Day 46

Mileage: 110
Total mileage: 4097

I rode over my last real mountain pass today! Now it's almost totally flat, all the way to the end.

This morning when I woke up, Nancy was already awake, bright eyed and bushy tailed despite the fact that she was up at 4 yesterday and didn't go to bed until nearly midnight. I have no idea how she does that. John was gone by 5am which left me as the late riser at 6:20. I said my goodbyes and rolled out on my bike at 6:47, a time I know so specifically only because Bruce called it out to me as I rode away.

I stopped at the end of the driveway to take a shot of the mountains in the morning sun. That's right, this is the view from the Stephenson's front porch!

 

I rode the couple miles back to the TransAm so that I wouldn't miss any mileage and then continued on another 5 miles into Sisters for breakfast. I made a point of stopping at Angeline's bakery for a marion berry scone since I had gotten three recommendations by that point. It was delicious, even though I had no clue what a marion berry was. The girl at the bakery gave me directions to a little cafe where she said I could get a hearty breakfast, but the place was closed on Wednesdays, so I went to the little cafe next door and ordered eggs with pancakes. I should have taken another picture of these pancakes, because they were hilariously dainty. I stacked all three of them together to make one miniature sized, regular pancake and was through with my whole plate by the time the server came back out of the kitchen. I was fine though since Nancy had sent me on my way this morning with a whole bag of walnuts, cliff bars and an apple. 

Apparently there was a huge bike race called the Cascade Classic coming out of Bend this morning. It didn't start till 10, and I wanted to stay ahead of them so I wouldn't get swept up in the peloton, meaning I climbed the Cascades pretty quickly this morning. As I rode higher and higher to McKenzie pass, the conifers started to give way to lava flows, and by the time I crossed my high point I was in a barren rock field. This is the last big mountain range between me and the coast!!! I have a few more 800 foot climbs in the next few days, but nothing spanning thousands of feet. I'm almost there!

 

 

The high mountain peaks looked gorgeous far away across the lava fields. 

 

Over the top, I was excited for this descent. I had heard from a bunch of people that it was steep and curvy, which is my idea of a lot of fun. I hit a few gnarly sections, but each one was separated by a few hundred meters of flat, or even uphill road. After about 5 miles of this, I was starting to get disappointed that this might just be a long gentle and boring descent. That would've been fine, it's definitely the most efficient way to use the elevation, but it wouldn't have been nearly as much fun. Then I started seeing these signs: 

 

I like to call these signs "fun indicators." The squigglier the line and the lower the number beneath it, the more fun you're about to have. After resigning myself to the drudgery of a long slow downhill climb, I was shocked back into excitement by a 10 mile, 3000 foot rollercoaster of awesomeness. The road was a narrow two lane deal that often had fairly sharp drops down ferny slopes and I was blasting through constant, unrelenting turns at 35 miles an hour. For the non-cyclists, it's simply not practical to use your brakes on a descent like this. You'd have to squeeze them every couple seconds and you'd absolutely destroy your brake pads before you got halfway down. So the alternative is to stand in the pedals, maximizing air resistance when you need to slow down a little, and just burn through the turns at breakneck speed, relying on the alternating directions of the curves and the banked slopes of the highway to keep you from shooting off the edge. You've also got to look out for cars coming the other direction, because they seem to have a difficult time staying in their lane around sharp curves. Cars in your own lane can be a bit of an issue too, since I was going faster than any other vehicle down that slope. The few times I had to use my brakes were all when I got behind another vehicle, but fortunately they were all pretty quick at finding a shoulder and getting out of the way.

There's a particular satisfaction to that kind of descent. It's less the feeling of accomplishment from brutishly hauling your weight up a long hill and more the feeling of technical skill that comes from being absolutely wired and focused for so long. There were very few things going through my mind. Firstly, I was watching the "fun indicator" signs to have a good idea how steeply I needed to bank into each turn. I couldn't see very far around corners, so I had to put a ton of faith into those signs. Fortunately, they were all pretty accurate. Then you're scanning for cars coming the opposite direction, watching the road fervently for rocks and gravel that would skid you out and just focusing on cornering hard into each turn. All in all, it was the best descent of the trip and I'm so happy it was saved for last!

 I hardly had time to notice as I was going down, but a few thousand feet after I started my descent, it started to level out and I noticed a bit of change in vegetation. Huge trees, lush ferns, thick grass and running water are all things here. The term rainforest absolutely applies! Once the descent mellowed out, I got to ride the gentle downhill all the way to Eugene.

 

The last 20 or so miles took me off the main highway and wound me back through rural residential areas. Even in areas not bordering the river I rode past mile after mile of enormous blackberry brambles. After a while, I started coming on some mint as well, so the mixed scent of blackberries with mint carried me all the way to Coburg, where I turned south and continued to Eugene.

Tonight I'm staying with Melody and Lann Leslie, the parents of Megan, the girl I was talking to yesterday. I once again got in a little later than expected (due to ANOTHER flat tire! I'm getting my tires checked for wear tomorrow) and stepped into a whirlwind of activity. Melody and Lann are absolutely awesome, and they're also the biggest proponents of the southern Oregon coast. Lann made me an interesting offer at dinner tonight. I've never seen the California Redwoods, and I could theoretically ride 125 miles down to Bandon tomorrow, another 120 to California the next day to see the Redwoods, and then back up the coast to meet Lann who'll be in Bandon for business, and get a ride back into Eugene. It would add 3 days to my trip, 2 of them pretty brutal in terms of mileage, but I'm seriously considering making the detour. I don't know when I'll next be able to come back to Oregon and ride the coastline, so I might take advantage of the opportunity.

We'll see though, I may also just talk a half day to work on my bike here in Eugene and then ride north for a while towards Astoria. That route has the added advantage of letting me finish my whole trip in 50 days, which would be kind of a neat accomplishment. Tonight I'm spoiled once again. We had an enormous meal of smoked salmon, potatoes, salad and watermelon which I got to wash down with an incredible local IPA. How funny it is that I can be sleeping on a picnic table and scarfing down groceries one night, then enjoying the height of luxury a few days later. I think I may just be the luckiest guy on the planet! G'night!