What is it about timber towns?

This coming weekend I lead a Crater Lake campout/ride.  My Brother-in-Law Dave is showing just what kind of rider he is by riding to the ride. He took off this morning and I decided to join him for most of day 1.  He was riding to Detroit, 84 miles. I decided to join him to Gates, 65 miles. First of all, 130 miles seemed like enough today, and at that point of the route he'd have to jump on Hwy 22 for the last 20 miles. Busier traffic and the beginning of the climbing.

We took off just before 7:30 AM, under fair skies. Dave looked like a bike tourist with his new panniers!

Also notice that Dave is no gutter bunny.  He rides vehicularly, the safest way to pedal.

I had taken a leap of faith and allowed Ridewithgps.com to set our route today. We pedaled a few new roads, all safe. It was kind of fun to just pedal along and see which roads it was going to send us on!


audio update

The ride went well until we got to Lyons.  I don't know what it is about timber towns, and my apologies to my friends in the timber industry, but it seems that if I'm going to have trouble while on a bike there will be plenty of "I love spotted owls..they taste like chicken" bumper stickers around.  Today was no exception.  Dave and I were riding through Lyons near the intersection of Fir and 5th.  There is a very wide paved shoulder there outside the fogline, probably 8 ft or more. Dave was leading, I was few feet back. I noticed a pickup coming up behind me in my mirror.  He was driving on the shoulder.  I presumed he was going to turn into a driveway. Well, surprise, he practically runs me over before jerking the wheel bringing his vehicle back into the lane with a screech of tires. He drives ahead about 75 feet and stops.  As Dave and I pedal up, he takes off again.  I note the color and plate. (white and bronze, full size Ford, Oregon plate SUR 456) I take out my phone and call the police.  As I am talking to them an oncoming car stops and asks if we had been hit. I guess he saw the incident. He said the vehicle had pulled off ahead.  I pedaled on and kept my eyes open.  Sure enough, at the corner of 19th and Main, here sits said older gentleman on the porch of his doublewide with his Ford pickup parked in the driveway right next to him. Before I could even see the plate on his pickup to verify, he started in on me.  The usual drivel, bikes don't belong on roads, you were riding two wide right down the middle of the road, you are going to get killed if you keep riding on roads  I just called the police again and said I now knew where the guy lived.


audio update

(and though I said I was in Mehama, I was actually in Mill City, darn M towns, they confuse me!)

The cops called me back after talking to him just as I was finishing the Ipadio update, hence, rather than take the chance of losing the policeman's call, I just switched to it. Sorry for the massive amount of dead air on the end of the audio post, but at least you now know why it's there.

At Mill City we stopped for a break at the park, and said our goodbyes.  Dave would continue another 20 miles up the canyon to Detroit, I would turn around and retrace my route to Wilsonville.

There was a bit of headwind on the return trip. Just a bit, but noticable.

 
It was a nice day to pedal.


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