Monday, June 29, 2009

North Bend, OR


We are siting in a coffee place near Coos Bay. Ev has finished her class work. We still have 10 miles and one more steep hill to go.


The ride yesterday was long (65+ miles). There were some climbs, a good fruit smoothie midway, and a great lunch. The last 15 miles we had the wind in our face. Even though we were going down hill, it felt like we were going nowhere fast. We bought dinner makings at a Safeway and rode to camp. It was a great campground. Nine other riders stayed at the site - many going to SF. It was fun to compare stories. we will probably see some of them tonight (if we get there).


The mystery griding is solved (mostly.) We had breakfast, broke camp and headed out. We were looking forward to a light house that supposedly had wi-fi. Every hill the grinding noise got worse. We stopped and I again looked over the bike. I finally wiggled the rear crank and it was loose. I did not have the right size hex wrench, but I used a screw driver. When we got to the next town we found a Napa Auto Parts. They did not have the right size. A guy, who was a mechanic for an engineering contractor told us to go out to his truck. He had the right size and the noise is almost gone.


It is still very windy, but mostly at our backs. We had to walk over the Coos Bay Bridge. It's long and scary, even to walk it. I was riding the brakes even though we were pushing it.
That's it for now. It's 5:30; we still need to ride 10 more miles, find food, and our camp!

Saturday, June 27, 2009

In Eugene

We, and the bike made it to Eugene! I am sitting in the lounge of our Bed and Breakfast. We tried to find a simple hotel but everything was booked up. We now know that the national track and field championships are being held here. It's quite a lovely place.

Kendal drove us to the train station and we packed up the bike using two bike boxes telescoped together. A group of five bicyclists rode in from Santa Cruz and arrived around the same time. They were taking the train to Vancouver and planned to ride the entire Pacific Coast Trail to San Diego. Another guy was packing his folding bike into a box, on his way up to see his mom in Portland. I do not think the ticket agent had seen so many bikes in one day and was quite overwhelmed. There was talk of not enough boxes, and if there would be enough room on the train, but everybody (and bikes) made it on.



After boarding the train and stashing our stuff we went directly to the dining car for dinner. We had a small (very small) sleeper cabin. I got the top bunk! I think we slept some. Breakfast in the lounge car, hung around and Ev worked on her paper, I read my Kindle. Lunch, then packed up. Our plan was to exit the train, and I was to run to the baggage car to make sure our bike got off. I got there just as the porter dropped our bike on the ground (he said he was sorry.) Kendal, the bubble wrap worked. No apparent damage. I put the handle bars and peddles on, loaded up and off we went to find the B&B.

The B&B serves breakfast around 8:30AM. We plan to be on the road soon after. Next stop, Florence, OR. 65 miles away and one scary tunnel.

Wednesday, June 24, 2009

Packing

Tonight we (actually Evelyn) packed. Decisions abound. "Do we really need this? Do we need that? How many of these?" Tomorrow is our last day at work. Ev has to proctor testing most of the day. I will work like crazy until I come to the realization that I will not get everything done. I hope to clean up the bike tomorrow and oil the chain and other parts. Our bike does not have a name. Maybe it should? Hopefully tomorrow night is the calm before the storm. We have lists that we have been steadily crossing things off on. Everything should be ready to go for a early Friday drive to the Bay Area. We get to see the boys and our Kendal. She will take us to the train, help us pack up the bike into a bike box and see us off. Do trains have wireless? Probably not.

Sunday, June 21, 2009

The Big Trip

Ev & I will ride from Eugene, Oregon to San Fransisco starting on June 26th. Family and friends can e-mail me and I will send you an itinerary. This trip will be a combination self supported, sag wagon and credit card tour. We will ride about 650 miles in 14 days. The whole trip will last 17 days. Ev will have a computer along so she can keep up with her class and I will blog our progress. We might get a twitter account, but this next week is crazy busy, so we will see. Keep in touch by either e-mail or posting a response to the blogs.

Rob

Our first overnight, self contained trip!

In preparation of our upcoming trip, we did our first self-contained overnight ride. We drove to Filmore, CA and left the car near City Hall. Leaving around 5PM from Filmore, we rode to Oxnard, CA. There was a steady head wind the entire trip. We found our way out of Filmore and rode on Hwy 126. Lots of traffic and pretty noisy - we had to really concentrate on riding. We were carrying almost 6o lbs. of gear for the first time. When riding with the added weight, it did not feel that different. Riding slowly or pushing the bike and you can really feel it.

We got off 126 at Santa Paula to Telegraph Road. After a short ride through the city, we were riding through orchards and commercial flower farms. The sky turned overcast and there was a heavy mist in the air. These were not really ideal riding conditions; my sunglasses were pretty blurry.

We made it to McGrath campground around 7:30PM. We checked in and paid for a hiker/biker site ($5/person) and set up camp. There was one other biker there, but we never saw him until the morning. We really tried to mimic our upcoming trip. Ev had prepackaged a pasta dinner. We had planned to stop for some wine or beer on the way, but always thought there would be one more opportunity. We asked one of the camp hosts if there was a store close and he said there was one about a mile away. We rode over to the store and purchased some wine, crackers, oysters and Nutter Butters. All total, we rode a little over 30 miles (we will average 50 on our trip)

We got back and started cooking our dinner using our head lamps. A large Boy Scout Troop descended on us and started to set up camp. We feared a long noisy night, but did not hear them once after we went into our tent for the night.

The night was wet and uncomfortable. I guess our old and injured bodies are not made for thin thermarests any more (See below for the trip to REI). It was again heavily misting at 2AM.

Breakfast was instant oatmeal and coffee. We got around, packed up and ate. We were out of the campground by 9AM, the required checkout time for the site.

The ride back to Filmore was much better than ride the day before. We had the wind to our backs and no mist. We stopped a couple times for a break or snack. Hwy 126 was again busy but not as bad. Trucks full of lemons sped by and smelled wonderful. We had a rubbing/grinding noise that we never could find the origin of. We were back at the car around 11:30AM. We rode just under 30 miles.

After a quick lunch at a local taco stand we went to see Taylor in Pasadena. We then went to REI and purchased some blow up sleeping pads and other essential items from our list we made. Even though it was a short trip, we learned a lot for the big trip (see next post)

Rob