridge like always, but instead of turning north I keep riding west into the hills. I expected the hills and the climbing, what I didn’t plan on was that I’d get broken so quickly.

The first hill was a never-ending upward trek which forced my gears ever downward. By the time I was in the lowest gear on my bike I was barely crawling along the switchback-laden path wondering why I was so stupid as to want to try a different path. In classic Portland style not one, not two, but three people would pass me at speeds which trivialized the epicness of my uphill battle.

Though I realized that the hill I wasn’t really climbing wouldn’t end I stubbornly proclaimed that I would reach its top even if I did the entire thing in granny gear moving 0.01 mph. But my legs didn’t listen and suddenly they weren’t moving in circles any longer. I was still pushing, they just weren’t moving. So I dismounted and walked to the top. At the top of the hill I decided I was done and cut the ride short. What was scheduled to be 16.2 (ish) miles ended up being 13.7 miles.

The ride broke me, but it felt pretty damn good. Walking my bike up the hill panting along I told myself that one of these days I’ll not only ride the hill but I’ll do it like that calf-intensive lady did as she passed me, asking “Are you ok?” without even hint of being short of breath.

One day, I’ll be a bicyclist.

Although it’s just as probable that I won’t.

I have officially turned in my application for residency as well as my application for admission to Portland State University. Transcripts should also be on the way soon. Now I just wait.

Hopefully smooth seas are up ahead.

It’s been over week since my beat down and my arms no longer read like braille. I figure before I’m fully healed up I should post what I expect to be my final post about my first camping trip.

I was actually hoping to send this out before I left on my camping trip. I tried to track all of my expenses as I bought all of my gear. Mainly to make sure to stay withing my $1,000 budget. Well I broke my budget ceiling by about 15%. Not including food or the gas to drive back and forth I spent $1,145 dollars.

As you might imagine as I walked back to my car, all gusto literally sucked out of me, I thought of the great many was I could have a grand if I didn’t spend on all that camping gear. It was a really great way of making a miserable walk to the car that much worse.

All told I hiked for about 7 hours. That equates to $163 per hour. Fantastic.

If you’re interested in seeing the full list of goods, here you go.