Day 07 – Thursday – Neskowin to Florence
Posted by Mike

Estimate: 87.8 miles, actual: 88.88 miles

Avg speed: 16.7 mph – our fastest day yet – I think the tailwind might have helped us today a little though!

Cumulative distance: 528.49 miles

Neskowin is magical and we really enjoyed our stay at the Proposal Rock Inn – something special about reaching the Pacific Ocean.

At the end of out first week, our first full day riding down Highway 101 along the Oregon Coast Highway.

We set off a little later than usual at about 10.30. But we knew it was a relatively short day’s riding and our accommodation was so nice, it was good to chill out for a while. Mike’s OCD-tendencies drove him to polish and oil our bicycles. There was a small, (but perhaps inevitably, quite expensive) general store and we bought some coffee, cereal and soya milk and brought it back to our room to have for breakfast. Our room had beautiful views of Neskowin Creek flowing past Proposal Rock and into the ocean.

The coastal landscape is obviously very different from what we’ve experienced so far. Still lots of pine woods on either side of the road, steep climbs followed by spectacularly fast descents. The highway sometimes runs by the sea (and it’s clear how much damage it can do, as the edge of the road is sometimes eroded and collapsing). Sometimes we’re cycling through woodland and then through lots of small, pretty towns with buildings painted in pastel colours and decorated with flags and banners. There are some very dramatic sections of coast with incredible views of rocky outcrops, cliffs, sandy beaches, and there are viewpoints, it’s very easy to linger and just enjoy,

After 10 miles, we arrived in Lincoln City and stopped to take on more coffee and fuel up on croissant. As we set off from Lincoln City, a man drove past and shouted: “Keep on riding!” Fantastic – made us feel really welcome and determined to do just that!

Next stop Newport, where we stopped for lunch. Today, we eschewed Safeway’s and opted instead for Fred Mayer – Roberto in Portland thought that they’d be more likely to stock organic products and soya – which was true. The fresh fruit has been amazing on our trip so far and we had some beautiful peaches, blueberries, strawberries and melon.

While we were eating, a shiny black BMW car pulled up with a rather amusing number plate: IAM007. I think that USA number (licence) plates look a bit odd to us Europeans. The man who stepped out of the car, was no James Bond, however! Mike took a photograph of the car, but didn’t have the courage to get a picture the man … just in case we’re wrong about the Bond thing!

Just to the south of Newport we had to cross yet another scary bridge. Not in quite the same league as the Lewis and Clarke Bridge in Longview, the Yaquina Bay Bridge is arch-shaped like the Sydney Harbour Bridge, almost 1 km long and 41 m (133 ft) high. Eek!

The final 30 miles or so was the most beautiful, along the coast and through the Siuslaw National Forest. By Sea Lion Caves, we saw seals swimming in the Ocean! We passed some beautiful big inland lakes and at one point the road passed through a short, narrow tunnel. As cyclists entered we had to push a button to reduce the speed limit and trigger flashing warning lights for other road-users – it was brilliant – we could definitely do with that sort of thing in the UK.

Finally, a long straight road into Florence – the River House Inn – the most select hotel that we’ve stayed at so far. It had lovely colourful flower beds against the building. We did our laundry and then headed into the ‘historic old town’ for dinner at The Bridgwater: a big diner with cream coloured wood walls, high ceilings with lovely old ceiling fans, huge windows fronting the street – so lots to look at. Mike ordered pasta and Matthew asked for a salad – we thought that we’d start with a serving of onion rings … when that arrived I nearly fell off my seat, it was a massive portion … we didn’t need anything else … along came the pasta and Matthew’s salad – both meals arrived on truly giant plates … we could hardly eat any of it, I felt rather guilty about leaving so much.

After dinner a rather romantic walk along the river in the moonlight and a good night’s sleep.

Another lovely day.

Day 06 – Wednesday – Portland to Neskowin
Posted by Mike

Estimate: 97.6 miles, actual: 92.63 miles – result! Well done Garmin, (actually a little less than expected because we’re not cycling from Sauvie Island where we were originally planning to stay).

Avg speed: 15.3 mph – good – feeling that we’re getting into our stride now.
Cumulative distance: 439.61 miles

The Magic Moment of the Day occurred very early on. We’d said goodbye to Roberto and Dave and were riding towards the city centre. Just as we approached the riverside cycleway entrance ramp on NE 1st Street and NE Lloyd Blvd, someone caught up with us on their bicycle and behind me I could hear them say: “Hi, Matthew. Where are you riding to today?”

This was surreal to say the least. We know – and could name by sight – precisely three people in Portland, (and we could account for all their whereabouts: Roberto was at work, Dave was at a garage having the tyres on his car replaced and Larry was probably still in bed with his boyfriend, but definitely in Seattle and not in Portland at all). In any case, this person was a woman on a bicycle … and we definitely didn’t know any women in Portland.

Matthew was completely thrown by this encounter. Who was she? How did she know his name? He said that we were heading to San Diego. “Oh, I know that,” she said, “but where are you going TODAY?” “Neskowin” he said rather meekly. It turned out that this was Lisa, a member of Warm Showers and she was someone who we had e-mailed to ask if she could accommodate us. (She had offered us a place to stay, but we’d already agreed that we’d stay with Roberto, so we’d sent her a message thanking her for her kind offer, and explaining that we’d already secured somewhere else to stay). But what are the chances of this happening? Anyone?! Almost 2.3 million people live in the Portland metropolitan area, thousands and thousands of them are cyclists. How on earth did she manage to be in the same place at the same time as us and how did she recognise us? Lisa? You must put in a comment and let us know, otherwise people won’t believe us! I imagine that if a movie were ever made of our trip, this would be the point where people would think that our story is unbelievable!

