34 hours of train travel brought me to Portland. It was a nice relaxing trip with chance to sit back, read the kindle and watch the scenery go by. Sleeping in the seats is always a bit awkward, but fortunately only one night this time. Once there I assembled the bike and took the light rail to my motel.

Wednesday morning I found my way to Sugar Wheel Works where I had ordered a new back wheel to be built. This wheel uses a DT Swiss 540 hub, which uses a ratchet mechanism instead of pawls that flip out. What I also like about the hub is that it can be maintained without special tools. I got an extra ratchet and extra springs as well as extra spokes. Hope this wheel does better than the Phil Woods version that failed twice in my first 5000 miles. However, just in case I have the old wheel mailed off to Austin as a backup.

Once the bike was dropped off, I could wander through familiar haunts from living in Portland from 2009 to 2012. Powell’s is an obvious stop where I found a set of maps for the next three phases.

The umbrella man is classic statue in Pioneer Square.

Also here was a place to drop off your (mail-in) ballot.

I noticed that the car-to-go here have bike racks on them. Hadn’t seen that in Austin.

I also stopped past the place AMD used to have an office. We rented space on the mezzanine level at top of the arches. That was all closed when AMD shut the office at end of 2012.

One last photo of the wheel once I picked up the bike after my travels through the city.

I’ve got a few more days in Portland before taking Amtrak down to Austin departing on Saturday.