Florence to Bandon - a big bust of a ride

The killer storm never materialized.  While it was raining at the start of the ride and the majority of riders elected to jump in the van, by the first sag stop the rain had stopped and most of the riders decided to chance the weather and ride to Bandon - all except Rodger, Jim and I.  

The smart riders rode in the van with the riding and rain gear on, while I decided that the day was going to be a total bust as per weather.com - so I packed all my rain gear away in my luggage.  So when the sun came out, I did not have the ability to do the rest of the ride as I did not have the right apparel (not to mention the couple of local brews I had at lunch). 

People improvised on clothing. Here is Sarah wearing the trash can liner from her room on her head before the start of the ride.  Let me tell you she is another one of those veteran, tough riders.  In her late 60's (won't tell you the exact age) she got on her bike at the first sag stop and racked up about 50 miles on the day. And she did it all by herself as her riding partners were in the van with me soaking down the local brews.

Here is my bike heading to Bandon.  In my defense on being a woose, the radar showed a huge storm along our whole ride.  But as soon as would get to the spot that was indicated on the weather map, the storm would move past us and we would miss the rain.  Like that all day.

The sky was pretty dark and gloomy most of the day so there were not a lot of photo ops.  We did stop at the Oregon Dunes and were able to take some photos of the dunes and the sea in between rain swells.

All along the coast there are signs warning people of the potential for a Tsunami.  The advice on how to deal with this threat is simple - get your ass to high ground and don't screw around going to the beach to watch the wave kill you.  You don't think about this a lot but when we got to the hotel there was an actually Tsunami warning in affect for the Hawaiian Islands.  So this stuff is real and I am going to keep my eye out for some big waves.

As you can see I did not get a lot of pictures yesterday.  One reason is that I fell asleep in the van for most of the ride.  These long bike shuttle rides are killers.  I did manage to get a shot of one of the light houses that dot the Oregon Coast, but then went back to sleep.

I did manage to wake up in time to visit the High Tide Cafe for lunch.  We are all sampling the clam chowder in each of the towns we visit and then voting on which one has been the best chowder. 

The High Tide claimed that their chowder was "award winning" so our expectations were pretty high as we walked in the door - and it was pretty good.  The three judges for the day (me, Rodger and Bill) determined it was better than Mo's the night before in Florence.  As for the award....

Caveat Emptor.  Upon close examination of the actual award that was hung on the entry wall - the award was given in 2013 by the North Bend High School Internet Club - I kid you not!  These geeks obviously know their chowder.

By the time we got to Bandon, the sun was out and it was a glorious day - providing me a perfect opportunity to sample some of the local wines (no local beers that I could find).  It has a little commercial center right on the harbor.  Not much bigger than the center of Wellfleet.

The biggest tourist attraction is Harry the Fish.  Harry is made out entirely of recycled plastic that the local fishermen have "caught" in their nets.  As Harry's sign says "this stuff sticks around for 400 years before it disintegrates".    So this statue should be here for a long time.

The only disappointment of the Bandon experience is that we ate at the local pizza shop.  Never trust a place has a "Help Wanted" sign, "Open For Business" sign and a "Sale by Owner" sign all in the front window.  I should have know better and should have bolted to one of the better establishments in town.  My bad.

Today is supposed to be a great riding day with no rain and temps reaching the mid 60's.  But as I am writing this post, it is really raining hard.  It actually woke me up it was so loud.  Of course my trusted weather.com is telling me it is only cloudy outside - so once again I have no clue on how the day will turn out to be.   Again we are on Rt 101 for a good part of the day, so I really hope weather.com has its act together today.

It is a short ride today (55 miles) so we have the opportunity to depart a little later in the morning than we normally do (9 am departure).  So hopefully it gets better by start time.

Lincoln City to Florence - 78 miles of breathtaking views, one after the other

While it was cold (50 degrees) and damp and eventually rain-filled, the sky was clear on today's ride, allowing us to see some of the most beautiful scenery.  No matter where you stopped, there was a fantastic view.  Only wish I knew what I was doing with my camera - as my photos do not do the Oregon Coast any justice.  At one point I put the camera away as I figured I would not get into Florence if I kept stopping to shoot another picture.

As we are on Route 101 (which is the only road there is) we are sharing the road with big logging trucks, large trailer trucks and some insanely large RV's driven by some really, really old people (got nothing against old people).  It's the RV's I fear the most - as a lot of these drivers do not have a clue on how to drive on narrow, windy roads - never the mind that they have to navigate by a little old cyclist hugging a 2-3 foot shoulder loaded with road junk.