We had a nice chat with Lisa – who works as an analyst at a medical insurance company. She told us about her cycling trip to France using Warm Showers, but she was heading to work over the Steel Bridge – in the other direction to us, so we said goodbye and headed out of town on along the river to route 99 West.

As we left Portland heading south-west to the Pacific coast, we passed under a cable car over the river. Later we rode past a ‘Self-Service Dog Wash’ Matthew wondered, “How does the dog serve itself?” Mike found this laugh-out-loud, uproariously funny and it kept him giggling for about the next 20 miles. (Perhaps he’s been exposed to a bit too much sun than is good for a pale Englishman). There was also a sign for a ‘Psychic Reader’, someone who knows what’s in a book without opening it we wondered?!

The tone was set for the day now and I was reminded of one if the funniest stories I was ever told. It was at a Colston Hall symphony concert in Bristol with an academic friend who told me of the research worker who was visiting a university department to ask one of the administrators if they could have “a list of faculty staff, broken down by age and sex.” The administrator replied: “That would be all of them.” I laughed so much my sides hurt, face streaming with tears and I was still guffawing and stifling giggles all the way through Bruckner’s 5th Symphony, which is really quite a serious piece and hardly the stuff of mirth.

Perhaps it’s necessary to be an academic to find this story so funny. University administrative and clerical staff are special; they do an incredible job, usually for not very much money. As well as all the usual admin-type tasks, their work involves them guarding and protecting academics from students. Academics spend most of their time trying to avoid students of course, so the work of the university administrator is hardly inconsequential. I suspect that university administrative and clerical staff are not really appreciated by academics as much as they should be – they do their jobs with enormous professionalism and it’s not often that they let their guard down. So that’s why the story is so funny.

Anyway, it doesn’t take much to get Mike laughing, so perhaps some of you would like to comment with your funniest stories or jokes to keep Mike giggling on the road? If you want, he knows a couple of other very funny stories, (that is, he thinks they’re very funny, while Matthew just rolls his eyes). Anyway, Mike is happy to relate some other funny stories as we wend our way south – if people want him to, that is. (*pause while tumbleweed blows in the wind*).

So … “Do pray tell us your hilarious joke.”(That line borrowed from Priscilla Queen of the Desert, just in case you feared that we were only interested in highbrow culture after the earlier Bruckner reference. Although, come to think of it, anyone would only need to read this blog for two minutes to know that high culture is, unfortunately all too rare here).

By McMinnville Municipal Airport, we passed the Evergreen Aviation and Space Museum. This looked fantastic from the road – they obviously have an impressive collection, some of it displayed outside – including on the roofs of the main exhibition buildings, which were cleverly designed to look like the planes were taking off from them. On one there was a Boeing 747 – it looked amazing. Mike would have liked to go in, but Matthew put his foot down, (quite literally, as he pedalled off and left Mike gawping at the planes).

At about McMinnville the west wind picked up and we were battling with it on an off most of the rest of the way to Neskowin. This made the 15.3 mph average speed particularly pleasing – some of the riding was hard work today.

As some (very small) compensation, we stopped for lunch in McMinnville. When I asked for an oat biscuit the sales assistant started laughing uncontrollably – I keep forgetting that they’re ‘cookies’ in the US, but perhaps someone can explain why saying biscuit is so funny – we asked her why oat biscuit was funny, but she was laughing so much, that what she said didn’t make any sense.

At McMinnville we turned onto Highway 18 and then passed through the Grand Ronde Indian Reservation – there were local election posters for seats on the Indian Council. Just after Willamina we changed to a much quieter route, the Little Nestucca River Road – it was stunning, we rode along a narrow, twisting, undulating road through the Nestucca valley. Pine trees, steep mountain sides giving way to open fields with grazing cows and fast-flowing streams cascading over waterfalls – it reminded us of Austria. The damp conditions are perfect for the moss that grows on almost all of the trees and branches. On some trees it grows so profusely that it hangs down like cobwebs – very dark green, quite eerie and beautiful at the same time. Matthew had read about these Oregon ‘rain-forests’, so to see them first-hand on such a lovely stretch of road was a bonus. We enjoyed a fantastic descent, crossing little single-lane bridges towards Highway 101 – the north-south coast road that we’ll be following now for most of the rest of our journey south.

As we approached Highway 101 we could see some high exposed rocks in the distance, that we assumed were part of the coast or in the sea.

It was so tantalising, to be nearing the Pacific Ocean ‘proper’, (the areas further north, was the Pacific Ocean, of course – but it was interrupted by islands and promontories). This time we expected to get an uninterrupted view of the Pacific. And then we saw it. Just before Neskowin. Matthew has never been to the west coast of the USA or seen the Pacific Ocean. It’s incredible and huge and thousands of shades of blue and white – a white translucent mist hovered just above the water near the shore.

A few minutes later we arrived at Neskowin and our accommodation. A third floor ‘condo’ – not a word we use in Britain, we’d call it a furnished studio flat I suppose. The windows and balcony looked out to the sea and an islet called Proposal Rock, (curiously, Mike resisted any temptation to propose). We checked in and went down to the beach, the sun was setting, the beach was beautiful and Matthew’s took his first paddle in the Pacific Ocean, (the water was bloody cold!).

