Sauvie Island

Have we punished ourselves enough lately? Certainly not! An extra long bike ride is in order.

On Tuesday Paul and I cycled to Sauvie Island to check it out. Sauvie Island is a large island situated between the Columbia and Willamette Rivers and the Multnomah Channel, and is largely farmland and wildlife refuges. It is popular with cyclists for its open, flat terrain, but it is also chock full of farms (with lots of u-pick) that produce some of the most delicious fruits and veggies around.

The island is about 11 miles from home... alright, 20 miles round trip, not too bad. What I didn't quite realize is how much more cycling there is on the island itself! With flat terrain and beautiful scenery, it goes by pretty quick. At the end of the day, we had cycled a total of 50 miles. FIFTY! I realize this is small potatoes for many a cyclist, but I was pretty damn proud of myself. That's a lot of miles to self-propel.

We took the GPS along again, so you can view the interactive route map by clicking here. If you change the view from terrain to Google satellite, you can see all the farms on the island.

A snapshot of the entire route

Getting to and from the island was a pretty easy ride, but you must have a penchant for industrial scenery and large trucks rumbling by. At least there is bike lane the whole way.

Considering installing a semi-truck horn on my bike

We passed by the St. Johns Bridge, home to Cathedral Park which we visited back in September.

Cathedral Park is underneath the bridge on the far side, named for the cathedral-like appearance the arches give

Cathedral Park

Readjusting before moving forward

How happy I was to see this sign! :)

The bridge to the island

Bridges are neat

We were on the island for, oh... 30 seconds... when Paul got a flat tire. Argh! We pulled over for what should have been a quick, simple fix. One faulty tube and two spent CO2 cartridges later, we were stuck in the same position without an air pump. After a little while another cyclist came by that had a frame-mounted pump that he let Paul use. Brilliant! That is definitely next on our list of things to buy.

An unscheduled side-of-the-road layover

Once we were on our way, it was miles and miles of flat, smooth open road. It was a gorgeous day and of course everything is in full bloom right now.



There are also several beaches on the island, including one clothing-optional beach (we did not visit that one, and have heard it's a total freak show). Instead we stopped for a break at Walton Beach, along the east edge of the island. Just across the river is Washington.

Walton Beach

Walton Beach

Giving the bikes some time to rest

38 miles in, after cruising quite a bit around the island, we stopped at Kruger's Farm.


This is one of the many u-pick farms on the island, but since we already had such a long day we opted for some already-picked snacks. :)

Some of the sweetest, juiciest fruit I've ever had

Kruger's Farm

These soft, sweet strawberries were like little sugar bombs

After Kruger's, it was time to head home. I'm not gonna lie, I was hurting by this point! True, most of our terrain was flat, so there wasn't much climbing, but there were also not very many downhill stretches to coast through... it was just miles and miles of steady pedaling. And honestly it hurt worse to stop (muscles start tightening up) so I had to zone in and just keep going.

Back at the St. John's Bridge. You can just barely see downtown in the background... a very welcome sight for me at this point!

At the end of the day, we made it (but I don't think Paul was hurting nearly as bad as I was). I never thought I could pedal 50 miles! Now that I know I can, I'm ready to do more. We'll be hitting some more bike rides soon for sure!

Love,
Jenny