There were a couple of times I was trying to decide what would be better - getting hit by the RV or getting pushed off the side of the road over a cliff.  Thank god tourist season is over - riding this road in the summer would really be a challenge.  Only AARP card members to deal with right now.

As noted in the heading the ride was supposed to be 78 miles.  I made it 80 as I got lost immediately out of the hotel and ended up at an Indian casino.  Took me some time to figure out what I did wrong.

The first town we rode to was Depoe Bay and it billed it self as the World's smallest harbor.  

Personally I think Pamet Harbor in Truro could give these guys a run for their money.  

Immediately after leaving town we started climbing.  It wasn't like there was one or two big climbs - but lots of medium size climbs one right after the other.  Took the following shot from about 1/2 way up one of the climbs to give you a sense of the height...

We had our first support stop (sag stop) at about 25 miles.  Check out the gear we are wearing and Barb (one of drivers) wearing her winter ski jacket.    Brrrrr.

Almost immediately after this we had to cross a long two-lane bridge.  

They have this button you hit when you pass on a bike that then turns on some flashing yellow lights to let the cars and trucks that there are bicyclists on the bridge.  What a waste of time - doesn't slow any vehicles down.  Not sure where these idiots are going to but they are intend on getting there - damn the biker.  The only thing that sort of works is to ride in the middle of the lane forcing them to stay behind you.  But as soon as the opposite lane is open, they pass regardless of the double yellow line.  

I swear some of the locals (the 4x4 pickup trucks with big wheels and no muffler) actually make a sport of trying to see how close they can get to you.    The beauty of the ride makes up for the mayhem.  

The rain was supposed to start at 3 pm so I decided to try to ride without stopping.  First the rain started at about 2 pm and second for some reason I thought the ride was only 68 miles long.  When I got to 68 miles (really 70 given that I got lost at the beginning), I was in the middle of a huge climb in the middle of nowhere.  Seems there were some more directions on the back of the cue sheet they gave us that I failed to see before the ride.  My bad.  Thankfully most of the remaining 18 miles was downhill (for the most part).

Again the views more than make up for the road conditions.  This is really a fantastic ride - but what would a ride be without a couple of grips.  The staff is great, the riders are really nice and so far the food and hotels are top notch.

Our ride today might be a wash out.  Last night the weather forecast called for an inch of rain and 20 mph headwinds.  Mike will make a go, no go call after breakfast.  I for one will probably jump in the van even if he says it is safe to ride.  When I rode cross country I was intent on riding every foot of the 3800 miles (didn't want to explain to people "yea I rode cross country except for the 10 miles that I jumped in the van".  

But this is a fun ride with no macho goals.  So safety first is my motto.  Not to mention riding 74 miles in the rain really sucks.  Next stop Brandon, Oregon - bike or no bike.

I've enclosed some additional photos.  There were so many great shots that I forget where each of these were taken.  So I will just include them at the end of this blog entry.  

Lil' Sambos, Blogs and Pie

Learned a bunch of stuff last night so figured I would add another blog entry.  Again another one of those feeling touchy entries - the new me.

First here's the story about Lil Sambo's restaurant.  

Seems back about 10 years ago it was in fact named Lil' Black Sambo's - the owners decided it was probably best for business to drop the black part of the name.  Not sure that this really made any difference - cause the first thing you think about when you see the new name - is the old name.  About the same time the current building burnt down - would have been the perfect time to change names.  Oh well, they are still in business so they must be doing something right.

P.S.  Pretty funny town this Lincoln City - as there is a pie shop on the way into town (I missed it) that's most famous pie is the Marionberry (Marion Berry if you remember was the mayor of Washington DC that was caught doing cocaine, went to jail and when he got out, ran and won the Mayor's race for a second time).

Just found out that the ride leader (Mike Monk) is also doing a blog.  He has a real camera and he obviously knows where the best shots on the ride are.  He took this of me yesterday coming out of one of the bays along the ocean.  Pretty cool shot (I have about 5 layers of clothes on and was still cold - wearing long pants today.

With the fear of losing my readership to what appears to be a better blog (more dialog about the ride and clearly better pictures) here is the web link....

Official Blog for the Ride the West

Plus photos of all the riders and their ages.