While we were having lunch in McMinnville, (and after the oat biscuit incident), a women asked us where we were heading and recommended Oregon Pinot Noir, (we’ve been riding past lots of vineyards and ‘wineries’) and she also said that pizza at the Hawk Creek Café in Neskowin was good, so we went to have a pizza. While we were waiting another customer said that I had cool shoes – I wear my vivo barefoot running shoes when I’m not cycling – they’re very light and fold flat. We talked a bit about our journey so far. Ruth and her partner Glen are on vacation too – seeing where they end up each day. We were called to our table and had been there a few minutes, when Ruth came back over to our table say: “I just had to ask, how far are you going?” We said that we were going to Mexico and told her about our blog – she gave us her email address and I said that I’d send a link for my shoes too. So it’d be good to hear from Ruth about how her journey continued after we parted company.

Dilemma of the Day: Should Mike have some Oregon wine? Decision? No. He doesn’t really drink. Matthew had some though, he said it was lovely – cheers!

Day 05 – Portland (Tuesday 30 September)
Rest day – no cycling
Posted by Mike

We arrived at Roberto’s and Larry’s at around 6.30pm. They live in a gorgeous house in the Irvington district of NE Portland, (Downtown is about a 20 minute walk).

Matthew was enraptured by the garden, it has lush planting with huge bamboos, (which he was quite envious of, as ours are minnows in comparison). There are enchanting lights all around and a garden cabin that we could have slept in, (Mike wasn’t keen – although Matthew thought it would be quite romantic). We could see that many of the houses in the area have really beautiful gardens, too.

In front of the house opposite there’s a Gaudíesque statue of a lizard decorated with fragments of different coloured ceramic tiles. Roberto said that it was made by an artist who used to live in that house and that it has a bigger brother in the park around the corner.

Matthew was enraptured by the garden, it has lush planting with huge bamboos, (which he was quite envious of, as ours are minnows in comparison). There are enchanting lights all around and a garden cabin that we could have slept in, (Mike wasn’t keen – although Matthew thought it would be quite romantic). We could see that many of the houses in the area have really beautiful gardens, too. In front of the house opposite there’s a Gaudíesque statue of a lizard decorated with fragments of different coloured ceramic tiles. Roberto said that it was made by an artist who used to live in that house and that it has a bigger brother in the park around the corner.

Roberto works as a psychotherapist and Larry has a mail order business selling Chinese material through eBay.

They prepared a delicious dinner for us: fresh bean stew with courgettes, beet stew and brown rice with fresh melon salad. Lovely! It was so good to be in such a comfortable house with lovely company.

We’ve left Washington State now and it has been a joy to cycle through. The countryside is very green – lots of farms and woods with gently rolling hills. Along the coast there were dramatic Sounds – wide inlets with islands dotted about. In the distance to the east and on our left we often saw volcanic mountain ranges – high peaks with snow on the uplands: Mount Baker, Mount Rainier and Mount Saint Helens. When we were on the ferry from Vashon to Ruston a couple of other cyclists that we were chatting to told us that they’d just returned from a camping trip in the mountains – it sounded like it’d be really good to do that sometime.

The roads so far have mostly been superb – smooth and well-maintained. Signage is excellent and city street layouts, with their very clearly numbered roads, make it very easy to find our way. One thing that has taken a little bit of getting used to is the siting of traffic lights. It’s necessary to stop much further back from them than we would in Europe because they’re usually suspended on a cable over on the far side of the road that’s to be crossed. If we stopped just in front of a red light in the USA, as we would in Europe, another vehicle would come into us from the side! There are no advanced stop boxes for cyclists either. Many of the out of town roads have a wide hard shoulder, where we’re expected to cycle. In the towns and cities there are usually bike lanes, which as Europeans coming to the USA was slightly unexpected, to be honest. The hard shoulders sometimes have a bit of road debris: gravel, small stones and sometimes quite big stones or bark, that can make cycling a bit uncertain at times, but mostly they’re good quality. The junctions are worst for debris and they are also the places where we worry a bit about vehicles coming from behind and turning right into us. It’d be wonderful if the hard-shoulders were swept clear from time to time! I’ve not seen any road-sweeping vehicles on the roads.

Another surprise is that the speed limits seem to be universally lower than in the UK (20, 30 and 50 mph zones are common). Drivers are reasonably good at keeping to the limits and have been really courteous to us while we cycle – often slowing down and pulling out very wide as they overtake. The vehicles on the road are more or less what we expected: massive lorries with high cabs and curved bonnets, (sometimes sporting bright chrome or elaborate paintwork); there are lots of pick-up trucks, too. Some look very extravagant – highly polished with wheel arches that seem improbably high from the top of the wheel, so the whole vehicle is raised in the air. Many pick-up trucks look like the only things they’ve ever picked up are the kids from school or the grocery shopping! Big cars are still very common on the roads, although they tend to be older. We’ve seen several smart restored classic models from the 50s and 60s. There are plenty of more modern, modest cars too: Toyota Prius, Audi and VW Beetles seem popular. Then there are the recreational vehicles RVs – some of them are bigger than 70 seater coaches, many of them are towing smaller cars as well.

It’s a little disappointing to report that we’ve not really seen many other touring cyclists out on the roads so far. Most of the bikes that we see are strapped to the back or on the roofs of other vehicles. It rather reminds me of a funny storyline in Rick Smith’s Yehuda Moon comic strip (www.yehudamoon.com). A fat man goes to the Kickstand Cyclery to buy a bicycle that he wants to attach to his car. When Yehuda asks him what sort of bicycle he’s looking for, the fat man explains that he doesn’t care, because he’s not planning on riding it; he wants it as a car accessory. The punchline comes when Yehuda persuades him to buy a helmet that he isn’t going to wear for the bike that he isn’t going to ride!

