Cycle Oregon: The Weekend - The Land at Eden's Gate
Day 1: Champoeg to Monmouth (58.2 miles)
Jada and I embarked on our first Cycle Oregon weekend, and Jada on her first organized ride, on our Tandem. We had been training for the last several weekends to prepare for this ride. Unfortunately, my fitness unraveled 2 weeks before the ride when I got sick and couldn't make it to the gym, followed by a 4 day vacation with the family, and finally being oncall and having to put in 41 hours in a 3 day span. To make matters worse, we made the mistake of telling the girls that we were going away for the weekend, so they were extremely misbehaved when it was bed time. Ellen was especially ill-tempered about our impending absence and refused to be quiet and fall asleep. She finally did, but it was a very fitful sleep, and she woke up extra early. Neither Jada nor I was able to sleep either, even though we both tried to be quiet since we assumed that the other was already asleep. It wasn't a great night to have before the ride. But at least we did find time to get the bag all packed.
But we pushed on anyway. The ride started in Champoeg State Park which is only about 40 minutes from our house. The official start time was listed as 8am with a ribbon cutting ceremony slated for 9am. But since registration opened at 7am, we opted to shoot for that time instead. My mom and dad had planned their vacation around this trip so we could leave the girls with them while we were away, so my dad dropped us. After registering and getting our bag on the baggage truck, we spent a bit of time trying to take a picture of us in front of one of the official Cycle Oregon Subaru Outback support vehicles only my camera didn't work. We couldn't get the button to depress. We finally gave up and put the camera in the Camelbak for later. We then sent dad back home since he had to take the girls to their respective Saturday classes. The weather report I had checked said that there wasn't supposed to be rain until later in the early evening, so I decided not to bring my rain coat or pants. It was supposed to be mostly cloudy though. However, much to our surprise the sun started trying to break through. It was still cool, though, so Jada wore her tights and jacket, while I put on my vest and arm warmers. I was also wearing the new Cookie Monster jersey I had gotten for Christmas with matching socks. We waited around for a while making our potty stops and doing our stretching. Jada ran into someone she knew (as always). Then we started getting antsy to get on the road. We had already decided to skip the ribbon cutting ceremony, and it was almost 8am, so we went ahead and pushed off.
We weren't the only ones leaving under the big start banner either. Of course, about 5 minutes into the ride that meandered on a bike path through Champoeg, we almost had our trip cut short by a huge bump in the middle of the trail that caused our pedals to hit and give us a jolt. Luckily we stayed up-right and moving, but it was certainly a wake up call. The rest of the morning passed fairly uneventfully except for our camera not working (we have no pictures from our trip.) The scenery through the valley was beautiful, and the sun kept pushing it's way through. We were moving at a nice pace, and Jada started to worry that I had mislead her about the social aspect of the tour. We kept passing people, but after a while, it seemed to her that we were the only ones out there because she couldn't see around me. The first tandem we came across was a man and his 7-year old daughter. She had the shorts and even little cleated shoes. Their Santana didn't have a kid stoker kit, but it did have the pedal extenders to help with the difference in reach. The next stop was lunch. We pulled in for lunch just before 10am at the Willamette Mission State Park. There was an event photographer near the entrance to the park, so we'll have to see if the picture turns out. At lunch, we had a great BBQ chicken sandwich that they were BBQ-ing right there. It was here that we saw many other tandems including one pulling a trailer with 1 child in it. We also saw an Oscar the Grouch jersey and one with Bert and Ernie. We also met and had lunch with a woman that used to work quite a bit with the Sesame Street company (I can't recall her actual line of work, but she did get to go visit the set in NY and meet Big Bird). It was quite the Sesame Street gang.
After lunch, we had to take a ferry ride across the Willamette River. I had never been on one. In this case, it just went straight across from one bank to the other (~0.2 miles). It was a flat boat with concrete across the hold where the cars (or in our case, bikes) road. On one side was the captains bridge, and opposite was the engine housing. Spanning the river were 2 cable guides for the ferry. One above water stretched across 2 high poles on the upstream side, and the other under water on downstream side. It was interesting to be on because it didn't feel like we were even on a boat. The thing must have been so heavy with the concrete surface, and the river was quite calm, but there was no up and down or side to side motion at all. It was certainly a new experience for many of the cyclists on there that day.
