Category Archives: Bike Tour

Right about now I’m feeling discouraged. I had a good ride and saw some amazing scenery between Newport and Florence, and the new wheel held up great. It seemed that the slow leak in the tube was still quite slow, and I was having no trouble keeping air in it. I didn’t get a new tube in Newport, since they didn’t have any good touring tires in my size. It turns out that may have been a mistake.

Less than 8 hour after forking out $100 for that new wheel, I cracked the rim. I was about three miles from camp, and I stopped at the store for some milk, produce, and a bottle of beer, and when I came out I failed to notice that the slow leak had released all of the air from my tire. I’m talking about 10 or 20 psi left. My brain was fried from a long day, so it took me a full hundred feet to notice the lack of air. As it turns out, it was long enough to bottom out the tire on a small low speed bump and crack the rim all the way through.

There are highs and lows on this trip, and that was a fast transition. Hopefully I’ll feel more optimistic in the morning.

More pictures tomorrow- very poor coverage here in camp.

Another spoke broke when the shop was replacing my missing spoke, which wasn’t really a surprise- the wheel needed to be rebuilt in a bad way. With the cost of labor, new spokes, and lost miles, it made a lot of sense to replace the wheel. It was a hundred bucks, but I moved from 32 spokes to 36, plus a double wall rim. If I break this one, then folks were right that I’m really carrying too much stuff.

Hoping to make Florence tonight, and Coos Bay tomorrow. Here we go!

By the way- the Newport bike shop was beyond awesome. They had a lounge and a shower and good coffee, and I got to take advantage of all of these.

Last night I got into Newport too late to get into the bike shop, and this morning I found that even with the spline, and even with an 8″ crescent wrench, I really couldn’t get that freewheel cassette off. (serious bike guys, forgive me of I’m screwing up terminology, I am obviously not a bike guru)

Since I couldn’t seem to hold the chain and wheel firmly enough to get full torque on the removal tool (and frankly I wasn’t sure if the arrow pointing which way is tighter was referring to gear movement or tool movement) it was clear that I needed to get to a real bike shop to buy/borrow a chain whip, and/or have them do it for me again. The bike ago doesn’t open until 10, so I get to have some breakfast and do the blog.

This was some kind of pretty view- wish I could remember where the hell it was.

These were some wildflowers, I think they were just outside of Lincoln.

This was Devil’s punch bowl (though I think there are more features in the area with that name), and I got more angles with the Nikon.

I think this trip has covered stores for things, stuff, and objects- this here is where you can get some whatnot.

This was the view from Cape Foulweather, it was not so long after the bridge from my last post. Not far, but I had to climb Otter Crest (did not see otters) to get there. Big-ish hill, and I was getting tired! Anyway, the Nikon came out again, so you’ll see this one again in the eventual Flickr set.

This odd melon thing was just hanging out on the fence by cape Foulweather.

Off in the distance there you can see the Yaquina Head lighthouse. I’m not going to try to get an awesome picture of it, its a little out of my way and it’s the kind of thing that I’m sure I could find a better picture of on a post card.

A welcome sight after a long day with a broken spoke! It’s true, Newport has been friendly. Let’s hope their bike shop lives up to what I’ve heard!

Finally, that’s where I just had breakfast and wrote all this. Tasty waffles, friendly people!

I made it to the south beach state park, just south of Newport. Still didn’t get that spoke fixed, but there’s a bike shop in Newport. Got some super awesome pictures today, but I’m not quite on the grid here for phone charging and data speed.

Just one:

I changed out my tube this morning to get rid of the slow leak, and made it maybe 10 miles before I broke another damned spoke. Now I try to fix it.

It’s the morning of day 11, and I am having some excellent coffee with wifi. Now I can upload properly!

I came across another useful market, in case you need any things or stuff- it was in Garibaldi.

A dense fog was hanging around, thankfully far above the roadway, and so was taking some pictures of how cool things looked. This old chimney was hanging out, and I think I got a good one with my camera:

Since everyone told me I should, I went to the Tillamook cheese factory tour.