As we were making our way out of Ruston on Sunday, a young man on a nice shiny black urban hybrid bicycle and who was pulling a little covered trailer with a small child inside hailed us at a set of traffic lights. He asked where we were heading and was very impressed with our plans. As our ways crossed he shouted after us: “Keep the rubber down!” We’d never heard this phrase before, but it’s become a bit of a mantra for us – if I’m flagging a bit and slowing down, Matthew will say: “Keep the rubber down, Michael!” (and vice versa, of course). Well, so far – so good and we’ve managed to keep the rubber well-down!

When we met Bud in Kelso, he told us that almost 95% of Washington’s residents live in a narrow corridor alongside the interstate main road, I-5, that runs north-south through the state. This makes the population mostly urban, (and the state Democrat). Then there are the vast sparsely populated areas. Once out in the countryside the traffic levels dwindle to almost nothing … we have ridden for half an hour before anything has passed us. It’s wonderfully quiet and peaceful. There’s a beautiful rhythm to cycling and we can just talk, enjoy the scenery – it’s actually been really relaxing so far and we’re not in the least tired. I’d better give an update on that in a week or so! Overall, Washington State was really good and I definitely want to come back.

Back to Tuesday in Portland … and the Dilemma of the Day: to go for a run or not? Actually, this is not really much of a dilemma, I’d brought some running gear with me, so it was kind of inevitable that I would go running. You may have noticed that I tend to look out for and comment approvingly when I see runners and bicyclists when I’m out and about. It makes me really happy to see them, I suppose because they’re part of My Story. That’s the bit of my life where I started to cycle more seriously and go out running to help me lose weight – I lost almost 60lbs (4 st) a few years ago, (hence the “chunky monkey” remark at passport control in Heathrow airport – I don’t look like I used to). I’ve found that there’s a wonderful camaraderie about cycling and running, they’re both amazing ways to get about and see places and I can still eat lots without worrying too much!

Cycling and running are not really compatible though – they use muscles differently and one doesn’t particularly help the other, which is why I think that people who do triathlons are amazing sportspeople! I sometimes worry that running might hurt my cycling – I can be a bit stiff and sore after running in a way that I never am after cycling. But running in a new place is thrilling and I couldn’t resist, so my day in Portland began with a short 5 mile run down to the Steel Bridge, along the east side of the Willamette River – partly along some incredible floating cycleways, then over the Hawthorne Bridge and along the west side and back over the Steel Bridge to Ne Multnomah St, NE 9th Ave and to Roberto’s.

After my run Matthew and I headed out on foot to see some of Portland. We went to a coffee shop ‘The Morning Star’, which also happens to be the name of Britain’s Communist party daily newspaper, (a dreary, hectoring and badly-written read I’m afraid).

A little sightseeing in Portland – we came across two of the ten ‘animals in pools’ fountains – there’s a whole series of them with bronze life size animal sculptures made by Georgia Gerber in 1986 – we found bears and ducks. – they’re clearly very popular as they had shiny patches where they’d been petted.

We happened upon Director Park (officially Simon and Helen Director Park) on our way to the tourist information office.

At the tourist information office in Pioneer Courthouse Square there was a man working on the desk who was from Ayreshire, Scotland. He said that he came to America in 1950 after he had left the army. He’d worked as a draughtsman for most of his life, but he said: “I’ve waited 50 years to get this job. I’m paid to tell people where to go!” He gave us a really useful (and free) cycling map of Oregon that might well help us as we travel down the Oregon coast. (And I can always threaten Garmin with the map, when it starts playing up). He also said “I hope that you don’t think I’m being presumptuous”, as he proffered us an ‘Out in Portland’ booklet. “Not at all.” I replied, “You’re being perceptive!” (Perceptive? Who do I think I’m kidding?!) He told us that his son is gay, which was very sweet of him.

We made our way up to Washington Park, where there was a vast rose garden and a lovely Japanese garden – which is beautifully done and both much bigger than we expected. Roberto told us Portland’s climate is ideal for rose growing, so it’s famous for them. In the Japanese Garden the acers are looking wonderful and the colours must be really spectacular in the autumn. We bought a solar-powered Chinese lantern, that we thought might look good in Roberto’s garden. The park is high up and there lots of cyclists about, including Judy, who kindly offered to take our picture. She had a very nice-looking Trek road bicycle – we took her picture, too, and gave her our blog address so that she can prove to her friends that she was out riding uphill.

On the Warm Showers site, one of the questions to answer for people who might want to stay is the distance of one’s house to the nearest bicycle shop – this is in case a cyclist passing through needs spares or repairs. On one of the Portland listings, someone has written that you can’t swing a cat in Portland without hitting at least three bicycle shops! So it was very challenging not to visit as many as possible! We visited a few Portland bicycle shops and realised that we could easily have spent the whole day admiring ‘bike porn’ and talking bikes, (well Mike could). There’s a law of bicycle ownership which suggests that the ideal number of bicycle to own is n+1, where n = the number of bicycles already owned. In other words, Mike is always looking out for a new bike … His current four being at least one fewer than the optimum. Matthew has rather unilaterally introduced a ‘first amendment’ to the law: one in – one out. This is deeply unfair of course, and never seems to apply to any of his stuff.

The nicest bicycle shops in Portland included the Recyclery Bicycle Shop – with lots of renovated old steel frames from the 1970s and earlier, (I spotted a lovely old Holdsworth), fancy chrome and intricate lug work. They sell for about $800-900 – our friend Andy H could make a fortune here. They also had a yellow jersey signed by Greg Lemond hanging on the wall. Very impressive! Next, the Bike Gallery, with some funny bicycle-related t-shirts, socks and local club jerseys the Oregon Ducks and Portland CC.

