From Portland into the Columbia Gorge

Overlook of the Columbia Gorge and Vista House

 I knew this would be one of the pretty sections of the ride.  We rode out of Portland on a nice bike path and then start to climb old highway 30 toward Hood River.  It is quite a climb to get up here, but it is well worth the effort.

Closeup of the Vista House from the overlook

From the Vista House there is a twisting, rapid decent back to near the river level which was a lot of fun.  From there we passed several waterfalls, Horse Trail Falls, Latourell Falls, Bridal Veil Falls  but the most famous of them all is Multnomah Falls.

Multnomah Falls

Because of some road construction we took a highway department shuttle for 3.5 miles to avoid the construction.  What we weren't told about was the landslide that had closed about 100 yards of the bike trail.  As more of the group showed up we formed a "bucket brigade" for bikes to hand them up a steep makeshift work around on the trail.

Landslide bypass.  The picture really doesn't do justice to how steep this was.

The landslide that covered the trail

We made our way across the Bridge of the Gods in Cascade Locks, OR and entered Washington to reach our campsite for the night.  Of course the trip planner had to pick a campground 3 miles up a steep hill, but it was a nice enough campground.

Bridge of the Gods

Jim and Heidi came and took me to dinner at a local brewpub and it was good to see them one more time before I head to points east.  Heidi brought some cookies she had made from the Milk Bar cookbook that I am pretty sure Beth had given to her a few years ago.  They were a big hit with the group at our first stop the next.   They were really good!

The next day we were riding Washington Hwy 14 east toward Bingen, WA which is just over the river from Hood River.  Jim and Heidi and a number of others said this is NOT a good road to ride and they are correct.  There many places with very little shoulder, several tunnels with no shoulder and a significant amount of impatient traffic, but the tour organizer was hell bent on riding this road so we did.  No body died so we will call that a win.

Shoulder on parts of Hwy 14

View from Washington side back to Hood River.  Jim and Heidi's house is about mid-way up the hill to right side, but kind of buried in the trees. 

We made it past Lyle and the road improved and the traffic got thinner which was nice.  Plus we had a nice tailwind to our campground at Maryhill State Park.  That night the wind picked and with a thunderstorm.  But the wind blew so hard that the tents were dry by morning.  

The ride on Friday was an absolute scream.  We had 25-30 mph tailwinds the whole day which made our 61 mile ride a "breeze".  The average speed for the day was 17mph with 2700' of climbing. A lot of the time we were going 30 mph, so we felt like the pros in a peloton. We rode though lots of orchards and vineyards, so a really nice ride.

Cherries almost ready to pick

When we got to the Crow Butte campground for the night, the wind was still howling and our campsite was fully exposed to the wind.  The ranger for the area said we could camp in the Day Use area which had a number of shelters and buildings for us to get some relief from the wind which was really since some of the rental tents are very big and really hard to set up in the wind.

Using the bathhouse as a wind break for our tents

Today, Saturday, 5/30, was an easy 30 mile ride to Umatilla, OR.  We took the opportunity to stop in a local coffee shop and plenty of time to set up our tents in the Marina RV campground.  We are close to I-82, but the noise isn't bad with the wind still blowing east.  Tomorrow, we ride 60 miles into Walla Walla, Washington for our first "Rest Day" of the trip.  After that the riding will get more serious as we start to enter the western edge of the Rockies.

Mileage for the first week of the CX50 trip was 361 miles and 15,700' of climbing... it will be more next week for sure.  

I'm having a good time with plenty of adventure so far.  The camping adds something of a new dimension, but I have done it before, but at least I am not packing it!  

It is a good group, but sadly we will lose one of our riders tomorrow in Walla Walla.  Dave, our 80 year old, was in the hospital a couple of months ago with a pretty serious infection. Against the advice of his wife and doctor he went ahead and started the trip.  He has not been feeling well for several days and will head for home to recover.  However we were joined by two new riders yesterday, Doug and Deb from Iowa.  They are following our same route and had been in touch with Arlen, our tour director about joining us, so they will be with us to at least South Dakota. Plus they brought down the average age of the group being 61 and 65!

And so we begin... XC50

 

The Whole Gang

If you wonder about the XC50, this is the 50th anniversary of the publishing of a trans-America (XC -Cross Country) bike route by Adventure Cycling.  So I may frequently refer to this trip as XC50.

Before the rain started

The ride began for real from Astoria, OR and my expectations for the ride were met as we rolled to Rainier, OR.  I had anticipated this to be a wet ride on a very busy highway with many areas with little to no shoulder.  Yup... that is what is was.  Sometimes you just have to slog your way through some areas.  We got in a couple of hours of riding before the rain hit, but it was steady for several hours after that.  We had to wait a while at the campsite for the rain to let up so we could set up our tents and get a hot shower.  Nobody died, so we'll call that a win!

And as an added benefit my Wahoo GPS died in the rain and I don't mean the battery died.  It is gone.  I had enough cell service at the campsite to order a new GPS from Amazon and have it delivered to the hotel here in Portland overnight.  I am back in business with routing instructions on the bike.  Today I used my phone with an ear bud so I could hear the turn-by-turn instructions from the Ride With GPS app on my phone.  Plus, I rode most of the day with Chuck (76) and John(66) and their GPS's were working.  We are by far the strongest riders on the tour.