Riders and Staff photos

Wow.  In checking Mike's Blog I just found out that Jim is the oldest guy here clocking in at 75 (although John at 74 is not exactly a spring chicken).  Another heavy duty long distance rider, Jim actually started his ride in Washington State and rode for a week with panniers (with all his luggage) down to Astoria for the start of the "official ride".   He will be leaving us in Santa Barbara as this is home for him.  Seems in order for him to feel like he did the complete ride (Washington to Mexico) - he also rode from Santa Barbara down to Mexico on his own before the ride started.  

Hard core for sure.

Okay in about an hour we are off for a 70 mile ride to Florence, Or.  Weather is supposed to get nasty about 3 pm so this will not be a day to dawdle.    Nothing like a 70 mile sprint for some tired legs.

Will check in later.  Pray for sun.

Road Out and Cold - Tillamook to Lincoln City - 51 miles

Today was an interesting day.  First the temperature started at 50 degrees and stayed there for most of the day.  This is about 15-20 degrees below average.  Clearly did not plan on this temperature - so I had to run to the store and get a long sleeve shirt for wearing under my bike jersey.  Went to a Fred Meyers (sort of like an upscale Walmart) and lo and behold found the following....

Yup, had to buy an Under Armour shirt - at full retail!  Wow these things are expensive.  Well at least I paid for Ellen's salary for the day.

Next we were supposed to log about another 70 mile ride - but one of the roads was shut down so we had to take a detour up through the mountains.  While it was only a 50 mile ride there were two huge climbs.

As we were not near the shoreline not too many chances for photos.  Did manage to get one shot from about 1/2 way up the first hill (about 4 miles long and my guess an 8-9 degree climb.



Mike (tour leader) took the same shot with John (in black, Seattle, 74) and Rodger (Pittsburgh).  Once we got to the top it was all downhill.  We were so hot and sweating from the long climb that even the UA garment was soaking.  With our speeds approaching 35 mph - it was so cold - like skiing at Wildcat in the middle of the winter.

 Eventually we ended up (about 25 miles in) at Pelican Bay.  Seems there were two sites to take in.  First was another one of these huge rocks in the water.



And second a local brewery that is a favorite hangout of all the bikers riding the Oregon coastline.

Unfortunately, as mentioned before I was cold and damp and could not fathom having a beer (not to mention it was only 10 am).   Will have to make up for it in Lincoln City.

Our sag stop was here so I was able to get some quick snacks for some energy and headed out to Lincoln City.  On the way out got one more shot of the coast....

We had a bunch more climbs - they were never ending.  At one point I passed John (who has done this tour 3-4 times) and I saw the top of the ridge in front of us and I said "please make this the top of the hill".  To which John responded "We have not even got to the climbing part yet".  I was hoping he was wrong - but damn he was right! 

The only good thing about uphills is that you get to go down really, really fast.  So from the top of the crest it was about 5-6 miles to Lincoln City and it flew by.

Got to the hotel early and luckily our rooms were cleaned and we could take some hot showers.  As for me it looks like I will be wearing my one UA shirt for the next 23 days - so I decided for the sake of my fellow riders to wash it by hand.  Hopefully it will be dry by morning.  

We are going to be heading to a local restaurant next to the hotel.  you won't believe the name of the place... 

Guess the liberal police have not got to the far reaches of Oregon.  Hopefully they have some local brews to make up for me missing the Pelican Bay IPA's.  

First Ride is in the Books - Astoria to Tillamook

Day started off at 56 degrees - a little chilly.  Ended up at about 65 with a big tailwind.  About a 70 mile ride - a little long for a first day warm-up!

We took our traditional team photo with our ABB bike jerseys. Again with  only 8 riders the photo session did not take long.

Just to the right of where we were standing, there was a ominous sign that hopefully did not foresee the future of our ride....

Now as I mentioned John is 74.  Much to my surprise he was the first person on his bike and bolted out of the hotel parking lot.  I expected to pass him in the first couple of miles but did not catch up to him until mile 58!!  The guy can haul!  Here is a shot of him after climbing up about a 3 mile 8 degree pass.

Stepping back, the first town we passed through on the coast was Seaside.  A really cool, quaint little town.

The statue behind the sign is of Lewis and Clark.  Seems that everything in this area is named after Lewis and Clark.  There is the Lewis and Clark school, road, highway, and even a Lewis and Clark cemetery (they are actually buried in Tenn).  Not really sure why  everything has their name on it - as I don't think they ever found the Northwest Passage (statues for losers?).  