River City Bicycles was the best bicycle store we visited and also the only shop in the US that sells the lovely Rapha cycling gear from London that is our cycle clothing of choice. If anyone likes the look of our cycling kit: visit http://www.rapha.cc – be warned, the prices are eye-wateringly high. Rapha is even more expensive in the US than in the UK, but one of the assistants assured us that it sold very well.

Finally, we saw that there a shop called Coventry Cycle Works. We couldn’t resist visiting as (a) Matthew is from Coventry and (b) Coventry Cycles are a famous old brand in the UK – sadly no longer being made. The shop had just closed when we arrived, but we took some pictures and could see through the windows that they specialised in recumbents.

All these bicycle shops, plus the fact that Portland is the home to Nike sportswear and we saw a HUGE Nike outlet store, made it quite difficult to resist the temptation to consume. I just had to keep reminding myself that I’d struggle to carry anything else in my one pannier bag, so managed to resist the urge to buy.

We headed back to Roberto’s and his friend Dave had arrived from Vancouver, while Larry had gone up to Seattle. The four of us went out for a Chinese meal – it was a good place to be vegan, (although Dave didn’t seem to be so sure that he’d enjoy it and was wondering about a beef fix). The food was fine and the bill was amazing: $39 for four! I thought there’d been an error – that’s £6 each – that meal would have cost about £20 each in the UK.

So back home to bed, after a very nice rest day in Portland.

Day 04 – Monday – Centralia to Portland
Posted by Mike

Estimate: 97 miles, actual: 110.1 miles – had to use a diversion in Longview and looked around Portland when we arrived, so that added on some miles.
Avg speed: 15.8 mph – very good
Cumulative distance: 346.98 miles

Good news! The Warm Showers cycling community has come good, (who ever doubted that they wouldn’t?!), and a lovely man in Portland called Roberto – and his housemate Larry – have offered to accommodate us. He was away on a camping trip when we sent our message, but he replied as soon as he came home. This means that we won’t have to search (and pay) for an hotel later, which is a bit of a relief.

Roberto suggested that we call him to make arrangements last night, but because of the problems with the wi-fi at the Motel 6, it wasn’t until we were in Safeway’s at about 9 pm that I was able to pick up Roberto’s e-mail and relate the good news to Matthew. He was so happy that he ended up buying too much – more than we could eat in any case, (but that seems so easy to do in the USA). It was a bit late to call, I thought, so I sent a quick message to Roberto to let him know that I’d contact him this morning, which I did. He said that he was working to about 8.30 this evening, which was good news, it meant that we didn’t need to hurry on our journey today. His housemate, Larry would be at home and would expect us. I told him how excited we were about visiting Portland, because it was famous as the cycling capital of America. He replied, “Yes. And we’re very proud of that.” It made me so happy to hear someone say that. This trip sort of evolved out of my strong desire to come to Portland and find out a bit more about it and experience it for myself. It was fitting and perhaps inevitable that we should cycle to get there. I’ve always loved cycling so much and I have always found the cycling community is a very open, accepting, relaxed and happy place for me to be. Portland is a sort of bicycle pilgrim’s Mecca. But there can sometimes be a little anxiety about fulfilling a dream … will the reality disappoint? Somehow that seems inevitable, and I’m something of a pessimist by nature: if I expect the worst, I’m less likely to be disappointed. ‘Pessimists only get nice surprises’, as the saying goes. What Roberto had said, led me to think that I wasn’t going to be disappointed by Portland. We took down Roberto’s and Larry’s address and set off.

Garmin was being particularly stupid today. Our routes are all stored in Garmin’s memory, but our route for today was no real use – it was to Sauvie Island, about 10 miles west of Portland, where we had originally been intending to stay. Roberto and Larry are in north Portland, so I programmed their address into Garmin and asked it to plot a route. It came up with a route with a distance of 200-odd miles – I knew that the journey was actually about 100 miles. Perhaps Garmin was piqued by the disparaging comments in yesterday’s post. Anyway, there was no way that I was cycling 200+ miles today, just to satisfy a cycling computer, so it was over to Google. I plotted a route on my iPhone that would be 97 miles … that was much more like it! While we were riding, we started to notice stencilled markings on the road – SP … later we discovered that this was the official Seattle to Portland bicycle route – we could have just followed that!

Today’s trip was in two sections: the first from Centralia to Napavine, then Winlock and Vader, through the Enchanted Valley following the Cowlitz River to Longview/Kelso for lunch.

The terrain was rolling woodland, beautiful – the roads were quiet and immaculately surfaced. That part of our journey was 51.49 miles and we managed an average speed of 15.5 mph – I’m very pleased with that. The weather was ideal for riding; a little cloudy and overcast, some quite welcome cool conditions compared to the last few days.

A man stopped to talk to us while we were having lunch outside Safeway’s (Kelso), (yes – this is becoming something of a habit, but at Safeway’s they usually have free wi-fi, a deli counter, and almost all of the things that someone as difficult to feed as me needs). Anyway, the man we were speaking with was called Bud and he remarked that it was a nice day for cycling! I’m not certain how, but we ended up talking with for an hour and ten minutes! We were only planning on spending 30 minutes or so having lunch in Longview. But he was really worth talking to. He was an out-of-work steel worker, very much involved with the US labor movement and still involved with his trade union. He was very happy, (to my enormous surprise since we’re in the USA), to talk about socialism and Karl Marx! He was very engaged with issues and worked hard to keep the pressure on his local representatives to be progressive and fair-minded. He told that the Republican Tea Party is known as the ‘Teahadists’ by the left – a wonderful joke, I thought!

