Bike riding

Linda rented a beach house in Yachats for Memorial Day weekend, and we all were there.

This week I get to reflect on just how great it is to commute by bike. Of course I've been riding to work for years, but up until this year my ride was just a few blocks, in Ashland where it hardly ever rains. Since January I've had a 5.5 mile ride each way in Corvallis where it rains all the time. I haven't missed any rides due to rain, but I did take the bus twice when the roads were too icy.

I've lived in Oregon for 40 years but I never heard of a place called Waterloo. But there it was on the Mid Vally Bicycle Club's list of flat rides. I'd been wanting to do a cross valley ride and this sounded like the one. The forecast was for showers, but although it was cloudy when I left it didn't seem like it would rain. I was hoping my ride to Waterloo would turn out better than Napoleon's.

This was going to be a long ride so I took the shortest route through Corvallis, across the river, to Peoria road. Peoria road is the main escape route from the busy highway 34/20 so lots of rides go that way.

I did this ride on the Sunday after the Kings Valley ride, but didn't get around to posting it until now. I wanted to do a longer, mostly flat ride. But to get there I had to do Bellfountain Road, which seems to have more hills every time I ride it. From Bellfountain you turn east, cross highway 99W and get on Old River Road. This meanders south and east through the farm land.

There are signs to Irish Bend on both sides if the river. This was an old school.

Todays ride took me through the popular Oregon destinations of Wren, Hoskins, Kings Valley, and Airlie. Places I'm sure you've all heard of. Heading west out of Philomath on hwy 20 you climb to about 700' before dropping back down to Wren. From there you go north on hwy 223. The first stop was the Marys River which also goes through Philomath and joins the Willamette in Corvallis.

I'd been saving this one for a sunny day, and this was it. According to the route guide on the Mid Valley Bicycle Club website, this ride would go out highway 34 over the Coast Range summit, and then down to the town of Alsea, and then return on a back road past Alsea Falls and over another summit before dropping back down to the community of Alpine on the Bellfountain road. It's listed as a 72 mile ride from Corvallis, but I figured it would be under 60 from my house in Philomath.

Getting started on Highway 34

JJ and Adinah at the circus.

Mountain Trucking

I took the Trucker in the woods today. The entrance to McDonald Forest is a little over 6 miles from my house. I'd been hoping to get down to Ashland and bring back my mountain bike so I could get out on some of the trails. Instead I got some new tires for the Trucker. They're 700x37 WTB All Terrain. Less aggressive than most cycle cross tires, but knobbier than street tires. They worked fine on the gravel roads in McDonald Forest.

On top of Dimple Hill at 1478 feet. The picture can't capture the magnificent views across the valley from the Coast Range to the Cascades.

Left about noon. Temps in the low 50's and mostly cloudy. Roads nice and dry. I headed out Bellfountain road, past Bellfountain to Alpine. These are not really towns so much as communities. Alpine is really miss-named. Its at most 400' above sea level, with no mountains is sight.

I guess its been a while since they did much business here.