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Straight from crewing RAAM, Bike Friday Club of Atlanta co-leader How does a Friday fare on a journey like this? THE TOUR BEGINS ... Eleven cyclists (including five on Bike Fridays) gather outside baggage claim at the Portland airport to embark on our 800 mile, two-week cycling tour on the Lewis and Clark route from Astoria, OR to Missoula, MT. We take a chartered bus with our boxed bikes and luggage to begin our tour in Astoria. Astoria is a quaint town. Our Holiday Inn Express has a beautiful sitting next to a high 4-mile bridge across the Columbia River. A five mile boardwalk including a tourist train travels along the river behind our hotel into the historic cannery areaof Astoria. We can view beautiful sunsets from our hotel and watch huge ocean/river vessels travel along the river. At dinner Ron makes his opening toast of the tour. Here’s to you and here’s to me, the best of friends we’ll ever be, but if we should ever disagree, to hell with you and here’s to me. |
We continue our ride over coastal mountains to the beach at Seaside. We had a great view from the top looking over the Pacific Ocean. We cycle into Seaside which is a busy little town and has the typical tourist trap shops and restaurants. The beach is wide and white and even with the chilly weather is still quite busy. We do our photo shoot in front of the bronze Lewis & Clark statue looking out to the ocean. Fog has rolled in during lunch and it’s cold and nippy along the coast. Three cyclists decide to take the historic Highway
In the distance was the snow-covered Mt. St. Helens – beautiful! We saw huge bird’s nests in the top of some of the metal towers along the river. Eagles, possibly?
We start the day as group to tackle the massive bridge crossing over the Columbia River and back into Oregon. Shari notices Chick’s arms are shaking, he’s looking straight ahead and moving slowly. Yup, Chick is afraid of heights. Not his “happy place”. We stop along the way and take pictures of the river and massive lumber mill located on the river. After the crossing we’re back into Oregon and once again traveling on Highway 30. This section is much better than yesterday. The shoulder is wider, cleaner and the road is flatter. The scenery is beautiful as it parallels the river. White fluffy things are blowing in the wind. We’re riding along Cottonwood trees and they’re shedding. It’s going to be a “hot one” today. The temps make it to the 90’s. We arrive in the northern side of Portland near the popular Pearl District known for shopping, restaurants and entertainment. Some of us hop back onto our bikes and spend a couple of hours exploring the Pearl District, downtown, Oregon State University and the city park. |
Today will be a long day and possibly the most gorgeous scenery of the trip in the gorge along the Columbia River. Was I naive to think today would be a relatively flat day along the Columbia River through the gorge? Not! The scenic highway was built with some long Three of us detour to the Bonneville Fish Hatchery. We wanted to see the 25’ sturgeon. The sturgeon is a fish that was around during prehistoric times and nearly became extinct due to over-fishing. Strict regulations now protect it and you can only catch sturgeons Today is a “first” for riding my bike on an interstate highway. The Adventure Cycling maps route us along I-84 for 15 miles today. The first stint was 4 miles long where Janet had her fourth flat tire. This section is under construction so the right lane is blocked to traffic which allows us to have a lane to ourselves on the other side of the cones. Not so bad. The last 11 miles was not as nice although after a couple of miles the “terror factor” subsides. For the most part, we have a wide shoulder to ride on but is rather gravely and crunchy. The worst part is along the bridges where the shoulder narrows to four feet and every 50’ is a drainage grate to avoid. We had ~1/2 mile of those conditions. To the right is solid rock where they cut through the gorge. To your left are tractor-trailers flying by at 70 mph, often in the right lane. Holding your breath isn’t the greatest technique when exercising but it seemed to work well during those moments. Getting to our hotel we cross over I-84 a couple of miles later and notice the traffic on the interstate is stopped and being diverted through town. Up the road there is a forest fire and the smoke is so thick there is no visibility for driving. I guess better timing would have been if the traffic was stopped while we were riding along I-84. The town of Hood River has a lot of personality. Since it is the wind surfing / kite-boarding capital of the U.S., it has a very outdoorsy “feel”. Our rooms at the Quality Inn have patios looking onto the Hood River with the mountains in the background. There is also a running path from our hotel over to the beach. On the a.m. news I learn the fire is contained and the roads are open again. It burned 300 acres. We ride alongside it while it’s still smoldering. Being in the desert climate now it must have been more of a grass fire since there are very few trees. The landscape is mostly brown grass and lots of rocks. Unless it’s irrigated, it looks dead. Breakfast begins at a cute little restaurant with gorgeous pancakes and a view out the window of Mt. Adams. When Lewis & From the heights we can watch the trains go by along the river. Ron has calculated one train to be a mile long. In Dalles we missed our turn to the bridge taking us over the Columbia River into Washington so we go “off-roading” pushing our bikes up the hill over the rocks Today’s scary moment was riding on a 2-foot shoulder next to a guardrail with a tractor trailer flying by holding his lane while meeting another tractor trailer. Between his gust and the cross winds it was really challenging to keep the bike on my little piece of shoulder. It’s
