Sunday, August 16, 2009
Day 62: Redmond, OR to Eugene, OR
Today was going to be an extra good day. Our first stop of the day would be in Sisters, where we were going to meet Jillian's parents and give them our trailer. Then, almost seventy pounds lighter, we'd tackle the last real pass of the trip and head into the Willamette valley. As an extra bonus, we'd get an almost 5000 foot downhill from the top of the pass to Eugene.
Our first real stop may have been in Sisters, but we decided to stop at the grocery store down the street first. Motel 6's are cheap, but don't provide much in the way of a free breakfast in the morning. While I was feeling a little sick - likely from too much Mexican food - that didn't stop me from my usual donuts and doubleshots at Safeway.
The view on the way from Redmond to Sisters was fantastic.
I best remember one steep, though short climb, which just about killed me because I wasn't feeling well. I wasn't more than 200 feet, but the combination of Mexican food and heat was enough to slow me down.
Jillian's parents beat us to Sisters, and rather than hang out and wait they thought they'd drive east and find us. They found us about three miles away - though we had some trouble finding them, since we were waiting in a parking lot and they were driving a rental. But they took our trailer and left to find parking somewhere in town, which made the bike a lot lighter.
We met them just inside Sisters, which was accurately described by Jillian's mother as a town from the shore, but without the shore. We ate at a cute cafe. It's hard to describe how hungry you get a bike tour. Some of the people we'd talked to that had toured said we'd likely finish and spend a month just eating and drinking, trying to get the body caught up.
We couldn't stay long with Jillian's parents, since we'd arrived in Sisters much later than we'd originally wanted. We left them there to explore the town while we pressed on for McKenzie pass.
We didn't start very intimidated.
The road was flat for a long time. But it was a tree lined, so we were able to ride in the shade, which was incredibly important. We also felt like we were flying, with our unusually light bicycle. One other awesome thing about this pass: No trucks or RVs. The road simply isn't wide enough, particularly on turns.
As we raced to the top, we realized we were making great time. We also hadn't seen Jillian's parents yet. So we did the competitive thing and decided to race them. We only made one brief stop for Jillian's foot pain and to swap out water bottles.
Imagine our surprise when we literally came around a bend and saw this:
There's a 65 square mile lava field on top of the pass. We had no idea it was going to be there, and no idea we'd be riding through it.
We arrived at the top of the pass only minutes before Jillian's parents did, meaning we'd won. To celebrate our victory, they'd brought us Subway and fresh Powerade!
We took some time to explore the observatory.
Then it was time for our long awaited downhill. The top of the pass is at 5325 feet. Eugene, our goal, is at 430 feet. That's 4895 feet of vertical drop. I could hardly contain my excitement.
Of course, we were moving slow. While riding on a little downhill I noticed that if we coasted we'd come to a stop. I got really, really frustrated. Our last big hill of the entire trip, and we're having brake problems? This was just like the tire rub way back outside of Bedford, PA.
When we first sat down to work on the bike, I tried just spinning the wheel to see if there was a problem. Without any weight on the wheel, it would stop very quickly. I did what I could, using our chain check tool to pry apart the brake pads and then getting Jillian to balance the bike so that we could lower it down and align the pads perfectly. Finally, with our brake problem mostly fixed, we got going again.
This time, the descent was wonderful. It was a long series of shaded switchbacks, with almost no traffic. We were able to take advantage of both lanes while we descended for the next sixteen miles. Watching the trees was fun, too. The further down we went, the higher the trees got.
At the bottom of the descent, we found Jillian's parents chatting with some motorcyclists at a little parking area. They were rather concerned, since we'd taken a while to come down the hill and there'd been an accident at the top while we were descending. Apparently someone had backed out of a parking space near the observatory and backed right in to someone. Her parents were, understandably, a little worried when they started hearing sirens.
Her parents departed and went to Eugene to watch a baseball game while we rode along the McKenzie River.
This was some wonderful riding. Wide shoulder, slightly downhill, and no wind. There were even other cyclists. To keep things interesting, we decided to pretend we were a pirate ship and needed to catch the other ships in order to raid their stuff. We caught two, but didn't raid anything.
A few miles down we stopped at a little general store and had some ice cream. There's something about reaching the end of your tour that makes you feel kind of lazy - or like you don't want to finish.
This road was extra awesome, as it had something wonderful: bathrooms every few miles. Then we spotted this sign:
We knew the one sign was for fishing, and another was for picnics, but what was the last one? Jillian decided it must be for dolphin riding (We think it was actually for a fish hatchery). Dolphin riding, downhills, shoulders, and bathrooms? Oregon was our bicycling fantasy. Jillian even wrote a song titled, "Oregon, you're our bicycling fantasy"
On our way down the road, we called two cyclists who also owned a Pino. Aaron and Laura Beese also owned a Pino, and had spent almost two years riding to the geographic centers of 46 of the 50 states (I wasn't able to find their website to link to). They'd promised to host us in Eugene. But we'd kind of forgotten to call them until we were only a few hours out of Eugene, and we weren't able to get in touch with them.
It started getting late, again. Jillian's parents called us up, wondering when in the world we were going to arrive in Eugene. We didn't really have an answer. They drove out to meet us and give us our stuff back. But when they met us, we convinced them to find us a hotel room and drop our stuff off there. They also let us know about a TV reporter they'd met, and who was interested in meeting with us in the morning. After giving her parents a bit more stuff, they drove off. Aaron and Laura called us back, but we now already had a place to stay. We agreed to meet them in the morning.
By now, it was quite dark. But this was Oregon. We didn't care. There were wide bike lanes, and plentiful lighting. Our real problem was staying on the right road. We were even stopped by some cops, who just wanted to tell us how awesome our bike was. We ended up at a Day's Inn, which was almost brand new. We wheeled our stuff down to our room - meeting Jillian's parents in the parking lot and thanking them over and over. Then it was time for some dinner.
We got some pizza at a place nearly next door. It was a little slow, but then it was after ten.
Today ended up being an amazing day. We powered over the pass, had an amazing descent, had an awesome ride along the McKenzie and wound up with warm food after it was dark for once.
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| posted at: 04:05 |
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