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Showing posts from 2012

Oregon Coast Ride: Back to Portland

Finally caught up with the blog posts of the Oregon Coast Ride. The night went OK. I setup the tent at dusk behind some trees out of sight from the street and neighbors. I was a little worried about the neighbors not knowing what was going on but nobody bothered me. I got up and tore down the tent at the crack of dawn and left the area. For the morning wash-up I stopped by the public restrooms at the tourist information again. At the bus stop and Porter Stage Lines office quite a few people gathered to ride the bus. Quite a bit of the discussion was about the bad economy in this area and that the logging restrictions/environmentalism is the major cause of it. It was surreal riding on the bus and seeing how quickly we rode through most of yesterdays ride. In Eugene I purchased the Amtrak bus ticket to Portland and had a delicious brunch at the Morning Glory Cafe right next to the station. The next week I spend mostly working with my team at the hotel but I did get some nice r...

Oregon Coast Ride: No Room at the Inn

Bennie and Julie invited to ride with them today. Our speeds are fairly similar. The only times I lagged behind was going down hill. At around 16 mph I top out with pedaling and rely purely on coasting. My bike also didn't seem to coast as fast as theirs but with 16 inch wheels I really didn't need to go any faster. From my GPS track it looks like the top speed was about 28 mph on the monster hill of Thursday. Julie and Benny. Quite a bit of today's ride was away from the ocean. Either through the forest or behind the large sand dunes. Sand dune. Ben and Julie on highway 101. At the end of the day we had to cross the Coos Bay bridge. We pushed the bikes along the narrow sidewalk of this huge bridge. At the middle of the bridge I dropped a flower and watched it's way to the water. It was amazing to see how long it took because the bridge was so tall. After the bridge I bid farewell to Benny and Julie as they continued on to the next state par...

Oregon Coast Ride: Surfing USA

Today I rode by myself again.  In the morning I passed a surf shop that wasn't open but had a photo-op place outside by the road. Today's ride was pretty nice as the road goes close to the ocean.  I set a pleasurable pace and stopped here and there.  I once went out on a sandy beach, wanting to push the bike along the beach for a while but I just got the bike sandy.  The tide was coming in and the beach wouldn't have been great to go a distance along it.  So it was back to the road again. Brompton out on the surf. Siletz Bay. The Pacific coast. Self portrait. I'm not sure if Depoe Bay does really have the smallest harbor, it still looked kind of big to me, but it has an impressive narrow entrance through rock walls over which the 101 bridge spans. If the sign says so it must be true. The Otter Crest Loop south of Depoe Bay was the best stretch to ride.  It runs parallel to 101 and due to it's narrowness is primarily a one-way str...

Oregon Coast Ride: Jungle Trees

With the fog over night nothing dries. Even my helmet pads that were dry in the evening are soaked in the morning thanks to the salt deposits from sweat. Not much one can do about the helmet but to dry clothing you'd just have to hang them out on your bike and become a moving clothing line. Daily clothes drying ritual. Views along the road while crossing a monster hill. Devil's Lake state park is quite neat as it's nestled in the middle of Lincoln City by a lake.  Right across the street (Hwy 101) is the ocean.  So after setting the tent up I headed over there to stroll a little along the beach. Lincoln City beach. Message to home. Proof that I was really there. At the campsite I meet several other cyclist.  A guy with a trailer did down and up loop along the coast and was on his way back home.  He considered this a training ride for a bigger and more remote ride to come.  That at least was his excuse for hauling way more than need...

Oregon Coast Ride: What a Wreck

Frank cooked me oatmeal and tea before we headed for the Peter Iredale shipwreck right at the Fort Stevens state park.  A nice asphalt trail leads to it as well as the rest of the park.  Its a really nice park and wouldn't mind to spend there a long weekend with the family.  The kids would really like it. Video of the shipwreck in eerie fog. Onboard the Iredale. The remnants show the size of the ship. I rode with Frank a portion of the day. We stopped together for lunch in Cannon Beach and went through the Arch Cape tunnel.  Frank decided it was better to push the bike through the tunnel.  I looked for a large gap in the traffic and rode quickly through the tunnel.  Only a couple cars passed me at the end. Haystack Rock in Cannon Beach. Frank emerging from the Arch Cape tunnel. Apropos traffic, it's horrible on highway 101.  There was lots of traffic especially midday when the weather was nice.  Nobody is giving...