There was a cool antique car show running in town that we had to ride through (they made us walk our bikes - guess they were afraid we would bump into one of the cars).   

There was a sweet 57 T-bird.  That was always the car I wanted when I was a kid - ended up with a shitty yellow VW!

As soon as we headed out of town and a couple of miles up on the Pacific Coast Highway we started to get some get views of the Pacific Ocean.  There were some huge rock structures dotting the coast.  They were massive.  

For a sense of their size check out the people walking on the beach on the next picture.

The ride hugged the coast for the entire 70 miles.  There was a lot of uphills and some really fast downhills (couple of times hit 40 mph).  Lots of RV's on the road and with some of the road shoulders being pretty lean - contributing to some scary times.   Good thing is there were lots of turn-offs where you could stop and take in the views.  They were amazing.  I am sure that my photo taking skills do not do justice to the Oregon Coast.

Did not get to ride with anybody.  Mark and Jim were really fast and the only time I saw them was on the side of the road were they were casually drinking espressos.   Will have to check with the rest of the group when we have dinner to get a feel for their times.

Just before we got into town we passed the Tillamook Cheese factory.  Place is huge and seems to be the number one tourist stop on the Pacific Coast highway.  

I pulled in with the intent of doing the tour - but the line was huge (I found out later they were all in line for ice cream) so I passed on the opportunity to get a free cheese sample and headed to the hotel.

Just before the cheese factory, I passed a billboard on the side of the road that boasted of a 2-3 foot long smoked sausage at the Tillamook smokehouse.  God I could have eaten about 30 feet of these things.  Thankfully I never found the place.

So for a first day -  it was a great ride.  

I probably went a little too fast and I am hoping I don't feel the effects of the ride tomorrow.   I took about a 15 minute shower - which is about 12-13 minutes longer than my "At home" showers.   I must admit I also grab a 24 oz Hamm's beer and a corn dog at the convenience store in front of the hotel as I think this combo will also speed up recovery (shower + beer + corndog).  It's a winning combination!

Heading to dinner.....

It's Post Time - Moving Out

It's Sunday and the first day of the ride.   I am writing this before we head out - and either I am still on EST time, the adrenaline is starting to flow, or the Mexican food we had last night contributing to an early morning (note to myself - never have Mexican food before a big bike ride).

Yesterday was spent re-building our bikes, testing them out and getting to meet the rest of the riders.

Quite amazingly there are only 8 riders that are starting off in Astoria; though we are picking up 6 more riders in Crescent City.   This is a really small riding group as they normally average 20 plus riders.  The bad news is that it looks like a lot of the guys are fast riders - the good news is that I will finally be able to learn everybody's names.

As always, most of the riders are retired - not sure who the youngest is but the oldest is John from Seattle who is 74 and this is his 8th or 9th long distance ride.   I'm hoping I can keep up with him.  We have a retired baby doctor from England (Mark) a retired railroader (Ken) from Florida.  I suspect they will be leading the pack as I can't see an ounce of fat on them.  They asked me if I was interesting in going out for a quick ride yesterday and I was quick to beg off - it's clear my pace and theirs are noticeably different.  Plus my priority was going to all five of the local breweries - which was probably not on their list of "todos".

We have one woman on the ride, Sara and she is from Colorado.  She mentioned during the introductions that she teaches skiing at Copper Mountain - so perhaps I can score some free tickets.  Love Copper's back bowls.  Funny, her husband is also here - but he does not ride and will be following us in the support van.   Sara said she does a long distance ride every year - so I am wondering if her bud rides in the van on every ride - or this is a one time occurrence.

There is Bill from NYC who just retired a year ago (former banker) and is good friends with the ride's mechanic (Jim from Vermont).  Looks like he is in good shape as well - so probably won't be getting much ride time with him.

Last, there is Jim from Newport Beach and Rodger from from Pittsburgh.  I did not get to meet either of the two as they just got here and they were at the far end of the dinner table and the arrangement did not foster conversation.

Note:  As you can see this is the new me as I was chastised for not getting the low down details of each of the riders on my last two rides.  Hopefully this first post gets me out of the "social dog house".

The ride leader is Mike Munk and he has been leading rides for America by Bike for 20 years.  This is his 53 tour (the majority of his rides have been cross country).  His wife is also here as part of the support team. Jim is the mechanic and Karen is the other ride leader (she led my cross country trip).

