Thank you Oregon for a dry day!

Our first day in Oregon without rain during some part of the day!!  Woohoo!!

Covered bridge over the McKinzie River

As predicted it was a long day in the saddle, but thankfully with no rain or bad weather it went well.  The route for the day was 96 miles from Eugene to Sisters, OR over McKinzie Pass.  Beth and I rode the tandem the first 60 miles to the turn off to McKinzie Pass and then I finished up solo over the pass, almost 4000' of climbing to get to the summit.  Then a 16 mile decent into Sisters.  (Here is the track)

It was a nice ride along the McKinzie river for the first 60 miles, so not too bad.  We could both definitely feel that ride from yesterday in our legs (and other places) and my climb up to the pass was pretty slow.

What an interesting area when you get close to the pass.  It is a large caldera with miles of lava flow.  At the pass someone had built an "observatory" out of the lava rock.

I'm not sure why they haven't opened the road over McKinzie Pass to cars yet. The road was clear and dry all the way across.  It's too bad that Beth and Nicolas had to drive around and miss the neat scenery.... and I had to ride unsupported.  I carried extra clothes with me and I needed them when I got to the top.

McKinzie Pass caledera

Tomorrow is another challenging day with a big up-hill finish. We only plan to go 70 miles and camp in forest service park since the facilities will be few and far between tomorrow, probably no updates for a couple of days.  Beth and Nicholas took the opportunity to stock up on groceries while I was riding over the pass, so we are set for a couple of days. Here is the route plan for tomorrow.

.... GO!!!... First ride complete!

At the start of our ride in Dunes National Rec Area

The rain let up just before dawn, so there was hope that we might get the ride in without being soaking wet all day.  After getting the RV packed up and Nicolas getting his training run in, we headed 2 miles down the road to our official start point in Oregon Dunes National Recreation Area on the Pacific coast.

The hope of riding without being wet faded after mile 20 and it quickly progressed to a cycle of light mist to a moderately heavy rain for about the next 4 hours / 45 miles.  With the temperature hanging around 50 degrees it was pretty chilly being wet for that long.  Beth road the first 50 miles and was ready for some dry clothes.  I road alone for the next 15 miles.  At mile 65, the sun came out and Nicolas joined me to the finish in Eugene.  A total of 84 miles and 2600' of climbing. (Track and stats of the ride today)

Nicholas is new to riding a road bike with clip-less pedals, but he did great today.  I can see he will be killing me very quickly... Oh to be young and 60 pounds lighter.

The 1st mile leaving Dunes

We considered getting a motel for the night so we could dry everything out, but when we got to the Armitage County Park, our planned finish, we found the park had full RV hook ups (elect., water, sewer, cable TV and WiFi) with paved parking spots and loads of room between sites for $30/night.  There were lots of open spots, and we just pulled in and hooked up. To dry things out we cranked up the heater in the RV and opened the windows.

Only misting at the moment on the road to Eugene

Tomorrow will be a real challenge.  We start with a long gradual climb for the first 60 miles, then the road splits.  The RV will have to take an alternate route since Hwy 242 is only open to bicycles until June 15 when the snow if fully cleared.  Right now the road is only cleared enough for a single lane for bikes.  So the 36 miles over McKenzie pass (~5300') will be unsupported and I'll meet up with Beth and Nicholas in Sisters, OR..  Hopefully it won't snow on me, but it is a distinct possibility.  Here is the route.

Getting ready to ride the last 17 miles

Our camp site at Armitage County Park

Ready..... Set.....

Well the time is near to officially start riding across the country.  We picked up Nicholas Yaeger, our nephew, at the Portland, OR airport on Monday evening.  Nicholas will drive the RV while Beth and I ride the tandem and we have a bike for him to ride when Beth is driving the RV or while he waits for us to catch up to him.  Beth is planning to ride 40-60 miles/ day and we will be averaging just under 80 miles per day, so there will be plenty of opportunities for Nicolas to ride if he wants.

We really want to thank Holly and Don Schoenbeck for inviting us to stay with them on Monday night.  It was a great dinner and nice to spend the night in a real bed.  We met Holly and Don on our trip to Italy 5 years ago and have kept in touch ever since.  They will also be riding across the US this summer as well, starting a couple of week later with a tour run by America by Bicycle.  They'll be taking a northern route ending in New Hampshire.  So we plan to compare notes as we both ride across the country.



It has been a busy day.  After breakfast with Holly and Don, we made a quick run east of Portland to Multnomah Falls, the second tallest waterfall in North America, then back to Portland to pickup some by bike parts and gear.  The front brake caliper broke on the tandem, so we located a replacement and picked up a helmet for Nicholas and some shoe covers for us (it has been raining since we got here... but it's Oregon, so what do you expect).  Then we made a dash to Salem to the State Capital building where Nicholas and Beth took a quick tour and climbed to the statue on top (while I tried to find a place to park the RV).  Then we headed for Florence, OR on the Pacific coast where will start our ride tomorrow.  Nicholas took over the driving duties after we got off the freeway for about 80 miles and did a great job, even on some narrow winding roads going over the coast range.

We are staying in an RV park about a mile from the coast in old growth forest and listening to the rain come down on the RV... tomorrow could be a very wet start.  80 miles and >3000' of climbing to Eugene, OR (see the route here).  We had a beautiful afternoon today after wet morning, so we are hoping for the best.

