Day Total - 48.3 miles
Trip Total - 772.9 miles
Cruising speed with a tailwind: 17 mph.
We were, unusually, the first bikers out of camp this morning at about 9:15. The forecast said there was a 30% chance of rain, so we wanted to have time to make camp nearly 50 miles away in case we had to take shelter. We left the very busy campground on 101, but just a few miles down the highway, we turned onto Seven Devils Road, the apparently more scenic route recommended by both the ACA and the official state route.
The scenery, though, mostly consisted of logging land, including several clear cut sections. It was definitely an up close and personal reminder of where our lumber and paper comes from, with almost every inch of the roadside showing some evidence of logging activity. At least the road itself was excellent for the most part. There was very little traffic, and much of the road was newly paved. Even the long but shallow climb at the start was pleasant in the shade of the pines (except where those pines had been stripped away, of course).
Around 20 miles into the day's ride, we dropped steeply into the town of Charleston. After passing by the harbor, Kevin spotted a Dairy Queen and stopped to satisfy (temporarily) his perpetual fast food craving. I, meanwhile, did not really have much of an appetite for DQ, so I waited outside and munched on fruit and trail mix. Once Kevin finished eating, we continued along the Cape Arago Highway toward Coos Bay and North Bend, two cities that market themselves as "Oregon's Bay Area." They were certainly the biggest towns we had seen for some time, probably since Eureka and Arcata, and even though we weren't back to 101 yet, there was still a lot of traffic on the city streets. We made a stop at Safeway in North Bend, where I got roped into a Safeway Club card. Luckily, I gave them my Kirkwood address, so I shouldn't have to deal with the junk mail (sorry Robbin!).
Getting out of North Bend would prove to be a little tricky. We didn't get lost, but the road (101 again) northward crosses a mile-long bridge over Coos Bay. The bridge is extremely narrow, so cyclists are strongly advised to walk across on the sidewalk. We heeded this advice without a second thought once we saw the bridge. With heavy traffic and two lanes designed for 1930s vehicles, it's what we call Certain Death to Cyclists.
Once on the other side, we had 10 very flat miles of riding, and what's more, we had a noticeable tailwind! With ATVs buzzing around the dunes to our left, we pushed speeds of 17 to 20 mph on flats with almost no effort. And the wind at our backs wasn't even all that strong - 10 mph at most. That, plus the headwind a couple days before, made us realize how crazy it really is to be doing this trip northbound. Southbounders get this type of tailwind almost every day. Now we understand how a lot of them are averaging over 60 miles daily - that's only 3 to 4 hours of riding for them!
We still had one more hill to climb before camp, although the ACA route took us off 101 for a couple miles to avoid the worst of it (plus the side road gave us good views of the dunes). After entering Douglas County, we crested the climb and almost immediately turned into Umpqua Lighthouse State Park, our destination for the night. There was no sign of either of the northbounders who were in camp with us the previous night. They were both headed to the same area as well, but there is another hiker/biker camp a couple miles to the south that they probably chose.
In any case, the Umpqua Lighthouse campground was fairly small and protected in a pine forest. That turned out to be lucky, because about 90 minutes after we arrive, it began to rain. It wasn't enough to immediately force us into our tents, but after about half an hour, everything outside was saturated with water. We got into our tents early as a result, listening to the sounds of ATV engines in the dunes and the foghorn of the lighthouse below.
Trip Total - 772.9 miles
Cruising speed with a tailwind: 17 mph.
We were, unusually, the first bikers out of camp this morning at about 9:15. The forecast said there was a 30% chance of rain, so we wanted to have time to make camp nearly 50 miles away in case we had to take shelter. We left the very busy campground on 101, but just a few miles down the highway, we turned onto Seven Devils Road, the apparently more scenic route recommended by both the ACA and the official state route.
The scenery, though, mostly consisted of logging land, including several clear cut sections. It was definitely an up close and personal reminder of where our lumber and paper comes from, with almost every inch of the roadside showing some evidence of logging activity. At least the road itself was excellent for the most part. There was very little traffic, and much of the road was newly paved. Even the long but shallow climb at the start was pleasant in the shade of the pines (except where those pines had been stripped away, of course).
Around 20 miles into the day's ride, we dropped steeply into the town of Charleston. After passing by the harbor, Kevin spotted a Dairy Queen and stopped to satisfy (temporarily) his perpetual fast food craving. I, meanwhile, did not really have much of an appetite for DQ, so I waited outside and munched on fruit and trail mix. Once Kevin finished eating, we continued along the Cape Arago Highway toward Coos Bay and North Bend, two cities that market themselves as "Oregon's Bay Area." They were certainly the biggest towns we had seen for some time, probably since Eureka and Arcata, and even though we weren't back to 101 yet, there was still a lot of traffic on the city streets. We made a stop at Safeway in North Bend, where I got roped into a Safeway Club card. Luckily, I gave them my Kirkwood address, so I shouldn't have to deal with the junk mail (sorry Robbin!).
Getting out of North Bend would prove to be a little tricky. We didn't get lost, but the road (101 again) northward crosses a mile-long bridge over Coos Bay. The bridge is extremely narrow, so cyclists are strongly advised to walk across on the sidewalk. We heeded this advice without a second thought once we saw the bridge. With heavy traffic and two lanes designed for 1930s vehicles, it's what we call Certain Death to Cyclists.
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| Somehow I got a picture during the only break in traffic |
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| Coos Bay |
We still had one more hill to climb before camp, although the ACA route took us off 101 for a couple miles to avoid the worst of it (plus the side road gave us good views of the dunes). After entering Douglas County, we crested the climb and almost immediately turned into Umpqua Lighthouse State Park, our destination for the night. There was no sign of either of the northbounders who were in camp with us the previous night. They were both headed to the same area as well, but there is another hiker/biker camp a couple miles to the south that they probably chose.
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| Umpqua River jetties |
View Day 20 - Bandon, OR-Winchester Bay, OR in a larger map
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