Mike is former military and I am told he will be weighing our luggage today - nothing over 35 lbs.  Spent a week trying to get down to 35 pounds as I did not want to fail the weight test.  As a result I have 1 pair of underwear for 24 days (but lots of washing machine soap).  Hell it was either a rain coat or more underwear. Obviously the raincoat won out.

Good decision on the raincoat versus underwear decision!!!!

All  of the staff are strong riders so the chances of me riding with them on pretty low as well.  So that leaves hoping that Jim, Bill, Sara or John ride at my pace.  Bill looks pretty fast - so my partners choices are dwindling.

The weather in a couple of days does not look good. The forecast is calling for rain and high winds starting Weds.  We are taking an inch of rain and 30 mph winds.   This has got me a little worried and my fears were doubled when Mike last night said in all his rides (all 53) he has only cancelled two days (one for a hurricane and the second was for high winds) and that this might be his third cancellation.

Worst he mentioned this might be a 2+ day storm.  His opening speech did not inspire!

In any case the weather today looks great.  So I am going to head to breakfast and our team photo shoot.

More later......

Shipping Out!

One week to blast off.  I am in Lake Tahoe and will hit the mountain passes this weekend (and the Alpen Wine Festival).

My bicycle has arrived in Astoria, OR - which is the start of the ride.  I shipped my bike via Fed Ex and once again amazed on the route and the short time the bike took to get from Cape Cod to its final destination.

Why I did not buy stock in Fed Ex is beyond me.  Just hope it got there in one piece.

Last year one of the riders bikes got damaged in shipment (Amtrak) and was forced to buy a new bike in Santa Fe.  So it is always a crap shoot on whether your bike will arrive in one piece.  Nothing worst than getting to the ride only to find out that your bike is broken (or that your luggage and your 5 sets of fancy padded Lycra bike shorts did not get there).

My bike box this year is a Jetpack and is from a company called Biknd (out of Canada). Here it is just before being handed off to Fed Ex....

This is now my third different "box" for getting my bike out to a ride start.  My first shipment container was a big plastic box that I bought on Craigslist for $50.  Worked well for my first ride but the hinges fell apart after two shipments.   

My second "box" was a big cardboard box from a company called Shipbikes.com.  Worked real well except when it got to Santa Fe last year - one of the hotel maintenance guys didn't know that the shipment was for one of the guests and so he decided to open up the box with a box cutter.  

Luckily, I was able to repair it with 3 rolls of duct tape for the return shipment.  But that box is now history too - as duct tape can only work so long.  

Also for some of the readers - if you intend to ship your bike via the airlines (US Air) this box is a couple of inches longer than is permitted and may get rejected for loading on the flight - as I painfully found out in Kansas City on my return trip.  Thank god for my lifetime AA Executive status (and that AA had just bought US Air).

So I splurged and bought the Jetpack .....

While it is a soft pack (made out of heavy-duty fabric) it has two air bags on either side of the bag (just under each of the bike wheels) - sort of like the beach tubes you used when you where a kid. The use of fabric and the air bladders dramatically reduces the weight of the  container to 17 lbs.

So total weight (bike and bag) is 41 lbs.  Cost to ship to Oregon was $85 - significantly cheaper than shipping my old bike boxes and significantly less that the airlines would charge ($150).   And no TSA pre-flight checks!!

Getting ready for the next adventure

In a week I will be heading out to Squaw Valley for Labor Day and then heading to Astoria, Oregon the week after to start my next bike ride.  It will be 23 day trek down the Pacific Coast Highway with a total mileage of around 1400 miles.

Ride the West Tour

I will be using the America by Bicycle company again.  Last year when I rode the Santa Fe trail we camped the entire way.  The hell with that - I am going back to hotels!  Real beds and no bugs (hopefully).

My goal is to blog again - should be a hell of a lot easier having electricity and WiFi at each stop.

We are scheduled to ride about 65 miles per day.  This is the perfect amount of riding.

When we rode cross country - we averaged about 80 miles a day - with a lot of back-to-back 90-100 mile days.  By the time you  got your luggage, registered, cleaned your bike and took a shower it was time for dinner and then bed.

I think I am in shape for the ride having put in about 2500 miles since May .  Got the miles but not the elevation as training on the Cape does not help prepare you for the hills. So I am looking forward to getting out to Squaw and hitting the passes.  There are a couple of good 3000-4000 foot climbs that should help me cap off my training.

So hopefully you will follow along..  For those that signed up for either of the last two tours I think your email is still registered.  For you nubbies....  add your email into the box on the top right corner of the blog.

The adventure starts September 12th.