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Tour de Oregon

2K views 25 replies 6 participants last post by  mtbxplorer 
#1 ·
So it's about time I post some pictures.
There are a lot and I have to resize each one, so 4 or 5 at a time, and you'll have something to look forward to for a while. :thumbsup:

As some of you know, a friend and I did the entire Oregon coast during the last week of July. We rode from the Washinton Border to the California border. We got great weather and had a great trip with no major drama. It was my first experience touring, and it was awesome.

The stats:
451 miles (including random side trips here and there)
2 flat tires (one on the trailer and one nail that my Big Apples and the tubeless goo couldn't handle)
2 whale sightings
1 shipwreck
7 days
85 miles was the longest day. (Epic tailwind)


I was on my commuter (access 29er frame, tubeless big apples...hauling a Bob Yak "28" which is their big-forked 29er compatible version. Trailer worked flawlessly. I robbed the mountian cranks/chainring, bottom bracket, and front derailleur off of my mountian bike for the trip, since I wanted the lower gearing for hauling the extra weight...lots of hills on the oregon coast!

Friend was on a Trek Antelope...with some touring mods... he had no flats, no mechanicals, no issues at all. We did re-grease his hubs before we left, since they hadn't been touched since the early 90's :lol:

We stayed in state parks ($5 per night for the hiker/biker site in most places)... Oregon state parks are awesome. Free hot showers, nice facilities everywhere. I heard they pay for state parks with proceeds from the state lottery. It shows... they are abundant and very nice. We averaged probably 60 miles per day. A couple shorter, a couple longer.

Here are a couple pics from the first day or two... a history teacher side trip, a shipwreck, and some epic vistas... usually at the top of an epic climb, just before an epic descent. Dairy Queen bilzzard of the month was the Triple Chocoholic.... Couldn't have planned it better. DQ was a major motivating factor. They were everywhere...any hard effort demanded a triple chocoholic blizzard.
 

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#3 ·
Killer! I`m wondering the same thing as Woodway. That must have at least been the main part of your route- how was the traffic/shoulder situation? I`ve only been on a little bit of the OR coast, but I know I see quite a few loaded bikes on the PCH in CA and it makes me cringe a little bit. Oh, and did you guys ride up the bridge tower to get that "Welcome to Oregon" sign, or what?
 
#4 ·
Yes, for the most part it's highway 101...but anywhere there's a road west of that, we were on it. We followed the very well established "Oregon Coast Bike Route" for the most part. Warning...if you open this PDF brochure you will very likely wind up riding the oregon coast next summer. Don't say I didn't warn you.
PDF Map: http://www.oregon.gov/ODOT/HWY/BIKEPED/docs/oregon_coast_bike_route_map.pdf?ga=t

Shoulders were pretty good for the most part. I'll try to find a couple pictures that show the typical situation. A few areas were narrow...bridges and tunnels (there are 2 on the oregon coast) were a bit sketchy...but both tunnels and the really sketchy bridges have a button that you push before you start across, and it lights up a blinky sign that warns motorists that there are bikes in the tunnel/on the bridge. I felt prety safe the whole time. Narrow sections with motorhomes were a bit nervous, but for the most part it was great. A lot of the roads that are NOT 101 had virtually no shoulder, but traffic was so light that it wasn't an issue at all.

We got dropped off in Astoria, but we felt like we had to cross the bridge to Washington so that we could say we actually went 'border to border'. Well that bridge is over 3 miles long (best guess) There's a massive rise on the Astoria side so ships can get in and out, and a small rise on the Washington side...probably becase they wanted to have something and they were jealous of the Astoria side. That pic is from the top of the crest on the Washington side, looking south...taken from the shoulder. The Columbia is a big stinking river. Wind was horrible on the bridge...it was narrow, there were bungee cords, hubcaps, and peices of wood in the teeny bike lane. I wanted a bungee for the trailer, but I didn't dare stop to grab one. It was probably the sketchiest part of the whole ride.

