Author: summerofchris

Last night we got some much needed sleep in, but we woke up as tired as ever. As I wrote about last night, we’ve been upping our mileage this whole week (today we rode about 54 miles). I swear the only thing that got us moving in the morning was knowing that we are taking a rest day tomorrow. The morning started off rough again coming out of Humbug Mountain. We never really got a stretch of level road today, but it did get better for a while. We stopped for lunch at Gold Beach, but had Cape Sebastian right afterwards and the hills didn’t stop for the rest of the day. I told Taka I would make sure to mention the headwinds we got today as well. We really did have some nasty wind against us for the better part of the day. The wind pushed us back and sideways, and was extremely cold on top of that. It makes riding pretty uncomfortable not only because of the extra work involved, but because you can never settle into a comfortable temperature. When you’re going uphill in the sunlight you’re burning hot, and when you’re flying downhill in the shade you’re freezing.

In spite of the terrain and temperatures, we did have some great scenery today. It’s hard to get tired of the sea stacks and rugged profile of the cliffs along the Oregon coast. I don’t stop and take pictures all the time because when we’re moving well we just don’t want to break our momentum. Also, the pictures just don’t do the view any justice.

We’re in Brookings now, staying at Hannah’s grandparent’s place. They were nice enough to offer their home to us and we’re incredibly grateful for it. I can’t tell you all how nice it is to stay inside a warm house for the night. We are going to take a rest day here tomorrow as well in order to let our bodies heal up a bit. We are less than 10 miles from the California border and want to start the state on a good note when we do get moving again.

-Chris

We rode 60 miles today from Sunset Beach State Park to Humbug Mountain State Park. The first 13 miles were pretty rough, but after that the terrain turned into hills we can manage pretty well now. We got a late start this morning (about 11am). Most likely because we were up pretty late again chatting around the campfire (this time with Megan and Moira). Again it was really great having some other cyclists around to talk to and swap stories with. The hiker/biker camp was in a bog last night and I got eaten up by mosquitoes, but the fire was nice and the conversation was good. Tonight we got a regular campsite since we needed to recharge our electronics. Either way, I don’t think there is anyone in the hiker/biker camp over here. Everyone that we’ve come across is now behind us, I’m assuming they’ll catch up to us in the next few days. I’m pretty proud of what Taka and I have done these last few days. We have ridden over 50 miles for the last two days and then broke the 60 mile mark today. Again we’re tired, but we know that we can keep going.

Before I left for this trip, I was excited about being out in nature for so long, about getting back into shape, about all the scenery I was going to get to take in, and about all the people I would come across. I knew that cycling so many miles day in and day out would be tiring physically and mentally, but you can never prepare yourself without actually doing it. For the past couple of weeks the nature surrounding me and the people I’ve been meeting have been great, but there has always been a persistent thought in the back of my mind that we were in a rush to get to our next camping spot. We’re probably the slowest cyclists out of anyone that we’ve met, so we’ve been working double-time to cover the terrain every day. It wasn’t about competing with the others; most of them have clearly been cycling for years and are just in better shape. It’s about moving at the pace that I want to move at. If I take a low mileage day, I want it to be because I decided to take that quick day and enjoy the scenery, not because I couldn’t manage to finish the day out.

I’m mentioning this because as I wrote earlier, we started late today, but we finished with plenty of sunlight left and covered the most distance we’ve done the entire trip thus far. The terrain may not have been the worst today, but it certainly wasn’t level either. After about 40 miles into today’s ride, we returned to a sea stack lined coast and I was really able to enjoy it the way I envisioned enjoying it before I left for this ride. I’m sitting outside in Mount Humbug State Park, it’s cold and windy, but I really am enjoying it instead of wondering how much sleep I need to recover properly for tomorrow. In other words, I feel like I’m finally getting into the groove of the trip I wanted and I’m soaking it in right now.

On another note, today was Taka’s birthday. We didn’t pass any major cities today, so we were unable to get a proper meal or anything to celebrate. Hopefully we will find something tomorrow night in Brookings.  

-Chris

It’s the Fourth of July weekend and campgrounds have been full since Friday night. Luckily, they never turn away hiker/bikers over here and we haven’t had any problems getting a place to camp. Last night at Jessie M. Honeyman Memorial State Park it was like a reunion of all the cyclists I’ve come across on the road (minus the folks from Lake Sylvia State Park). The group of three guys from Potlatch State Park, Old Man New Zealand (name that we’ve given this guy), and the couple we’ve camped with a few times (Andrew and Naomi) were all there. Also, we met a new set of cyclists, Megan and Moira. I spent the entire evening just talking to everyone, sharing stories and getting background information about each other. Most everyone that was there last night (if not all of them) are ending their trip in San Francisco. I don’t know why they decided to make that their end point and not the border, I’ll have to ask them another night that I come across them. Taka was up for a good while as well, but he ended up going to sleep before we all sat around the campfire.