Following the ferry ride, we had another roll across the valley floor through some light hills and through country roads. All the while the sun kept trying to come all the way out. We were all heading towards the only climb of the day over the Eola Hills. A 6 mile section of hills, the longest of which was 4 miles long and around 800 feet of elevation gain. On the ferry, there had been 2 other tandems. One we caught and passed fairly early. The others sat out a little ways until the climbing started. The last tandem we had been following was quite a ways up. There was a short downhill that gave us momentum for the first climb, so we used that to make some distance up. We passed quite a few other singles, but I was trying to take it easy on Jada since it was going to be a long climb. Finally, she decided that we should stop moving so slowly after our momentum gave out, and I went into just keeping cadence in the pack to conserve energy. So we started chasing the other tandem to give us something else to concentrate on. We did finally catch them on the first part of the long climb, and I sat us right on their rear wheel to use them to pace us up the hill. We had been passing quite a few other cyclists, and I don't recall anyone every passing us. We were pushing a bigger gear than they were, and at the pace were were going, it hurt Jada's knees, so she gave the OK to speed up and pass them, so on the next little turn when they slowed a little, we took advantage, shot around, and never looked back. There were lots of people already walking on this section of the climb. The sun had come out completely, and it was warm. We passed Oscar the Grouch, and he was grumpy. We also passed Bert and Ernie. Our legs cried out, but we kept the pace up. Jada is just as competitive as I am when it comes to climbing, though hers usually is on walks. But it works here too. I like to believe that no one passes me on a climb, and no one did. We kept moving (or as we started singing at one point, "just keep swimming, just keep swimming, swimming, swimming..."), and after what seemed like forever, we reached the summit, and it was downhill to the water stop. Jada was awesome! I know it hurt, but I think she liked being faster than everyone else. Everyone caught back up to us there since we both stopped for potty breaks. Then it was back to the winding downhill. I had my drum brake fully engaged for much of it to keep ourselves upright in the corners. Down at the bottom of the drop, though, we just couldn't seem to get the speed up over 12 mph after we had been going between 17 and 20mph over the flats before the climb. It felt like our brakes were dragging, but I couldn't figure it out, and I didn't want to stop to check. So we pushed on assuming that we were just too gassed after the climb to go very fast. Finally, it got so bad that I just had to stop and check. It turned out that we had been making the bike go with the drum still engaged. It had over heated on the descent and got stuck. After some fidgeting, I got it to release, and were back underway as if a fresh breeze was pushing us along.
Of course, by that time, the damage was done. My knees began to rebel. It's something that I often have problems with when I don't get to the gym enough and try to do too much climbing. My knees were screaming the rest of the way into Independence where we made a last stop at the rest stop (they had freshly picked Oregon Strawberries at this one. Mmmm.) Bert-n-Ernie let me know that there were cookies there too as he left. It was funny having these little ongoing conversations with people you pass and then see again later (he passed while we were having our brake issue). Then it was last push into Monmouth with my knees and Jada's behind screaming all the way. It didn't stop us from dragging at least 2 riders into town in our draft.
Jada went to school and lived in Monmouth (home of Western Oregon University) for the better part of 5 years. I had been there before too when she graduated with her Masters degree. She was giving us and the 2 riders behind us, a riding tour of the campus as we rode into town. We made our way to the finish line, quickly found our bag, and went over to get our keys. As part of this ride, we didn't have to camp (though many still did). Instead we got to have dorm rooms and indoor showers! It was awesome! Of course, it was a home coming for Jada as she knew 3 people working at the WOU information booth where we picked up our room keys. We made our way to our room (and even got the tandem up the stairs and into the room), took our showers, and then Jada went to get a 30 minute massage. I went to go hang out in the front of the building, but on my way to the front door I found a little couch in the hallway. And just like being back in college, I laid down to just rest. I woke up when Jada came walking down the hall and said "Dave?" Jada gave me the walking tour of campus after that as well as all the apartments that she lived in when she went to school there (by the way, the dorm hall we stayed in was the same one that she was in as a freshman as well as when she was a resident assistant). Eventually, we had dinner. Fortunately, it wasn't the standard dorm room fare, but the special food reserved for parent weekends and heads of state.
Announcements weren't until 8:30pm, so we killed time (Dairy Queen!) until eventually walking over to the city park where the main stage was setup. We got the normal safety talk and history talk and then background for the reason for the trip which was to officially open the State's first signed and maintained bike way along the Willamette Valley. It's sort of a park corridor that joins 2 of America's best cycling cities - Portland and Eugene. Then it was straight to bed (after Jada talked to her old friends for another hour down at the square) and ready for the next day.