We didn't get a lot more rain overnight, but it was still cloudy with scattered showers around as we broke camp and headed out toward Portland.  We were still on Hwy 30, but as we got closer to Portland the road improved with either a bike lane or a wide shoulder, but the pickup trucks pulling 5th wheels had been replaced by semi's, so the traffic was still substantial.

As we rolled into Portland we had to cross the Willamette river at some point.  There are a number of bridges, but only a few that you would consider riding a bike across.  We followed the route directions to the Broadway Bridge.  During the route discussion, they kind of failed to mention the "stair climb".  There are several people with ebikes on the tour, so climbing 40 stairs is not really an option.  We have a group text message  set up and I used Google maps to find an alternate route onto the bridge and sent it to the group behind us, which they appreciated.

Right after we crossed the bridge we rode a mile to our next scheduled rest stop.  This provided insight into some of the things the Portland Chamber of Commerce doesn't publicize.  I am pretty sure there was a drug dealer on the street, a number of homeless smoking pot, or something stronger and some very colorful language between the park patrons, etc.  We arrived just as Susan, the guide, showed up to set things up for the snack table.  We didn't hang around very long.  As most of the riders showed up, Susan called the other guide and advised they just pass up this stop since it was only 10 more miles to the hotel.

Tomorrow we leave Portland and head into the Columbia Gorge.  I plan to have dinner with Jim and Heidi.  They will come pick me up from our campsite on the Washington side of the Columbia River and go to a local brew pub which I am looking forward to, plus they will get to meet this cast of characters.

I have found out the ages of all but 2 of the riders.  Dave at 80 is the oldest and Miles at 64 is the youngest (so far).  So I may be a little below the the average at 69.  

The 3 oldest men on the trip (L to R):  Dave (80 and you would guess it), Chuck (76), Glenn (77) - Dave and Glen are old friends, riding ebikes.  Glen has done RAGBRAI 18 times (ride across Iowa)

The back of Susan, one of our guides at lunch.  I wish I had a picture at the end of the day.  Her jacket was pretty much black from road grime.  

The first camp site of XC50 at Hudson Parcher County Park

Back on the Road... Again - The Prologue

It has been 8 years since Beth and I last posted on this blog. A lot has happened since then. A pandemic. Several more adventures that went undocumented here like a "Bike-n-Barge" trip from Paris to Brugge Belgium. A week long cruise on a converted crab boat into Glacier Bay National Park which included adding a bike ride in Juneau, Alaska to complete riding in all 50 states. 

And then the shock of Beth's diagnosis of Stage 4 Vulvar cancer in Oct of 2023. She passed away on March 2, 2024, just 4 and a half months after her diagnosis, while  enduring radiation and chemo treatments through the holidays. So the past 2 years have been very difficult at times and I expect will continue to be a roller coaster. 

I had thought about just starting a new blog, but decided against that.  If you come across this blog you can go back and visit some of Beth and my prior adventures including the original ride across the country in 2013. 

So a few months ago I was trying to come to some decision about what to do this year. One of the last things Beth asked of me was to keep doing what WE had been doing... taking trips that hopefully turned into adventures. 

I was poking around on Google and came across the description of a bike ride across the country from a small company called BIKEternity based in Missoula, MT. It was to be a celebration tour of 50 years since Adventure Cycling of America had published the "TransAmerica" route which was the basis of our 2013 Ride Across the USA with our 16 year old nephew, Nicholas, as our support person driving a 22' Sprinter motorhome.  What an adventure that was!

Terrain map I made of the cross country route

I looked at the route and saw that it included pieces of things Beth and I had done together like riding over Lolo Pass outside Missoula and the Mickelson Trail in the Black Hills. But also plenty of places I haven't ridden including some sections of "Rail-to-Trail". Long story short I signed up and the ride begins today, May 24, in Astoria, OR. The average is 63 miles per day, so not quite the 80 mile per day pace we did in 2013, but I'm 13 years older as well! 

It is a small group of 11 riders with 4 staff. I think, at 69, I may be in the middle of the pack age wise.  I know that Chuck is 76 and a really strong rider, may be the oldest. The youngest I know of is John at 66 and also a strong rider.  There are 4 women and 7 men, so a pretty good mix for a long distance tour and two women guides, so it should be a pretty balanced group. It is an 11 week trip with over 50 nights of camping with a couple of nights in hotels every week or so.  Definitely NOT something Beth would have agreed to do.  The 17 nights of camping on our Africa bike trip were the first and last camping bike trip!

In the past, the blog was a joint venture between Beth and I.  So, I'll try to keep up with posting something every few days, but with cycling and camping I'm not sure how much energy I'll have for keeping up with the blog.  We'll just have to see.  Hopefully there will be some tales to tell!

The Peter Iredale

Today, we went for a fairly short ride from the hotel in Astoria to Fort Stevens State Park, which Beth and I had visited a few years ago on one our trips to the Oregon coast.  It was a beautiful day for spring on the coast.  We rode to the beach where the wreck of the Peter Iredale is located.  After the official dip of our bike tires in the Pacific Ocean we are on our way across the country.

The weather forecast for our first real day of riding toward Maine, is NOT supposed to be so picture perfect... Chilly and rainy all day and into the evening.  It will also be our first night of camping so we'll see how that goes, but that is just part of the adventure.

The women of the tour L to R: Sheri, Marianne, Susan (guide), Jocelyn, Kelly (guide) and Dorothy

John and me