Today we’re heading east with great tailwinds and very little climbing. We averaged 19 – 21 mph through much of the ride. When we get into Patterson, WA we stop at Columbia Crest Winery for some sips of wine. The countryside has changed to brown – either brown, dead-looking grass or, dirt mixed with rocks. This is considered high desert. We still have the canyon walls next to us but now they are brown rather than green and covered with foliage. Occasionally you’ll see patches of green on the canyon walls. It’s vineyards that are irrigated. Further east we see more irrigating. Farmers are raising potatoes, carrots, corn, onions and other veggies. We approach Umatilla and get on a dead end street that takes us to a bike trail that will allow us to crossover the Columbia River back into OR without riding on I-82. Some of our group came through earlier though and missed the trail and ended up riding on the interstate over the river. Needless to say, it was a white-knuckled ride as fast as they could pedal. |
We have another day in the high desert which is quite beautiful. In Lewis & Clark era, it was called a Sagebrush Desert. Today, there is less sagebrush. Much of it is very aromatic though, similar to Rosemary. We also see Cattails growing when we’re near a stream. We turn off the road to view Hat Rock up close. Hat Rock is an odd out-cropping of the basalt rocks, looking like a hat. In route we met Tjoan Liang (www.st82st8usa.nl) from the Netherlands. He’s cycling on a fully loaded recumbent in the U.S. from April to September. His journey began in Atlanta then goes to VA, CO, OR and San Diego. In his youth (now 48) he spent 2 years 3 months Walla Walla is well known for wine. We make a stop at Three Rivers Winery as we’re nearing town. They are one of the oldest wineries (1999) and one of the few in the area to have a female winemaker. Luck is with us since this is the weekend of the Onion Festival in Walla Walla. Main Street is closed and lined with vendors and a stage for music and dancing. Walla Walla, WA to Pomeroy, WA Today we met another interesting cyclist traveling cross-country from St. Petersburg, FL to Astoria, OR. From there he plans to take a train back from Portland -> Chicago -> D.C. -> Tampa sleeping on the train for the four days. He’s the poor college student type with the While eating lunch at the local burger joint, one of the bored locals, Jack, convinces us to to on an alternate route over the canyon which should save us 6 miles but be much more scenic. We go into this knowing we’ll hit a few miles of gravel road but the scenery will be We arrive at the gravel road 10 miles later. I’m the first one in Jack’s truck since the heat ~100 degrees) has zapped my energy and I have no desire to ride on gravel. The gravel road started at the peak of the climb so it’s all downhill on gravel, much of it steep. Back on Back on pavement, one cyclist got up to 47 mph on the descent. Jack never stopped talking from the moment we met him. I don’t think he realized I fell asleep in the truck while he was talking. I learned lots about the various grains grown in the area – wheat, barley, oats and rape (for canola oil). Most of the wheat is a soft variety that is loaded on ships and delivered to Japan and Asia and used for noodles. We see wheat growing for miles around us on family farms. One family may raise 1,000 acres and spend a month harvesting the wheat. Grains are not irrigated like many of the other crops. We decide there’s a reason why the Adventure Cycling maps for the Lewis & Clark route guide us down Highway 12 rather than Jack’s gravel route. We did enjoy the adventure and it was much more fun spending the day on our bikes rather than rushing to tonight’s humble (and only) hotel in Pomeroy. Pomeroy, WA to Lewiston, ID Today is a short day of 35 miles and we’re all ready for tomorrow’s rest day. After a 10 mile climb to Alpowa summit, the high point today is a 12 mile descent of approx 2,000' to the Snake River valley. The twin cities of Lewiston and Clarkston straddle the Snake River at the |
AT THE START ... We had eleven cyclists – 5 Fridays, 5 Roadies and For the five Bike Friday riders, the beauty of that was the ease of DURING THE TRIP ... I was very happy I chose to put a triple crank on my Crusoe. It made the climbs much more pleasant. I was also very glad I chose a V-brake rather than then typical road bike caliper brake. The V-brakes worked great on the mountain descents. The only difference in the speed of descent between the road bikes and the Fridays was the cyclists itself. An experienced cyclist on a Friday had all the guts and speed required to descend just as fast as a road bike. The only thing slowing me on the descents was not having the similar "nerves of steel". That’s why I was very comfortable knowing my V-brakes would slow me to the speed which I was comfortable. We had a variety of flat tires for various reasons. The five Friday's had a combination of Shrader and Presta valves. A swap worked well when I mistakenly bought Presta tubes and could give them to a fellow traveler. I also learned there is an accessory that can be purchased to convert a wheel requiring a Shrader to into a Presta tube. That's a nice gadget to carry along in your saddle bag in case you run out of spares and patches and need to switch over to Presta. I found it much easier to meet people along the journey while AT THE END ... Upon our arrival in Missoula we gathered in the parking garage to dis-assemble bikes. We pulled the cartons/luggage out of the support vehicle and worked in the parking garage. The Fridays went in the suitcases quickly and took much less time than the road bikes in the group. Imagine if Lewis and Clark had done their journey on a Friday! |
RELATED LINKS More Lewis & Clarke on a Friday Bike Friday Club of Atlanta Join those funsters in Georgia! |