Day 2: Monmouth to Coburg (76.1 miles)
Day 2 started off cloudy just as Day 1 had, so we were hopeful. We got to sleep in (well, I did) since I didn't get out of bed until 6am. We rolled out of bed and headed over to the cafeteria for breakfast. The line for warm food was pretty long, so we just opted for cereal, oatmeal, fruit, and coffee cake. (Mmmmm. Coffee cake)
We got packed up, dressed, and headed out to take the bag to the truck. Luckily for me, they had a pickup truck waiting out front to carry it the rest of the way. After filling up our Camelbaks, turning in our keys and topping off the tires, it was 8am and time to leave. It was a big crowd taking off at that time. My knees were absolutely screaming at me. It was pure pain just turning the pedals. We sat in with a group through the first few miles just soft pedaling hoping that I would feel better. After finally clearing the Independence city limits, we found ourselves faced with a long line of people in front of us and several small hills. Jada was tired of being stuck behind everyone, so we decided to just try to push it a little bit. As we got moving and passing people, my knees felt a whole lot better. I guess they just needed to be forced to warm up. I don't think anyone passed us the rest of the morning.
The sun never did even threaten to come out, but at least it didn't rain. We continued our plan of stopping at all the rest stops. Today they had 3 rest stops (2 water stops- just water and potties; and 1 rest stop - snacks and potties) before lunch. At the rest stop in Albany, I went by the Bike Gallery mechanic to have them look at my rear brake which had been dragging on my rim for a few weeks. All he had to do was adjust the tension screw on the opposite pad. I also had him make sure that our drum brake was ok after the previous day's issues. Everything was ok. Just before the lunch stop, I saw rain dripping in puddles, but I never felt it. We never really got rained on all day, but it did stay cloudy. Just before lunch we were on 7 mile road at which point I suggested that we pop on over to Marshall Mathers (the music industry's Eminem) house for a visit. This, of course, resulted in swift retribution from the back seat.
We actually pulled into the lunch stop at a more normal lunch hour (11:25am) thanks to the more spread out rest stops in the morning. The lunch stop was at Boston Mill which was an old water powered lumber mill that is being restored by the Park Service. It also happens to be the home of Margriet Ruurs, author of several of the girls' favorite children's books (Emma's Eggs, A Mountain Alphabet, Ms. Bee's Magic Bookcase to name a few). She had also come to Jada's school to talk about her stories. Of course, we couldn't get a picture with her. Her husband was a park ranger there too. We sat by the river flowing next to the mill to eat our chicken wrap and watched the birds dive bombing the river to pick off bugs. It was a nice setting, but with 2 hours left of riding to go, we decided that we should get moving so our ride wouldn't have to wait too long for us to arrive. Plus the climb on this day was after lunch just after Brownsville.
My legs were officially dead after lunch. I was just weak, and we were heading into a head wind. We were still pushing between 16 and 17 miles an hour as we crossed over I-5 heading east towards the foot hills of the Cascades. The climb had a long false flat up to the start. The climb itself was only about 1.25 miles, but it rose 500 feet in that distance. It was quite steep, but we were still pulling people back to us even at our snail's pace. We certainly worked the gears that day. There was a rest stop following the climb with watermelon, Oreo's, and gummy bears for our final fueling. It was ~12 miles from the finish line, but it seemed like it took forever. We were feeling ok after we turned out of the wind. Jada sat up and offered another rider a cookie as we passed. He was quite surprised and amused. The last 8 miles were a straight shot to Coburg on a flat road straight into the wind. It's the time of the ride I like to refer as the death march for those of us who didn't quite train as well as we should have. There's not much to do but put your head down and try not to think about how much farther we had to go. It just makes us appreciate the finish line that much more which graciously arrived just as planned at 76.1 miles. Our friend Laurie was there waiting for us at the Finish Line just as expected. We were only 15 minutes behind my original predicted finish time of 2pm. We were given a Cycle Oregon/Oregon Parks water bottle as we crossed. We were one of the first group into the finish according to Laurie which surprised me with how weak I had been feeling, but Jada (my personal tailwind) kept us moving right along. After a potty stop, I found our bag, grabbed some free ice cream for us all, and we headed back to the car. As we headed north, it started to rain. We made it just in time.
Even though we were tired, I had a good time. For our first long distance tandem tour, I felt we did a great job. Jada provided a nice boost, and it was terrific to share the experience of a Cycle Oregon with her finally after all these years.
Journal Entry: July 1, 2005