The plan had been to hike The Three Sisters this past weekend, but in the lead-up, Corinne mentioned that Ride The Rim had 2 Saturdays devoted to the event, and the first one was yesterday. As is clear from my Three Sisters page, we did that over Labor Day weekend, and we committed to Ride the Rim. I was nervous going into this event. If you look it up and check the ride profile you can see that the full loop has 4000' of vertical elevation gain, and my bike in Bend is an old school Bridgestone Radac with a 7 Spd Click Shift Shimano 600 Groupset where the lowest ratio gear is a 42/22. Contrast that with my Portofino Italian Stallion at 34/31 and you can see I was going to have to grind up the climbs instead of spin.
We got an early pearly start Saturday AM and were in the park and on the road by 9:30. Corinne and WIll did a hike instead, and their friends Dan and Margine, Sayid and Leah, and Jerry all joined me to ride around the rim. Fortunately for me, no one was in a hurry, and I found on the very first climb that I wasn't going to die, but there were 2 very decent solid long climbs, and some smaller ones to keep it juicy.
getting Ready
First pullout view of Crater Lake.
Sahyid and Leah at another pull out.
On one of the big climb at a pull out Dan, and Jerry prepping some of the 58 hot dogs he has to eat over the course of the week.
Behind one of the aid stations.
Margine and overlook that was reached via a spur
Aid Station 4
My Bridgestone Radac
Jerry and I completed the loop on the non closed off section of the rim. Jerry downing more hot dogs.
Forest Fires looking North
After the ride we retired to 2 lovely camp sites that Margine had reserved for us, and we relaxed well into the evening with beers and food.
