Sunday was the Bridge Pedal.

This is a unique event in Portland, an opportunity to cycle over many of the bridges which straddle the Willamette river in one go including two freeway bridges (the Marquam and Fremont bridges) which don't normally allow non-motorised traffic.

I've done this event before and it has been fun, crowded but fun. Last year I ran in the Bridge Run, but that event suffered from a number of organisational difficulties and so they didn't hold it again this year.

This year I signed up with some friends for the full ten bridge route and was all set for a morning's vigorous cycling.

I was disappointed.

In previous years I have had to deal with crowds and with walking my bike near the start. Once the crowds thinned out I was able to keep moving pretty well. Not this year...

What it comes down to is that this event has become a victim of its own success. There were just too many people on the route, and the ride degenerated into a Bridge Walk for too much of the time. Honestly, if I want to be in a traffic jam on the Marquam bridge I can just get in my car and try to get onto Interstate 84 at 5pm on a weekday - I don't need to get up at 5:30am for that.

Here are a couple of photos of the crowds.

This is what it was like trying to get onto the Springwater Corridor on the way to the Sellwood Bridge. We just stood there for ages, shuffling forward slowly; I wasn't keeping track of time very well but I wouldn't be surprised if we were there more than half an hour.

This is what was behind us. It was a classic congestion scenario: two or three or four lanes of traffic being reduced to just one lane, and everyone bunches up. It was a choke point.

Some people decided to skip this part of the route. There was traffic running parallel to this choke point heading down to the Ross Island Bridge.

This is the beginnings of the crowd on the Marquam bridge. Now, in theory the Marquam bridge should not be a choke point: it's a four lane freeway for most of its length. However, it's also the first major rest stop - there are booths and stands on one side, and many riders don't pull over to that side before dismounting. Anyway, by the time our group had reached this point the damage was already done - we were standing and shuffling for at least half an hour, probably more. This was the point at which I started to get really frustrated because this just wasn't fun.

I lost touch with the riding group I had been with after this. I was just too annoyed to stick with them and I zoomed off as fast as I could manage.

The weather was amazing - beautifully clear and sunny - but quite brutally hot later in the morning. This might not have been a problem for me because I usually enjoy cycling in hot conditions, but with standing around so much and getting dehydrated (no stopping at the rest stops for me...) I felt quite bad on the way home.

As ever, the views from the bridges were beautiful, but I doubt I'll do this ride again.

Posted by Dunx at August 17, 2005 11:13 AM