The group of three guys ended up being from Ireland. They were pretty chill guys that have spent a good amount of time cycling and other random trips. Two of them climbed Mt. Kilimanjaro a few years back apparently, which I found pretty cool. All of the younger people that are doing this are just finishing some sort of school. Megan and Moira just received their bachelor’s degree and Moira is applying for medical school and John (one of the Irish guys) just finished up his phd (I didn’t ask in what field).

It was really great to finally sit around and chat with all of these people that I have come across while cycling down the coast and find out their stories. Most everyone from the packed hiker/biker site last night ended up taking a rest day today at the campground. It would have been a great day to hang out; the sand dunes, dune buggies, beach, and fireworks would have been great, but we had just taken a rest day the day before so we decided to keep moving. The only people here at camp with us tonight are Megan and Moira (who are taking a rest day here tomorrow). This campsite isn’t going to have any fireworks and I don’t have phone/internet reception, but I’m only 2 days of riding away from the California border!

As for today we’re at Sunset Beach State Park. The scenery today while riding was pretty dull compared to the other days we’ve been riding, so no pictures. The terrain was pretty hilly when we started the day (so we started pretty slow), but as the terrain leveled out (comparatively speaking) we went at about 15/16 mph for over an hour which was a relief.

Side Note: We finally used our stove this morning and so I’m going to drink hot chocolate tonight (I’m happier than you would think about that).

55 miles today and feeling pretty good. We stopped in the morning about a mile south of Newport and ate in the Newport Marina. It’s amazing how much a good breakfast helps you out throughout the day. We went about 24 miles before we stopped in Yachats to grab a snack. Once we left Yachats I noticed that my rear gear set wasn’t changing right, so I stopped to check it out and saw that my I couldn’t change into my highest gear in the back and that the other gears weren’t catching properly. We were about 18 miles from reaching Florence (where I had seen there was a bike shop), so we decided to ride on. We went on a side trip to the Darlington Botanical Garden where they have some cool carnivorous plants whose name I can’t remember right now. There’s some pictures of them below. Apparently they bloom during May and June, so we just missed it.

It was nice and sunny today finally, so that was a huge plus as well. The weather is at about 65 degrees, but the sun keeps you warm while you’re riding; it’s a pretty perfect riding temperature. We’re now at the Jessie M. Honeyman Memorial State Park, I’ll probably run over and take some pictures of the huge sand dunes on the beach here and post them as well.

-Chris

Update: Went to the sand dunes. Really tiring hiking on the large sand dunes. I was taking pictures on the way up one of the big sand dunes and my camera ran out of batteries. After some mighty shaking, I was able to take a few more quick pics from the top of one of the sand dunes.

We woke up today and it was still raining. That plus the fact that we were pretty tired made us decide to take a rest day. In order to not mess up our route, we decided to bike 13.5 miles to an inn in Newport, OR. We hit the road at about 11am and climbed over Cape Foulweather and then to the steep rolling hills that came after them. Unfortunately I got a flat tube on my rear tire about 3 miles before we got to our destination. The rain had stopped when we started riding, but it started up again right when I started changing my tube. I couldn’t find my tire levers, so I had to use the ones that came with my multi-tool, which didn’t make the job easy. We started down the road again and I noticed that my bike was really unbalanced. Turns out that I must have pinched the tube while I was putting it in, so I had another hole in the new tube! I refilled it enough just to get me to the inn we were staying at and found a bike shop about 8 blocks away so that I could buy some new tire levers and another couple of spare tubes (since I was going to use my last spare to change out the tube again). I walked to the bike shop (after emptying out my trailer bag looking for my levers) and in proper fashion found my tire levers right when I got back to the room with the new ones.

I got the tire changed out again and this time it was a successful change. Taka had done some adjusting on his bike as well, so we test rode both of them to a laundromat about a mile away to wash our clothes. Interesting thing about our “rest” days is that they aren’t all that restful; it’s more like a “catch-up” day. Either way, I enjoy them very much and appreciate the time to get these things done. Above all else I’m happy to have everything dry again.

Tomorrow is back to riding. I’m happy because this should be the last of the rain we get in Oregon and we’ll be passing the halfway point of the state tomorrow.

