After a fairly tiring holiday weekend (I end up spending the big holidays at home on domestic to-do projects, it seems) I managed to squeeze in a ride up the Clackamas River Highway to Ripplebrook ranger station and back Monday morning. There were quite a few other bikes heading up the river by the time I turned around and headed back toward home, including several V-Stroms.

It was difficult not to keep going toward Detroit. That’s a 160 mile round trip and is one of my favorites. I didn’t have enough gas and needed to get back home to get more stuff done around the house, so I u-turned at the Ripplebrook ranger station.

The weather was overcast and cool, perfect for riding. The pavement was in good shape and I only had to pass two slow cagers, a relative luxury.

This week it’s supposed to be very hot in town yet despite all my grumbling and grousing about riding in the heat, I intend to commute on my bike as many days as possible. Thursday is supposed to be in the upper 90’s so I’ll probably take the air-conditioned cage to work that day.