Oregon Coast Ride: Reached the Coast

Portland, Oregon is where I will spend a week for work.  To spice the trip up a little I added some personal days up front to ride my Brompton folding bike down the coast.  This is the first of several blog entries about the bike tour. Flying always seem to cause a long day. Got up at 4 am to catch my flight out to Portland and after a long layover there I made camp at Fort Stephens State Park at about 10pm. Bike in hard shell, T-bag packed and ready to go along with tent and sleeping mat in other suitcase. Oh, yeah some stuff for the work part of the trip as well. At a park in Portland where I killed some time. On the bus to Warrenton I meet Frank with whom I rode in the dark to the hikers/bikers campsite.  He's from California riding the coast for nine days south to California.  There I also met Anders ( http://bicycle.plato.se ) from Sweden who rode his bike across the US and will finish soon in Seattle. High tech schedule board at the Amtra...

Half Day on RAGBRAI

Since RAGBRAI was passing near our home town my eight year old son and I went to ride part of it with the trail-a-bike.  We started in Story City and went the 44 miles to Marshalltown in about 6 1/2 hours.  9 am was certainly not to early to start as the crowds are already passing through Story City.  People must have gotten an early start with the high temperatures today (100 degrees Fahrenheit or a bit more). My son did great and had lots of fun.  Of course his highlight was in Marshalltown when we rode side by side with another kid on a trail-a-bike and he could talk with him.  I wish though he would let me rest a little longer at some of the breaks but he wanted to keep pushing forward. Especially at the beginning when the saw all the people passing by us.  Later he must have figured out that there are always more people coming, an never ending flow of them, and even requested some short rests. Riding with the Adams trail-a-bike was though due to th...

SON Hub Dynamo lighting on Brompton

During the Oxford to Atlanta ride I ended up riding in the dark on the bike trail. I had a very bright spot right in front of my front light which wasn't great when going fast. So tonight I was adjusting the light and went out for a four mile test ride.  It was a beautiful night and the bike rode so nicely again that I didn't want to turn around.  Adjusting the light so that the glass goes strait up and down (i.e 90 degree to the ground) is about correct.  You get a well lit cone and it makes a world of difference compared with how it was before. I compared the head light with my Planet Bike 2 Watt Blazer and found it outperformed it slightly.  The cool part is that it keeps the beam low where you need the light and doesn't blind oncoming traffic.  The Blazer has a round beam that shines quite high.  You can tell the difference when both lights are pointed at a wall.  All that light that's high up blinding oncoming traffic didn't help any on the d...

GAC: An out of the ordinary adventure

I try plan my hikes and rides so that they are somewhat efficient and gentle to the equipment and me. This means that I hike along hiking trails and ride asphalt roads with little traffic. I put some thoughts into it to make it enjoyable. But this weekend all that got thrown out of the window. My wife convinced me to participate in the Gladiator Assault Challenge, a 5.3 mile cross country run with 30 obstacles. Basically we paid $49 to run up and down a hill, get extremely muddy, climb over things and wade through water. Now what's not wrong with that picture? The issues are that you'll get soaking wet and muddy, need to crawl on dirt with rock and water, overcome wooden walls and other structures. Naturally I wanted to wear long pants and shirts that would protect my elbows and knees while crawling and with other things. My nylon hiking shirts and pants would have been good candidates but I really didn't want to ruin them since neither are cheap. I checked out G...

Fly - Ride - Bike:
Oxford, AL to Atlanta, GA Tour

 Don't like reading?  Skip to the video at the end. Thanks to the bicycle layer of Google maps my attention was drawn to the Chief Ladiga/Silver Comet trail that extends west from Atlanta into Alabama.  It would be a perfect activity in conjunction to my upcoming work trip to Atlanta.  Since then I decided to purchase a Brompton folding bike and of course being picky I had to special order it.  About four weeks before my trip I learned that the factory in Great Britain had a delay and wouldn't ship the bike until the following week.  Not knowing how long the shipping would take I started to think what to do if I wouldn't get the bike in time.  Other shipments from Europe that I received have easily taken more than a month to arrive.  So plan B was born, hiking the Springer Mountain summit from the Amicalola Falls, which is the southern end of the Appalachian trail.  The night would be spend at t...