-Chris

Well we started the day off with, as one of the park rangers put it, a 2.7 mile steep climb for “breakfast”. Once that was finished, we looked forward to getting to Lincoln City (35.5 miles away) for lunch. Now before we left the park, the ranger we were talking with told us to take the old Oregon bike route around the 2^nd large climb of the day. We decided to take his advice and began the side route that was supposed to add a mile or two to our day. About 3 miles in we were still doing a gradual uphill and I came across a sign that showed us that the detour is 10 miles long (as opposed to 3 miles straight through the 101). At about the 5.5 mile mark (still going uphill), we ran into the cyclists that we’ve been camping around for the last two nights. We finally introduced ourselves, their names are Andrew and Naomi. They told us that they had notes about the route and that the elevation is actually the same no matter what route you take. The only difference is that the Oregon bike route has a long gradual uphill and the 101 route is a short steep uphill. We finally had a downhill descent after chatting with them for a while. That road (apparently it’s the old 101) is actually pretty nice, but also completely deserted aside from a few houses. We stood talking on the road for about 10-15 minutes without a single car going by.

So, now with our detour costing us an additional 8.5 miles (it dropped us off about a mile and half from the 101), we were back on the 101 heading South. I forgot to mention that it started raining on us right as we started the detour. As we got to Lincoln City (41 miles into the ride at this point), the rain just got stronger. We ate lunch slowly and went to the market afterwards to pickup food for dinner, unfortunately the rain never let up. We continued South in some heavy showers and got completely soaked from head to toe. Not only that, the shoulder kept coming and going for several miles. It was pretty hard to see the road with the rain hitting my glasses and the mist from the cars spraying at me, so me and Taka kicked it into another gear. I think that the adrenaline from the cold and dangerous conditions around us kept our legs moving at a quicker pace than we had done all day. I had several cars honk at me and I never dared to look back to see how close they were getting.

When we reached Depoe Bay (about 8 miles shy of our campground and over 56 miles into the day’s ride), we decided to stay at a motel so that we could try and dry out our things and sleep well. The place was fairly cheap and is right across from the beach here. Apparently they spot whales around here at other times of the year. We weren’t able to grab dinner because it’s a real small town and everything closes real early, so we’ll just have to wait for breakfast tomorrow. They don’t have laundry facilities here, but the receptionist was nice enough to dry my clothes for me in their industrial dryer.

The problem now is that we have to choose between doing two short rides over the next two days (effectively losing a day) or doing a 70 mile ride tomorrow. At this point we’re just going to play it by ear. It’s supposed to keep raining tomorrow, but I’m hoping that the rain will stop early and we’ll be able to ride comfortably.

Last note, I think the rain broke my phone (the one I’ve had for 6 years now!). People can hear me, but I can’t hear them. Hopefully it dries out and starts working again, otherwise I’ll be out of a phone until I can get to a Verizon store. On the flip side, I now feel a little more like a real cyclist with the combination of the distance we covered and the weather we went through.

-Chris

Ride today was from Nehalem Bay State Park to Cape Lookout State Park (49.5 miles). We stayed close to the coast pretty much all day and had about 20-25 miles of flat road or nice rolling hills. Another 4-5 miles was also flat once we hit the Three Capes Scenic Route, but we had some pretty strong winds against us, so that canceled out the pleasant aspect of level ground.

We started off the morning with a short 3 mile ride into the town of Nehalem and stopped at Wanda’s café for some delicious breakfast. It’s amazing how much you can eat when you’re doing a cycling tour. I had a pretty loaded omelet, 4 pieces of toast, a cup of real fresh fruit, and 2 cups of coffee. I’m listing that because I want to remember that breakfast after my trip, it was really good and got us off to a great start in the morning.

About 4 miles north of Tillamook my trailer got a flat tire. I had two spares for my bike’s tires, but none for the trailer tire. Luckily, Taka had a patch kit. I’m pretty happy to have done my first patch job successfully; we were back on the road within 15 minutes. Once we reached Tillamook, I saw a Freddy Meyer store and figured they would have some tubes. They did and now I have two spares for my trailer tire as well.

There’s a couple who camped in the hiker/biker area last night at Nehalem and they’re here at Cape Lookout State Park today as well. They’re headed to San Francisco as their end point, so I’m guessing we’ll be crossing each other’s paths several times on this trip.

Tomorrow we’re tearing down the 50 mile mark with a minimum 58 mile ride. Unfortunately there seems to be 3 large uphill climbs and some rain on the menu for tomorrow as well. I’ll update post ride and let you all know how it went.

-Chris

Today’s ride was 43 miles, but it was a pretty tough ride. At this point I think my body has become accustomed to riding all day. I get tired, but never exhausted. Even right after an uphill climb, I feel like I can keep going (maybe not quickly, but forward nonetheless). We saw some real nice scenery today, my favorites being the sea stacks around Cannon Beach and the view from the top of Neahkahnie Mountain just a few miles before we reached our camp for the night (Nehalem Bay State Park).

