Scavenger Hunt

Tour de Flanders was a ruse...a pre April Fools Day prank...a way to make sure we could all attend an event that is so close to our team's heart. As we all arrived downtown under a bridge trying to stay dry on this most wet and cool morning, searching for someone who had the cue sheets for this crazy hill ride, and checking our nerves about the 20% grade we were to face, it became apparent to some of us sooner than others that something sinister was underfoot. With Steph making me program digits into my phone and whispers into my ear, I became part of the plan instead of part of the undercurrent of uneasiness as people wondered what the heck was going on...

A scavenger hunt!!

We needed to be back to our meeting place at Vera Katz by noon for a mission moment by former teammate Shannon and a release of purple balloons in celebration of a life lost too young, so the coaches organized a biking scavenger hunt all over portland with Steph and I leading one of five groups that we split into. We received more points for destinations with a climb. We got extra credit for doing some extra activities at these destinations and we had strict instructions to be back by 11:30...which is hard when you are "stuck"...

Jason, Jerry, Julie, Nik, Melissa, Lauren

Aside from train troubles, literally AT the finish line, our time was spent moving more than stalling, but we still had some issues.

As all the other teams ripped out of the start, we realized one of our group had a flat before we even got going. Rules state we had to all be together at each stop for a proof picture and so it made no sense for anyone to head on out until the flat was changed. It seemed to take forever, but then we were off to claim our first points. We had looked at the list of locations and plotted our course. Unfortunately, the location we chose to head to first required us to do a "practice flat tire change" for points. Grrrr. Since I had just been bragging about my mad changing skills, I volunteered, but then Nik spoke up and said he thought he could be faster, but he didn't want to change his own tire because of the bead, so he set out to change MY tire...which apparently I haven't changed in awhile because he said it was GLUED to my rim...whoops.

10 minutes later...

We head to our next location - Sellwood 24 hour fitness...

...where we had to simply take a photo and move on.

On our way to the track, Nik busted a spoke and while he tried to remove it, I busted my butt in traffic to get to a real live restroom - BEST thing about urban rides...you don't have to use the bushes :-)

Needing to perform an extra task at Duniway Track, we settled on our gymnastic skills and made a really short pyramid :p

...and then we headed up the hill to OHSU, which was worth 7 points. Unfortunately we didn't sag and two people who had never ridden this route before fell behind and didn't follow us up the right hill...but eventually they realized their mistake and caught up with us where we got this picture...

...and the bragging rights that we were the ONLY team to attempt this location for the day!

At the fountain, we shoved peanut butter filled pretzels in our mouth and snapped a picture with a stranger for extra points...

We also had to make a sculpture with some playdough. With hands and brains completely frozen, none of us were functioning well as artists. I turned my piece of yellow clay into a long booger and hung it from my nose with all the real cold rainy day boogers and I'm hoping the picture is lost somewhere in Michele's camera.

...and then realized we were not going to get anywhere near any of the NW Portland locations, so we headed for one final destination before getting STUCK just on the other side of our ending point.

Coming into our home base, Nik hit the railroad tracks wrong and went down hard, busting up a rim pretty good. Dang it! So close to being done and disaster strikes. I still don't know how the competition ended, but the event ended with us all gathered around with friends...

...celebrating the life of a little girl...

who fought a huge battle and touched so many with her determination and her love for all that was TNT purple...

...and on a side note, now that we aren't being forced to do the Tour de Flanders, we've agreed that we're going to attempt it anyways...so stay tuned for some day soon when I will do the Flanders Report.