Cycle Oregon, my favorite

Where to start???? Cycle Oregon was such a great time! It was beautiful, fun, exciting, interesting, challenging and rather on the bizarre side. Most of all fun though.

I don't even know how to put it all into words. I think, for now, as I'm EXHAUSTED, that I'll just give a few highlights and try to add photos and more details in the next few days. Forgive the haphazard, rambling nature of this post.

First off, my dad and I both finished - whoo hoo! A full week, 425 miles, Boardman to Condon to the Dalles to Rooster Rock to Champoeg to Vernonia to Astoria, with tons of towns and sites along the way. It is actually a bit surreal to reflect on where all we biked and how friggin' far that is. I developed a little knee issue around Day 3 and had to stop in the middle of Day 4 but Day 5 was a rest day and by Day 6 I was back on the bike (with a seat adjustment and a taped knee) and I finished the ride feeling really strong (just ask the macho boys I left in the dust on a hill toward the end of Day 7.) My dad developed a bit of a hamstring issue but would pause periodically to do some strange rolling and streching moves - one which I liken to a move our dog Pearl performs when she's found something really juicy to roll in - and had to slow it down a bit but also finished feeling good.

My favorite part of the ride: With a huge adventure like this it is tempting to say, "Oh I couldn't possibly pick a favorite!" In some ways that is true, there were a number of pieces, events, places that stick out as "favorites" but right now it feels pretty clear to me that my "favorite" of the ride was the morning of Day 2, riding out of Condon. Condon is a small town of 800ish in the high plateau wheat country of Eastern, Oregon. We slept on their golf course. The night had been very cold - in the 30's - and it wasn't a whole lot warmer when we got on the road around 7:30. We did some easy climbing out of Condon and found ourselves at the top of vast rolling hills of golden wheat with sun streaming in from the east. The sky was perfectly clear in a way you only get with crisp, dewey mornings and all around in the distance you could see the mountains. Hood, Jefferson, Adams, St. Helens and more. It was so clear and clean and fresh and distinctly different from the lush, green, forresty, rainy Willamette Valley to the west that is the image people often have of Oregon. It was also a good deal of downhill stretching out in front of me! Which after Day 1 and its 80-miles, 6100ft elevation gain, ending with a 12+mile climb was a very welcome sight!

Okay, I'll end there tonight and will regal you (is that the right word?) with tales of Sturdy Girls, the Bike Rodeo, the crazy cult of bicycling, climbing the Astoria Column, and other such highlights.