I bet you have always wondered.... Where is the Grass Seed Capital of the World???? .... You know, I have always wondered that and now I know.  It is Linn County, Oregon.  I am sure we will have a whole bucket of factoids like this by the time we are done with this adventure... and in case you didn't know, Tulelake, CA was the location of the largest Japanese interment camp during WWII, Home of the Perfect Potato... and Home of the Honkers.  (Editorial correction... Beth pointed out that the largest Japanese interment camp was in Newell, 5 miles south, but Tulelake also had an interment camp as well.)

Lots of driving and a little riding...

Dang it I lost Beth again...

So far we have been doing a lot of driving, but getting in a couple of good bike rides along the way.  Just outside of  Las Vegas, NV is a 35 mile paved bike trail loop.  It runs along Lake Meade for about 8 miles and loops around the mountain through Henderson, NV.  We only had time to do about 25 miles, so parked at a trail head and road the section that runs along the lake, out-and-back.  It is a really nice twisting, turning, hilly ride out to the lake.

Lake Meade from the bike trail

After finishing our ride, we headed back to the RV park for a quick shower, a bite to eat and gas, then headed north toward Reno.  It was another long windy drive, but nothing as bad as driving across northern AZ.

With the RV loaded with water, all our gear, the bikes, etc, we are getting 13mpg in the mountains with heavy winds up to 15.5mpg when the wind dies down (which hasn't been too often)

We made it to Fernly, NV, about 35 miles from Reno and spent the night in an a small RV park.

Climbing to Brockway Summit

We decided that we had enough time to take a little break from driving all day and set out to find a really nice ride around the Reno/Lake Tahoe area.  I found a ride on RideWithGPS.com (my current favorite bike ride planning tool at the moment) that would let us drive to Truckee, CA and ride a loop out to Lake Tahoe from Kings Beach to Tahoe City and back.  What a great ride.  The roads were busy, but with good shoulders and a nice bike path next to the Truckee river for a good section.  A big climb to our first mountain pass of the trip, Brockway Summit (7179'), then dropping to Kings Beach on Lake Tahoe.  What a gorgeous lake with the snow capped mountains in the background. 

Lake Tahoe

On our way back to the RV, the front brake on the tandem started making noise.  I have been having some issues getting the brake pads adjusted with a new brake disk on the front wheel.  But when we got to the RV I saw we had a broken spoke on  the wheel.  A quick Google search found a good bike shop in Reno.  The Google reviews were right.  The guys in the bike shop had a big assortment of replacement spokes, replaced our broken spoke and had us going again within half an hour.  Just in case, I bought 3 extra spokes to put in my bag of spare parts.

We are spending the night at a pretty "rustic" RV park near Honey Lake (dry as far as I can tell) about 70 miles northwest of Reno.  We are planning on heading toward Crater Lake National Park tomorrow.

Park at Kings Beach on Lake Tahoe

The Journey Begins

After several days of hard work packing, cleaning and tuning up the bikes, and double checking our lists, we finally set out in the RV toward Oregon.  We had a great "Call Us Crazy" party last Friday night to celebrate the adventure.  Then on Saturday afternoon we road the tandem to the train station  and went to Santa Fe to met up with Stacy Ohlsson  for dinner. We met Stacy on our bike tour of Italy and she joined us on our last trip to Chile.  We rode part of the Santa Fe Century ride with her and then we rode home.... a very windy 85 mile ride.

At the party on Friday night, Jay Stanke, commented on how much play there was in our bike
rack on the back of the RV, so I spent a good part of Monday improving the fit of the hitch couplings and modifying the tie-down system to make the whole thing more stable.  That seems to have worked well.  We spent all afternoon driving in heavy head and cross winds.  And we learned another important lesson with the RV... the last quarter on the gas gauge goes down fast when climbing a mountain into a heavy head wind! We were on fumes when we pulled into a gas station outside Flagstaff, AZ.

We have added a 4th bike to mix, Beth's road bike, so we had to find a place for it since our bike rack only holds 3 bikes.  So we have rigged a spot for it inside the RV that keeps it pretty much out of the way... at least we can get to the essential areas of the RV (fridge and bathroom) without moving it.

We pulled into Las Vegas, NV about 8PM and are staying in an RV park.  We plan to get up early and do a 30 mile bike ride along the Lake Meade Parkway Trail, then head on to the Reno, NV area tomorrow (Thurday, 5/23).

On the Road... Again... the BIG RIDE!

The planning is finally done... the route is done (at least for now)... The Sprinter RV is pretty much ready to go... work is winding down... It's less than a week and we head toward Oregon to meet up with our nephew, Nicholas on May 27th in Portland and on May 29th we will start the Ride Across the USA from Florence, OR.  Just under 4000 miles and what will seem like a zillion feet of climbing (over 207,000 feet per ridewithgps.com).... At least 49 days of riding over 2 months..

This should be quite the adventure.  From the Oregon coast, through the Cascade mountains, the mountains of Idaho and Montana, Yellowstone National Park, Jackson Hole, Wyoming, the Colorado Rockies, the Royal Gorge, getting through western Kansas as fast as possible, visiting family in central Missouri, riding 2 ferries on the back roads of Kentucky, visiting Mammoth Cave, crossing the Cumberland Gap, riding the Blue Ridge Highway and finishing on the beach at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina (or at least that is the plan).

Along the way we have planned to visit the capitals in OR, ID, MT, CO, KS, MO (a given), and TN.