There are local elections taking place all over this part of the US at the moment, and it’s impossible to ignore the billboards and poster boards in people’s gardens calling for someone to be elected mayor, chief fire officer, town treasurer, woodland commissioner and the like. Unlike in Britain, election posters tend not to state which party a particular candidate belongs to. When we talked about it on one if our rides, Matthew thought that there were more independent candidates in US local elections than in the UK – so maybe that explained it. I was less sure – I’m pretty sceptical about the notion of independents – in my experience they’re almost always conservatives … or worse, who have a particular reason for not declaring their true right-wing political affiliations. So I wondered if it was possible to ‘decode’ the posters, for example text in red being more likely to be for a Republican and on blue a Democrat. Bud said that often happened and there were other ways in which for some elected positions, party affiliations had to be withheld, but that most everyone would know based on positions taken on issues what candidates’ values were. Bud was amazingly knowledgeable about British politics and the coalition – I think that he would shame plenty of British people with what he knew! I hope that he’s not out of work for too long – perhaps he should run for Congress! We’d have enjoyed talking with him longer, but there were still another 50-odd miles to go, so we had to get back on the saddle and head out on our second leg.

The start of the second part of our journey from Kelso, through Longview took us from Washington State and into Oregon. The state border is marked by the mighty Columbia River. The cantilever bridge over the river is the most Super-Scary Bridge I’ve ever cycled across: the Lewis and Clarke bridge is over 2.5 km (one and a half miles) long and 64m (210 ft) in the air. At the time of completion in 1930, it had the longest span in the United States. I don’t really like heights to start with and I had a real sense of trepidation as we approached the bridge – it’s huge, I mean HUGE! There were long tailbacks of traffic to get onto the bridge, including massive lorries loaded with gigantic logs. As logging and timber are significant local industries, there are pieces of bark and bits of wood strewn all over the roads – most of it seems to get pushed over to the sides of the road, where we’re cycling – so that makes riding a little bit more bumpy and hazardous. When we started up the bridge access ramp, it quickly became clear that the bridge only has a very narrow cycling lane and that it was heavily strewn with bark, bits of wood and other pieces of roadside debris. It was really difficult to keep an eye on steering around the rubbish on the roadway without going into the line of traffic and also (for me) making sure that my view didn’t mean that I was looking over the edge. The bridge is so high to allow big ships to pass underneath and one was moored just underneath. It was a very odd sensation to look down from so close onto something else that was so big – but I just kept averting my eyes and concentrating on the road surface ahead. To compound the general high-level anxiety that I was feeling, there was work being done on the bridge and a couple of sections of bridge on the Oregon side were shrouded in plastic – as we cycled through these, the light levels dropped and it became very dim, also the roar of the traffic was deafening. My heart was pounding and my mouth went dry. I felt a little giddy and I was anxious about Matthew’s safety as well as my own. We’re both experienced cyclists and we’re used to all kinds of difficult situations – but this one was up there among the worst! Thankfully we both survived and coming off of the bridge and I started to calm down.

I rather feared that some of the conditions on the bridge might be replicated on the road as we continued south, but this wasn’t the case and Highway 30 was fine. Although the traffic was quite heavy, (no respite from the logging trucks), there was a wide cycle lane almost all the way into Portland – often with room for us both to cycle along side by side.

We rode through Rainier, Columbia City, St Helens, Scappoose, past the entrance to Sauvie Island, (so that original Garmin route would have been useful after all), and into Portland. The road ran parallel to the Columbia River along a flat valley floor. The river was really wide and there were lots of beautiful lakes either side, covered in lilies, which must look incredible when they’re in flower. There was a broad flat plain on the far side of the river, and we could see a long way across the water. To the west and south side of the river where the road we were riding on was built there were lots of wooded hills.

It was fantastic to get to Portland at last … and unsurprisingly as we approached the city from the west at about 6.00 pm, we saw more and more cyclists. On the outer edge racing cyclists out on their training rides then inside the city there were lots of commuter cyclists. It was heaven! I was also amazed by the amount of runners out along the sides of the river – but Portland id the headquarters of Nike, so perhaps I shouldn’t have been so surprised.

We arrived in Portland a little earlier than we expected – Highway 30 was fast and smooth (riding along there brought our average speed up to 16.1 mph – an excellent pace. We decided to spend a bit of time exploring downtown Portland and the cycle routes along the river before heading to Roberto’s and Larry’s for the evening.

We’re staying in Portland tomorrow and don’t have anywhere to get to, so I’ll update the blog on our evening with Larry and Roberto, more about Portland and a summary of cycling in Washington State tomorrow.

One last thing for now – and just to prove how amazing Warm Showers is, two (count them), two Warm Showers members from Portland: Lisa and Stasia, emailed us to offer accommodation. Stasia isn’t even in town at the moment, she’s in California, but said that her partner James was still in Portland and could put us up. How amazing is that?! I think that I might have written already about how Warm Showers is full of stories of miracles and that cyclists were a ‘good sort’ – here’s even more proof.

Second leg: 58.61 miles at an average speed of 15.8 mph

Day 03 Seattle to Centalia
Posted by Mike

Estimate: 80 miles, actual: 78.55 miles
Avg speed: 15.6 mph – hurray, over target for the first time this holiday.
Cumulative distance: 236.97 miles

It’s Sunday and Aaron was having a lie-in, so we didn’t get to take a photo of him and Braxton, which was a shame. We were up and about at 7 am and met up with Aaron’s housemates, who were really nice. They said they were sorry for staying up late and keeping us awake – but they really needn’t have worried, we weren’t disturbed at all! We’re still a little jet-lagged as UK time is seven hours behind, so we flag fairly early and then we’re waking up at around 3am! Aaron had shown his housemates our blog … it’s curious to meet people that we don’t know, but who already know something of our cycling adventure and a little about us from our blog!