As a bike tourer, there is really no excuse not to do this. It’s free, right on the route, and you get free cheese samples. Clean restrooms, plenty of food for sale, it’s a great pit stop if you need one!

Here we see factory workers cutting the cheese. I got more like this with the camera.

Back in Astoria I changed my tube to take care of the slow leak. It worked, but somewhere around Tillamook I picked up this damned staple:

I spent a solid ten minutes examining the tube, and I couldn’t find the slow leak. I’m debating changing to my backup backup tube this morning. Needless to say, I am not happy with the Giant brand ‘puncture resistant’ tires. The Schwalbe and Confinental tires that I used before seemed much more resistant.

Also, I’m not sure if this is good or bad, but I picked up a tire pressure gauge to monitor the situation, and apparently I have been running my tire really soft for the last 350 miles. I guess that’s what happens when you switch from a big pump with gauge to a small hand pump without one right before the trip. I guess I just wasn’t able to do 70ish psi by feel- but now I have a gauge. The rear wheel is also making some kind of a sound once per revolution. It goes away when I brake, so I think it might be a brake rotor that’s slightly out of true. I’ll have a look after coffee and blogging.

Regardless, I saw pretty things. This is Cape Lookout:

I’m pretty sure it was, and I wanted to keep going since the day was still young and I wasn’t too tired.

I rolled past the Meriwether-Clark boyscouts camp, and saw this crazy scene:

It looked odd to my eyes, largish evergreens getting eaten by a sand dune.

This is the big neat rock at Pacific City:

Finally, last night’s high calorie $1.50 meal:

Very good, but then I went and ate a $2 piece of fudge while charging my phone and blogging. Oh well, gotta have fudge!

Now I get to sort out my wheel, pack up, and head south.

I made it to Pacific City tonight, and with some difficulty I found the county campground. It is full of rabbits. Example:

This place is like a big grassy parking lot, but I counted about a dozen of these guys wandering around within sight of my tent.

I have more pictures and happenings, but I’ll update those tomorrow morning over coffee. The cellular data network here is really slow, and the coffee joint has wifi.

In summary until then: I am having trouble keeping air in my back tire and I saw some really pretty things today.

Walking around Tillamook, the most interesting thing that I saw was the pioneer museum. It didn’t look like much when you fist walk in, but as you get away from the entrance and check out the basement and top floor, it is absolutely packed with neat stuff.

There was a room full of photos of the earliest white settlers in the area, examples of artifacts from the people who were here first (lots of weavings, tools, etc), and a room full of weapons. You walk into the room and you’re greeted by a doll with an authentic machine gun:

Skipping over the rest, we come to a weapon used extensively by the Tillamook County PD… Nunchucks?!?

That’s ‘interesting’! What was Even more fascinating was a display case where they had (I think) at least 50 different types of barbed wire. Here are a few:

The museum also had a huge collection of taxidermied animals upstairs. Although the majority were birds, I saw enough mammals to confirm that the animals I saw earlier in my trip were almost certainly weasels.

To wrap up the night, we stocked up on some serious chutney and feasted while watching movies.

So much chutney. (actually completely joking about chutney consumption)

Last night I made it into Rockaway Beach, where Molly’s friend Erin lives. She was kind enough to let me stay in her guest room, do some laundry, and have a hot bath. That felt great!

We also ate some crabs!

This was my first time eating a crab in the shell, and the taste was amazing. I really noticed how different parts of the crab had different flavors and textures, and they were all awesome. After crab, we had some Tillamook ice cream cones. As expert as Erin was at eating crab, I was the complete opposite with the ice cream cone.

Today I got a ride into Tillamook where I’m going to wander around on foot while Erin’s at work, and then I’ll see some more of the area with a local guide before I continue on down the coast. It’s probably good to have some real recovery time for my butt and the nerves in my left hand. Will have to focus on nutrition and rest today.