I went on my first bike "tour" this past weekend. "Mini-tour" is probably more accurate as it was only 3.5 days/ 3 nights. I did ride in 6 counties though, which makes it sound like I went further than I did. The route began and ended on the light rail to bypass riding through 20 miles of suburbs. From there my pedaling route was a loop out to the northern Oregon coast.
This was a group ride that was organized by Portland bike camping denizens, Cycle Wild. There were 11 of us on the trip but for one reason or another I rode most of the first 2.5 days solo. The route through the coast range was bucolic and largely uneventful. I saw a deer crossing a river but the highlight was stumbling on to the lunch stop for a home-brewed bicycle event called 'Couve to Coast. The CtoC started a couple years ago as a family ride (they're a big bicycling family) but now includes friends and co-workers. They were talking about making a web site for next year and opening it up as a public event. They invited me to share their impressive spread of food. Their generosity and company was a nice slice of humanity of a day that was largely just me on the bike pedaling through the countryside. Tat evening the group re-grouped at Kate's house in the small town of Wheeler, OR. Kate is a friend of some of the Cycle Wild regulars. Her house was a perfect place for nearly a dozen road weary cyclists to shower, eat pizza and stay up too late socializing. I had only been on the coast highway a few minutes when I ran into my first "real" bike tourist. She was a bubbly girl, probably in her early 20s headed from Vancouver, Canada to San Diego, CA. She was riding a non-branded lugged steel mixte that was probably older than her. She said that other than the new tires/tubes the bike was as she bought it a couple years ago for $100. Once on the coast I went into "tourist mode"… stopping at nearly every beach, overlook and landmark. My average speed dropped to something like 5mph. There's some beautiful coastline out there. We camped the last night at the hiker/biker site at Cape Lookout State Park. It was everything good I imagine camping with an 11 person group tour like this could be… fire, stories, cards, and one of the women whipped up some muffins cooked over the fire inside of orange skins. The final day started early. The short mileage and gallivanting for a full day on the coast was the reward, and we paid for it on the final day. 90-miles and 6000ft of climbing later I was home and headed to the shower. graphic evidence here<http://www.flickr.com/photos/15966859@N07/sets/72157631414832594/> -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "RBW Owners Bunch" group. To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msg/rbw-owners-bunch/-/MPSB7FwAgTwJ. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected]. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/rbw-owners-bunch?hl=en.