Matthew thinks that perhaps our blog has the potential to go viral! He’s been checking up on the number of ‘hits’ and is becoming quite excited; a couple of days ago 19 ‘hits’ in one day, then it climbed to 56, then 77 and we wondered if it would ever be more than 100, well yesterday the number of ‘hits’ topped out at 183! I’m flabbergasted – I didn’t think we even knew that many people!

We helped ourselves to some coffee, (thanks Aaron) and chatted about our trip with Aaron’s housemates and they told us about their visits to Europe – Germany, Netherlands, France, Italy and also to Hungary and the Czech Republic, where she was told by someone that they didn’t really like Americans. We had a bit of a deep early-morning discussion about Britain and American foreign policies over the last 100 years or so – a good topic. We agreed that overseas interventions are often unfortunate, can be mishandled but that sometimes they’re for a good reason – such as defending democracy, liberating people, helping to bring aid – the ideal situation would be if they weren’t necessary. After we’d spent the morning putting the world right, we left for breakfast at Starbucks’ (Seattle #2) to consider far more important matters …

Dilemma of the day: Garmin or Google?

When we were planning our daily routes from Vancouver to Tijuana we used Garmin Base Camp on my computer, connected to an Edge 800 cycling GPS system loaded with City Navigator, USA. The Garmin contains all the roads in N. America on a micro-sim card, which is amazing. With Base Camp software it’s possible to produce routes specifically designed for cycling, so it won’t use motorways for example. It’s also possible to tailor the Garmin computer to plan routes that avoid busy dual carriageways too, so it can suggest some lovely routes for us. Generally speaking it’s pretty good that means we can dispense with paper maps and it’s a real boon on a trip like this one. However, it has to be made clear that the Garmin is also extremely stupid, annoying and frustrating at times! It takes everything that it’s told very literally, so for example when it was asked to make a route that avoids busy main roads on our last trip to Germany, it added an extra 100 miles on the section between Hannover and Hamburg, just to avoid a 5 mile section of main road, (that even had a cycle lane running alongside it, which it obviously didn’t know about)! It’s also seems to have quite a masculine persona in that it doesn’t seem able to be sensitive to other people’s emotions – after a long, hot, tiring day in the saddle no-one wants to be told to ride another 20 miles, (even if it is on lovely scenic country lanes), when they know that they’re only 5 miles from their destination.

I have a kind of parent-child relationship with the Garmin, (and I’m not certain who’s the adult sometimes). Garmin might suggests that I take a particular turning and I might shout at it: “No, I’m not doing that”, and I also ignore it sometimes. Then it starts going crazy – beeping at me and flashing messages: ‘recalculating route, please wait …’ (I’ve turned recalculate route off now – that’ll show it!). I never have this sort of trouble with my Garmin GPS running wristwatch – although I never ask that to show me the way! So to compensate for Garmin’s occasional shortcomings, we use Google maps to see if the suggested walking route between two places, (which will almost always be shorter than Garmin’s cycling route) looks like a better choice: more interesting, scenic, shorter etc. If it is, we can force Garmin to take us on all or part of Google’s route – now who’s on charge?! Trouble is, Google can be pretty dense at times, too. So, just as Garmin won’t route down cycle tracks (and it does have some excuse, because it doesn’t know about them), Google will sometimes route down roads that are not accessible to pedestrians or sensible to use for cycling, like major A-roads and dual carriageways that are motorways in all but name. Google try and wriggle out of responsibility for being so stupid sometimes by having a warning on the screen telling everyone that ‘Google walking routes are on beta – use with caution’. Thing is, they’ve been in beta (a test version), for years – it’s probably the longest anything’s ever been in beta! So it’s best to work out a compromise between Garmin and Google, which is why all that route-planning was such a palaver before we left. With today’s route, however, that wasn’t really possible because Garmin routed to the Fauntleroy ferry terminal in south west Seattle and then across to Vashon Island (20 minutes on the ferry), then suggested riding south down the island for another short ferry crossing to Ruston (10 minutes), back on the mainland and then south through Tacoma, Parkland, Spanawau, Roy and Bucoda to Centralia. Google didn’t want us to use the ferry at all and kept us on the mainland – routing through south Seattle, Des Moines, then more or less agreed with Garmin: Tacoma etc.

So, what to do? Take the ferry and visit Vashon Island or not? I was a little uneasy; would it be cheating? After all, we’re attempting to cycle – CYCLE – from Vancouver to Tijuana. Matthew thought that the it might be a pleasant addition to the adventure if we took the ferry and that a visit to Vashon Island might be nice. He reasoned that even though we’d be taking a ferry, we were still doing the journey by bike. I thought that by that logic, we could take our bicycles on a train for the whole journey and still claim to be going by bike! Matthew thought that the crossings didn’t amount to much distance-wise (this is true), and that we’d be cycling the equivalent distance and more with the extra miles we did going off route, riding around cities etc. One of the biggest considerations was what the roads and traffic might be like via Google … the road into Seattle from the north was mostly unpleasant to ride, so it would be best to avoid that kind of relentless stop-start traffic through soul-less landscapes of tin sheds. But it was a Sunday morning and the roads seemed fairly quiet. What to do? As we were pondering this, three cyclists came into the Starbucks we were at and Mike decided to ask them if they were local and which route south would be best: mainland or island? They were unanimous: Vashon Island was definitely the most sensible route. It turns out that they were teachers who lived there! They’d just come off the ferry to the mainland to ride along a local greenway. So that was the decision made, (phew). We chatted with the other cyclists a bit – they knew Bath, where I work and had been cycling in the Cotswolds – it’s such a small world! (We go cycling through the Cotswolds to go up to Coventry to see Matthew’s family). We gave them the blog address and invited them to visit us in Bristol – hope they do, it’d be lovely to meet them again. So off we went to the ferry terminal.