We also did our first tunnel today. Those things are not cool. It was pretty short (.3 or .4 miles), but it has almost no shoulder at all and only one lane for each direction. You hit a button before you go in to alert drivers that there are cyclists in the tunnel, but I don’t think they pay much attention to that. To add to the danger perpetuated by the tunnel, a logging truck went by right as I was about 2/3 of the way through. We’ve had logging trucks going past us on narrow shoulders for the last week, but nothing like the one today; enclosed in a tunnel, the sound of the engine shaking your core. But in the end we made it out without a scratch and the first of two Oregon tunnels is done.

Tomorrow’s ride will be our longest yet, so I’m going to get to bed early tonight to let my body and mind rest. There really is a lot of mental stamina involved with this touring business.

-Chris

BTW, there’s a picture in the gallery below that looks like it’s just a picture of a big white truck. If you zoom in, Taka is right next to that truck.

Went from Bay Center, WA to Astoria, OR today! 47 mile ride and Washington is done with. Pretty nice ride today, not too many steep hills, still a good amount of uphill, but it was a nice gradual uphill; very manageable. Once we got close to the Oregon border, it started drizzling on us. That in itself isn’t too bad, but we were immersed in a pretty thick layer of mist/fog that kept us pretty drenched whenever we were moving. Also, the wind was against us most of the way today (to the point where it would pretty much stop us on a downhill if we stopped pedaling).

Most interesting part of today was definitely the Astoria Bridge. The bridge is 4.2 miles long and has very little shoulder to ride on. Luckily there was some construction going on and only 1 of the 2 lanes on the bridge was open, so we got lulls in traffic as they let the other side pass. At the end of the bridge was a decent uphill which tired us out pretty good, and the downhill on the other side wasn’t much safer with the traffic coming up behind us. I’m pretty happy to have completed a state, now on to Oregon.

We were going to stay at Fort Stevens State Park tonight, but the KOA campground across the street had a nice general store and a pool/jacuzzi. Since we were celebrating getting to Oregon, we paid the extra money and stayed at the KOA campground. Nice facilities, free showers, and a washer/dryer available. That’s pretty much it, tomorrow we hit our first tunnel.

-Chris

First, I’m going to update last night’s post. After my blog post from last night, I went out to a trail around Lake Sylvia, I only did about a mile and a half of it before I came out because it was starting to get a bit dark. I did get some cool pictures on the trail though which are posted below. Also, there’s a funny story about the lake associated with that hike, remind me when I get back to tell you about it, not blog material.

After I got back from the trail I saw that the other hiker/biker campsite was taken by three cyclists. Turns out they are doing to same route that we are, which was kind of nice to hear since I had been wondering why I hadn’t seen too many fellow cyclists at the campsites. Two of them, Luke and Erika, are doing the ride for the Lance Armstrong Foundation (click this link if interested in reading about what they’re doing http://pedal-for-charity.com/). It was good to have some conversation with people at the campsite, our other camps have been void of any real interesting people to talk to.

On to today. We rode about 48.5 miles today! It was pretty good terrain, so we finally managed to cycle at about 10mph. Only downside about today was that the wind was blowing decently hard against us (any flat roads were made to feel a little bit uphill since we were fighting the wind). We took a shortcut to skip Twins Harbor and ended at a KOA camp in Bay Center so that we could make up the day that we lost in Olympia. The ride was nice today and our bodies aren’t that tired, but it was also a pretty boring ride today. The sky was heavily clouded all day, even threatened to rain on us once, and we didn’t get too many views of the ocean. A lot of the area we went through today is known for their clam harvesting. In fact, during the 2 mile ride into Bay Center today, we saw a few huge stacks of clam shells. Long story short, even though I finally found a convenient and accessible place to hold my camera today, I didn’t take any pictures.

One last note. We stopped at a very cool diner today in Raymond, WA. The outside looked pretty shabby (it was a bungalow), but the inside was done up real well to resemble a 50s diner. Lots of Marilyn Monroe and Route 66 memorabilia and good food. Taka took a picture of the place, so I’ll post the name of it later. The music was good too, even got to listen to the Battle of New Orleans. I don’t know how I know that song, but I recognized it immediately and knew the chorus. Also, I’m going to see if I can setup a widget on this site in order to catalogue the songs that pop into my head relentlessly while I’m riding. So far my head is consumed by Twisted Sister – We’re Not Gonna Take It when I’m going uphill and John Denver’s – Country Roads whenever I go over 20mph on a downhill (strange I know).

-Chris