August 4, 2006
Day 64: Sisters, OR to Eugene, OR
117.14 Miles, 8:31:22 Ride Time, 14.08 Average Speed, 34.5 Maximum Speed
I was up early this morning, eager to get riding. It was early enough that I had to ride several blocks through Sisters to find an open convenience store, and I nearly froze riding through town - this was undoubtedly the chilliest morning of the last two months.
While I ate my sausage-egg-cheese-biscuit inside the warm store, I briefly contemplated putting on my leg warmers, but couldn't remember whether I had mailed them back home the other day. I hated the idea of digging through my panniers looking for them (with my luck, I probably would find only one of them anyway), so I decided to tough it out - the first 21 miles would be a climb to Santiam Pass, and the effort would hopefully warm me up.
After buying my usual high-calorie, low-nutritional-value snacks, I rode out of town on State Route 126, which was now joined by US 20 for the next several miles. There was quite a bit of traffic at this early hour, but I had a nice, smooth, wide shoulder to ride on, so it wasn't bad.
I stayed cold all the way up to Santiam Pass (elev. 4,817). Like most of the hill climbing since the Ozarks, it was so gradual (less than 2000 feet increase in elevation over 20+ miles), that it wasn't much of a challenge. This morning, though, I would have enjoyed working up a sweat and getting warm. I stopped on the way up to take a few pictures of Mount Washington, but it was hazy, and I wasn't able to get a really good photo of it.
The long descent from Santiam Pass was really chilly, especially since I was in the shade much of the time. After about 7.5 miles, US 20 split off, and I followed SR 126. I immediately saw a sign that announced 20 miles of road construction with "20 Minute Delays". Great. I was already worried about the long section of SR 126 I would be riding today - I had heard that traffic, including logging trucks, was heavy, and that the shoulder was minimal. (The night before, I had read Mike Aris' Journal about this section, where he described being worn out at the end of the day "by the effort of concentrating on staying alive.")
For several miles, I rode on fresh new blacktop - so new that the yellow center line, and the white lines marking the shoulder, had not yet been painted. I pulled off the road onto the red dirt a few times to let trucks pass me, and then arrived at a line of cars, queued up behind a guy holding a "Stop" sign. I went to the head of the line and asked what was going on, and the guy told me to follow the pilot truck that was just arriving as we talked.
After about a minute riding in front of the line of cars, I pulled over and let them around me. The next couple of miles on the one-lane road were slightly uphill (of course), as I rushed to get to the end of this section of construction; I knew from experience that the pilot car would probably forget about me, and I would soon start meeting oncoming traffic if I didn't hurry.
I got to the end of the construction just in time - they were starting to let the oncoming traffic through. The next 20 or 30 minutes were great - no traffic in my direction at all, since it was now bottled up at the other end of the construction zone. Of course, it eventually broke loose, but I just pulled over for several minutes and let it go around me.
I stopped at a country store in McKenzie Bridge for a Gatorade, and walked back outside to find that it had finally gotten warmer. It was hard to believe it had stayed chilly so long this morning.
It was a pleasant ride along the McKenzie River from McKenzie Bridge to the tiny town of Vida; the 24 miles went quickly. Outside of Vida, traffic was stopped briefly while workers trimmed trees, and as I rode through, one of the women holding a "Slow/Stop" sign called out "I thought you were supposed to be in Florence today!" What?! I rode back to talk to her, and she explained that a group of 10 or 12 cyclists had passed by yesterday, and had told her that they were finishing their cross-country trip in Florence tomorrow. She had assumed that I was a straggler from that group, I guess. I knew there was an Adventure Cycling group ahead of me - I had been hearing about them for the last few weeks, and it looked like I was within a day of catching up to them. Maybe they would take an extra day in Florence, and I would meet up with them tomorrow - it would be nice, after so many weeks of riding alone, to have some company at the end of the trip, I thought.
The traffic on 126 became increasingly heavy as I got closer to Eugene - the shoulder was wide enough, but this is my least favorite kind of riding. Fortunately, at Walterville the Adventure Cycling route left 126 and took me on some nice, quiet backroads into Eugene. I decided to stop for lunch at a restaurant right at the intersection, where I was the only customer and my waitress was something of an airhead. Sample of our converation:
"Aren't you afraid riding by yourself?"
"No, not really."
"Well, you should be - what if something happened to you?"
"Oh, I'm sure a kind stranger would help me."
"There was a bicyclist killed around here recently."
"Oh..."
"And a friend of mine was riding his bike, and his heart just stopped - they don't know why."
...etc.
I'm glad I met her at the end of the trip, and not the beginning ;)
I finished my burger-and-fries, left Miss Doom-and-Gloom only half of my usual 20% tip (that's what she gets for broaching the subject of sudden death at lunch) , and continued onto peaceful Camp Creek Road, where the scenery was very much like back home in Kentucky.
After about 16 miles of peaceful country roads, I arrived abruptly at the outskirts of Eugene (pop. 137,893). As I rode South into town, traffic got very busy, but there were bike lanes, and I felt safe.
My plan was to find a motel in the University area downtown, but as I tried to find my way there (as usual, the Adventure Cycling maps really weren't that useful for navigating urban areas), my chain, which had started squeaking earlier in the day, broke for the second time in the last few months. My good luck on the trip had held up once again - it was fortunate that the chain had broken here, near several bike shops, and not 60 miles earlier in the day, in the middle of nowhere.
I walked the bike a few blocks and found a bike shop fairly easily, where they fixed the chain for $3.00. Now I needed a motel - I hadn't bothered making a reservation, since Eugene is so big that I assumed it would be no problem finding one. So, I was a little surprised when the first three I stopped at were booked up - "Because of the concert, man." Apparently there was a big-deal show by the jam band "String Cheese Incident" tonight, and every Birkenstock-wearing (I imagined) fan in Oregon had converged on Eugene.
I rode down the strip where most of the downtown motels seemed to be located until I found a room at the Eugene Motor Lodge. It was kind of expensive and a little crummy (my room had the usual large mysterious stains on the carpet), but it didn't affect my good mood - I had felt a sense of excitement all afternoon at being so close to the coast.
I walked down the street to the closest fast food place, Carl's Jr., and forced myself to eat something; surprisingly, after the nearly 120 mile day, I wasn't hungry at all. I used the internet for a while, watched Larry King for about 20 minutes, then went to bed.
Today's ride: 117 miles (188 km)
Total: 4,188 miles (6,740 km)
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