On to the pics... Free Cheese and Ice cream, bad pic of some non-101 bike lane, not a bad view, road closure that we snuck through on the '3 capes senic route', and Typical 101 bike lane leading up to Cape Arch tunnel,
 

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#11 ·
Yeah that was stressful... we knew the road was closed, and we knew it would be a 6 mile back-track if we couldn't get through. What we didn't know was that that 6 miles included 3 miles of climbing the steepest hill on the whole route....dropping down towards the road closure, we were saying "there's no way we're going back up this...we have to find a way through." We had plans to hit the beach and push the bikes around if nothing else. Luckily it was only 1 lane that was falling into the ocean...so no worries.

...and yes:
 

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#14 ·
Here are some of Rodar's freakish friends, a typical Hiker/Biker site, some bike lane carnage, and supposedly the most photographed lighthouse in the world.

I was surprised by the sense of community among the bike touring folks we met. You wind up leapfrogging the same group of folks...running into people in random towns, staying at the same campsites every night or two, so you get the know the crew that you are moving down the coast with. It was pretty cool. We had a few Canadians, two guys from Ireland, a real life Portland hipster, and some other assorted folks that we saw regularly. Doing some bike maintenance for people in camp earned you an adult beverage delivery the following night.
 

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#15 ·
I`ve read on Crazyguy, etc about seeing the same people and groups over and over- sounds pretty cool.

CB, I`m really sorry I wasn`t able to loan you my recumbent for your tour this year. Ask again next year and maybe I can help you out- just be sure to practice up first so you don`t crash and burn with it on the test drive again. I hope you aren`t TOO awfully embarrased about your lack of bent skill :eek:
 
#16 ·
Yeah...at least when I fell over I was already half way to the ground. The trip was still fun on an actual bicycle though. :D

So this one day, we rode a point :lol: And here's a couple of houses I woudn't mind having, the scene of the first whale sighting, and how could you not stop for the world's largest insect AND a penny smasher?
 

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#19 ·
....and how could you not stop for the world's largest insect AND a penny smasher?
Dude! And a fortune teller to boot !?!
That` might even be better than Bridgeport`s world famous house of Burgers, Ice Cream, Burritos and Massage.

So, it looks like you found a new calling. What`s up for next year? A few logging roads thrown into the mix? 395 to Pendleton and back? Miniditarod from Antelope Lk to Frenchman over Spring Break?

EDIT: Crap, CB- I didn`t mean to make the image so big, but now I can`t figure out how to get rid of it. Sorry.
 

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#18 ·
Rock Climber, buy this book. Everyone had it, and everyone referred to it as "the book". Elevation profiles, suggested camping sites, bike shop locations, last-grocery-store-before-camp advice, etc...:
 

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#22 ·
Just got it, thanks for the tip!

I drove from Seattle to Rockaway beach a few weeks ago and paid close attention to the shoulder and the number of bikers. There were tons of bikes out and I was actually surprised how wide the shoulder was in some places, but then like you said the bridges got very narrow (but luckily they are not very long).

Can't beat the scenery though. (and my kids thought the shipwreck was the coolest thing ever)
 
#20 ·
Wow...that place is like heaven for a bike tourist. I've been through there in a car countless times, but never wanted a burrito, ice cream, and a massage at the same time. Now I get it. :lol:
 
#23 ·
The two long bridges that were a bit sketchy were the Astoria bridge at the Washington border across the columbia, and the one into North Bend at Coos Bay. That one had a button/blinky light, but it was narrow, windy, and the sidewalk was closed for repairs... no choice but to push the button and put the hammer down...we had a logging truck slow down to our pace and hold off traffic for us all the way over the top, and then we bombed the descent at about the flow of traffic anyway. If the sidewalk was open we would have been all over it.
 
#24 ·
On the last day we barely escaped from angry dinosaurs, saw some very nice bike lane (can you tell from the tree which way the wind was blowing?), and dealt with our first headwinds of the trip... a good reminder of how sweet the tailwinds had been. Hit the border and beat our pick-up vehicle... we rode another 8 miles or so down into CA. So if we ever decide to do the CA coast, we can start at the little mexican market instead of all the way up at the border.

Had to stop at the Klamath River (about 40 miles into CA) on the way home and snap a pic of the whale that had been hanging out in the river for the past couple weeks. The people we met who were riding as far as San Fransisco were all excited about getting down to the Klamath to see the whale...apparently mom and calf swam up river, calf left...mom stayed (apparently to die)... It died a couple weeks after we were there. Scientists are baffled yet again... there is a whale-opsy in progress apparently.
 

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