Wednesday, August 19, 2015
Tuesday, August 18, 2015
Monday, August 17, 2015
Eugene to Jefferson Photos
Break #1 25 miles in at Harrisburg. I wasn't supposed to go to Harrisburg. I totally screwed up following the Willamette Scenic Bikeway.
Trees! Oh trees and your fleeting windblock!
Scenic. (and smoky, there should be hills in the background)
Oh. So. Scenic.
Trees planted in neat little rows, as if they understand that the valley is a friggin' summer-time wind tunnel.
The Tattooine Scenic Bikeway.
Hey look, a route-finding sign! Kind of nice, actually, when they are actually there.
I'm up a hill here. A real hill. Still windy.
My new dashboard, complete with cue-sheet for the bikeway that is missing cues.
Doesn't really matter though. So far it's a tour of dirt farmers. I should have done this ride in June or July.
People practicing near the dugouts that I want to sleep in. The green grass is concerning. I hope none of the sprinklers point into my dugout.
2015 Oregon Tour, Day 1, Eugene to Jefferson, Or
Holy cow headwinds batman. Head. Winds. Headwinds headwinds headwinds headwinds. I just road 70 miles at between 10 an 12 mph, working by butt off the whole time. (Normally cruising in the flats should be more like 18mph).
I knew there would be headwinds today. The forecast predicted 15mph N winds, as well smoke from the County Line 2 (Warm Springs) fire to be blown in over the cascades from the East. Both were right, but it was hard to tell if haze in the area was just from the smoke, or if it was also from the winds kicking up dirt from all the barren dirt fields. It turns out that Late August is not the best time to tour the Willamette Valley.
Today was 70 miles, with 5:29 on bike time. I left a bit after 10am, which was silly because I should have left at 6am to beat the wind, but I didn't because leaving for your own house on a bike tour takes FOREVER. I left after 1pm to start my tour last summer.
So far the Willamette Scenic Bikeway is pretty enough, but not that much better than what you see on I-5, at least not in late August anyway. I did miss a big section of it between Coburg and Peoria because I took the wrong road - which saved me 10 miles but also cost me what I must assume was the prettiest biking in Oregon ever. Or not. I don't know. It was friggin windy.
Jefferson is a suburb of Albany or Salem or both, so it's not a great place to stay. It's a town of 3k (too big) without a good sleeping park. I did find one spot down by the river, but it's real near a homeless camp which could cause me trouble and is pretty exposed. Right now I'm in a middle school / public park making dinner and scoping out some baseball dugouts, my favorite stealth camping spots. They should work great provided the football practice currently nearby leaves so I can go set up discretely. I also need to find water, because all the faucets are hooked up to hose spigots. This could be.. interesting...
I should also mention - in a strange coincidence I met another bagger on the road (I forgot his name) who has a mutual friend with Iris and I, and is already setup to stay with at my place tomorrow on his bike tour. We'd never met before, but someone found each other on the road in Jefferson. Crazy.
Sunday, August 16, 2015
August Adventure: Tour Du Wildfires!
Or, maybe, life is too short NOT to avoid bike touring because of ass-loads of wildfires.
Well, either way, I leave tomorrow for a 12-day, 750 to 850 mile Oregon loop bike tour, my last adventure before I have to report back to work on September first. I should be able to avoid the fires, but I'm worried about smoke (more on that later). It's been a good summer, and so far this blog has recorded (mostly via instagram) some of my longer adventures, including a 9-day, 100 mile hike on the southern PCT, a week out at Oregon Country Fair, and a week riding across Iowa with 15,000 of my closest friends and Team RoadShow. This, however, will be my first self-supported bike ride since my 2014 62 day, 4,064 mile trip (blogged starting here). I have been riding, mountain biking, hiking, and running all summer, however, so I feel well prepared for this trip.
This post, in a way, picks up where I last left off with my explanation of why I bike tour. I'm especially excited about this trip for a couple of reasons. 1) It's been almost a year since I finished my last one, so I need to get back out. 2) It's about half-through known parts of Oregon that I know and love, and half-through new parts of Oregon that I hope to soon love. 3) It's the debut and test of my new 20lb lighter touring setup!
