91ÊÓƵ

I know the purpose of Metro’s Thursday wasn’t to make me swear off bikes for the foreseeable future. But as I wobbled to the MAX station on linguini legs, I couldn’t imagine getting on my bike anytime soon.

The culprit: goldsprints, or virtual races on stationary bikes. Journalists paired up for short, yet agonizing, sprints, while Metro officials and others mulled around eating popsicles and getting bike tune-ups. Metro had just released its newest Bike There! map, and since everyone wants to see a journalist in pain, we hopped onto the bike seats to oblige.

Actually, I don’t think even broke a sweat beating me. By my fourth sprint (a cakewalk for ), I could barely summon the strength to get off the stationary bike.

Blood sugar dangerously low, I wasn’t exactly raring to attack the hill on Southeast Gladstone. In my defense, however, that stationary bike is deceptively tiring.  agreed with me on that point as we rode home on the gloriously climate-controlled MAX green line .

But hey – now I have a map to tell me where to go when the bicycling desire reemerges. The map tells me where there’s an uphill climb and where the nearest bike shop is.

It’s even waterproof so I don’t destroy it with my prodigious sweat.

My only gripe: the buffered bike lanes on Southwest Oak and Stark streets and Southeast Holgate Boulevard don’t get their due as “enhanced” bike lanes, nor does the Southwest Broadway cycle track.

But it’s a small gripe; Portland is experimenting with new bikeways faster than mapmakers can keep up with. There are plenty of other bike routes I hadn’t even thought of that I now want to explore.

As soon as my heart rate returns to normal, that is.