My heart sank a little as we approached the ferry – it was quite foggy down by the water and there were long queues of cars waiting to use it. I needn’t have worried – ferries are usually brilliant for cyclists – they often allow cyclists to board first and then we also usually get to disembark first, too. Result! There were a few bikers (motorcyclists), pedestrians and cyclists waiting for the ferry at the head of the queue, so we bought our tickets $11.50 for two – took us on both ferry legs of the journey, a bargain!)

We struck up a conversation with one of the other waiting cyclists – a women with a lovely Specialized road racing bike – a matte black carbon bicycle with some nice understated pink accents, arching top tube, Sram groupset … all rather lovely. We chatted a bit about our respective rides and how to become a better rider, (we agreed: join a group to keep you competitive and practice). I wish that I’d taken her picture – she was very stylish in good-Lycra and also immaculately made up – wearing foundation, blusher, subtle pink lip gloss (obviously to match her Specialized road frame) along with pretty little pearl stud earrings. Now this is rather unusual in female road racing cyclists – at least it’s very uncommon back home; as for in Seattle – who knows? I wondered about asking her if I might take her picture to send to Copenhagen Cycling Chic, but was afraid that she might think that I was some kind of pervert! For those who don’t know, Copenhagen Cycling Chic is a superb website with photographs showing people looking stylish, nicely dressed and generally cool while on their bikes – and not just in Copenhagen, (although that place does seem to have something of a monopoly of beautiful people on bikes for some reason). She was a definite contender (and eventual winner) for the Most Stylish Cyclist of the Day award. Now before some people start commenting, I want to make it clear that I think that men can be stylish on bicycles too, (go and look at the site). In fact I think that I could be a worthy winner myself on some days, days when I’m riding my grey and orange Trek single speed and wearing black Rapha trousers, a cool t-shirt with a nice slogan on it: ‘love me, love my bike’ or ‘one less car’ for example; Camper shoes, a check cycling cap and a Crumpler messenger bag over my shoulder.

While we were in Starbucks Seattle #2 the rear tyre on Mike’s bicycle had gone down – why is it always the back one?! So that’s puncture #1. We quickly pumped it up again and rode to the ferry, then Mike was able to fix it on the ferry crossing – found a small thorn embedded in the tyre.

The crossing was lovely – calm water and incredible views across the water, back to the city and over to the mountains.

There was a little steep climb once we landed at Vashon Island and we were out of the mist. The island is beautiful – little coves and inlets all along the undulating roads with lovely views of a snow-topped Mount Rainier across the water to the south east. The houses were pretty and in the small towns there were lots of nice proprietor-run independent shops, (which made me feel a little guilty about going to Starbucks). The shops were selling interesting things, including a lovely quilt shop. We’d been recommended a wonderful bread shop by the teachers in Starbucks, but we missed it somehow. There were loads of runners and other cyclists – including some road riders in a bunch – about 8 or so. Lots if other pairs of riders and some fours. The most popular brand of bicycle seems to be Specialized, there were quite a few Trek bikes too and I spotted some that we’re made by Giant.

Perhaps the most famous bicycle on Vashon Island is a child’s bicycle that’s become embedded in a tree trunk. The story is reported in an article from the December 30th, 2009 Vashon-Maury Island Beachcomber.

After the second ferry crossing there were some some incredibly big posh houses along the water in Ruston, but then came a really horrible bit – a busy road flanked hideous car showrooms – outside one, employees looked to be protesting with banners, placards and whistles. Once past there, a Garmin routing problem – the stupid thing directed us to the gates of the huge Gray military base and expected us to cycle along the road that goes right through the middle of it … the military had other ideas, of course. After a bit of shouting and swearing at the stupid *+&;@£^ Garmin, we went around the outside of the base.

Not far after Roy, we discovered an amazing wide segregated cycle track that went on for over 10 miles through woodland and past lakes. It ended about 7 miles north of Centralia. We were able to increase our speed and this really helped drag our average up to something a little more respectable.

Staying at a Motel 6, tonight – part of the Accor group. Basic, but nice and clean. Even a little pool, well used by children, so probably best avoided! We had to pay extra for Wi-Fi, but it didn’t work – so no posting for a while. There was a laundry room and we were able to wash all our cycling clothes, which were beginning to smell a bit I think! It’ll be wonderful to wear clean cycling gear again – especially as we’re heading to Portland – with its reputation as the cycling capital of the USA – there’s certain to be lots of cycling chic there, so we should aim to look our best in our Rapha gear!

We concluded the day with a trip to Safeway’s to buy some provisions for dinner. Matthew says that he thinks Safeway’s in the USA is a little like Waitrose in the UK. I think that’s overstating things somewhat, it’s not nearly as posh (or as expensive) as Waitrose. It’s more like Sainsbury’s really. Anyway, I had to drag him away from the home-style magazines with lots of Halloween ideas for treats and carved pumpkins … he was sneakily photographing some the pages, so no doubt the ideas will be making an appearance in Stackpool Road cul-de-sac at the end of October!