Of course, I'll be blogging the whole trip here as my personal diary, and hopefully some of you will find it interesting as well. For my own records, I'm going to dedicated the rest of this post to pack lists and routing. My ego says you will still be interested. (I explained a little bit about why I keep this blog back before my PCT trip).
Packing
I shaved 20lbs off my setup partly by switching my stove setup from a Whisperlite International White Gas system to an MSR Pocket Rocket canister stove. If I were to be doing a longer trip I would try building an pop-can alcohol stove (only slightly lighter than the Pocket Rocket) because HEET is easier to find than canister fuel (but a similar weight). However, for a 12-day trip I only need one fuel canister, so I'm not bothering. Canister stoves are also less likely to start forest fires than pop-can liquid fuel stoves (or so I hear).
I also shaved weight by upgrading my sleeping pad, and switching my front panniers and racks from standard style (JANND and Axioms) to Salsa Anything Cages and Bags (4lbs saved total), and several other more minor tweaks I learned from backpacking earlier in the year. This setup also seems more aerodynamic. I'm still carrying relatively heavy extras, including a tarp (about 1 lb, really nice though in addition to my ground cloth), a Kindle, A Ukelele (2.5lbs), a bluetooth keyboard (<1 lb), Juggling Balls (1 lb), Solar Panel (>1 lb), a leg roller, etc. I could be lighter, but right now I'm at about 40 lbs of gear on a 35 lb bike, which I think is a good compromise between lightness and fun.
I've posted my pack list here in case people are interested. I've started organizing it by bag/location rather than type of item because that's easier for me to pack with. I've also started organizing things into sub-bags to make it easier to pack for other trips. For example, my dop kit, ditty kit, and butt bag are the same for backpacking as they are for bike touring. Things in red are debatable, things in green have fluid packing locations to keep my load balanced and may change from day to day.
If you are interested in more "How to Bike Tour" stuff. Please check out the guide I wrote last spring.
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| Working pack list (click to embiggin) |
The Route
The route is basically the Willamette Scenic Bikeway from Eugene to Portland (if I can follow it, it's complicated), then the Columbia River Gorge to the Dalles (I did that before in 2007 and loved it), then a zig-zaggy route south towards John Day that hits Old West Scenic Bike Way and Blue Mountain Century Senic Bikeway and then takes the Adventure Cycling Trans Am route back to Eugene over McKenzie Pass (I did the TA route the other direction in 2003 and 2014).
The Willamette Scenic Bikeway can be read about here. The route I'm taking is almost exactly that, plus a spur into Portland as seen on the map below. That will change slightly, however, since that map currently points to my buddy Mark's old Portland house, not his new Portland house (where I will be staying).
This is NOT a short or direct route to Portland, and may be the only time I take it for that purpose, but I figured I should do it at least once.
The Columbia River Gorge bike route is well mapped here. There are three alternate roads that you can choose from, and I'll be mostly taking the Old Columbia River Highway all the way to The Dalles.
The Random Oregon Zig-Zags: Depending on how I'm feeling at this point, and how the wildfires are doing in central Oregon, I'll take either a long or short route, first hitting the Blue Mountain Scenic Bikeway and then the Old West Scenic Bikeway.
Short Version:
Long Version:
My choice will be heavily dependent on how the huge Canyon Creek Complex fire South of John Day is doing. I'm reasonably sure I can avoid the fires (unless more start), but I don't know if I can avoid the smoke. There are tons of fires, including some that will hassle my on my way back to Eugene as well. You can see a map of all the fires here.
My return route from John Day / Mitchell is simple. I just take the AC Trans Am Route over Mckenzie Pass back to Eugene. Assuming the County Line 2 / Warm Springs fire doesn't blow up the whole area.
My final bit of information is are approximate overnight towns and approximate mileages to those towns. This list will almost certainly change several times as the trip progresses. Alternates are annotated on the list in a confusing manner.
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| Click to Embiggen |