Banks to Vernonia Bike Date Night

I always say, "I will follow him anywhere." 

I won't freewrite, but I will just post some pictures and commentary on our wonderful 30 mile "bike date" through the beautiful farmland and forest between Banks and Vernonia. It is a slight grade for about four miles. Then, it is the grade you see here for another seven miles. Then, you go up the "Hilltop" switchbacks. The sign even says to walk your bike up these, but George did not. I would have not done it either, but I did not gear down quickly enough before the first switch back and found myself stuck in the 3-5 gear (should be 1-1)!  So, I gladly walked up and almost went as fast as George riding in that lowest gear. :)

At about 11.5 miles, you start going on a low grade downhill. We looked at our watch and realized that if we did the full 21 miles, we were not going to make it back to the parking lot before it closed at 9 pm. If we had started just 1/2 hour earlier, we would have made it, but we didn't know that the parking lot closed at that time until after we got there. So, we gladly turned around right at the edge of the Banks-Vernonia State Park and turned around. We were happy with our decision.

The best news is that I burned 3363 calories yesterday. I do think that this is a record for me since I have been wearing the BodyBugg! I also had 4 hours worth of activity. Burn baby burn!

This has been on my "Bucket List" for maybe five years. So, it was fun to do that. We might just go to Vernonia and cover the 10-12 miles we missed by turning around to say we did the whole thing! LOL!

The trail over the train trestle was quite impressive
(I have a better picture with the nice camera, but I will add this iPhone unprocessed one for now!)

The Home Stretch!