Day Total - 49.9 miles
Trip Total - 978.3 miles
When I first woke up at 6, it was raining. I went back to sleep, awoke an hour later, and it was still raining. Same thing at 8. Finally, around 9:30, the sky began to clear, and we got ready to get on our way. Of course, while I had been packing everything I could in my tent, Kevin had decided it was too cold to get out of his sleeping bag, so he wasn't ready until noon. At least the sun had come out by then.
The day's route would be rather circuitous. We wouldn't be going all that far as the crow flies, a little over 20 miles, but the riding distance was close to 50. The reason was that we would first be taking the long way to Tillamook on the Three Capes Route, then we had to go around Tillamook and Nehalem Bays. We could have cut out about eight miles by taking the highway directly from Netarts, the first town of the day, to Tillamook instead of the Cape Meares road, but where's the fun in that?
After a flat first few miles along Netarts Bay, we reached the eponymous town and were immediately faced with a steep climb. Then, after a drop into Oceanside, there was another. And finally, a third that took us to the top of Cape Meares, the last of the Three Capes. We didn't bother to detour to the lighthouse in view of our late start and the tough few miles leading up to it, but we did stop for a little while to snack.
The descent off the cape was rough, to say the least. The road, not a main highway by any stretch, had been bad all morning, but I had to stop at the bottom of this one to make sure everything was still attached to the bike and that nothing on the bike was broken.
We now had a tailwind temporarily as we rode southeast along the shore of Tillamook Bay. The road here was extremely level, running just above the waterline, so we made up all the time we had lost on the hills and then some. Once the steep cliffs on our right turned to flat dairy land, we arrived in the city of Tillamook at 1:45. We stopped at the grocery store, of course, and then rode north to the outskirts of town to visit the town's prime attraction: the Tillamook Cheese Factory.
The factory really is mostly a tourist trap, as I expected, but at least you could look through large glass windows to see parts of the chesse-making process on the factory floor. Kevin was terrified of the crowds though, so we didn't stay long. We got some cheese samples and I bought a brick of cheese on the way out. It was, surprisingly, priced well below what it normally would be in a grocery store. On our way out, we saw another cycle tourist pulling up to the bike rack (which we were completely blocking - they're not exactly made for touring bikes). It turned out to be the other Matt, a northbounder who we had first seen in Brookings and who had been largely keeping the same pace as Starvin (our name for the Starving Cyclist).
From the cheese factory, we rode north along Tillamook Bay. The flatness of the previous several miles continued, but we had our usual headwind back and therefore weren't moving all that quickly. Then, as we were stopped for a snack break, an SUV heading south on 101 abruptly pulled across the highway and stopped next to us. The driver asked us what direction we were going. It should be noted that we had absolutely no idea who this guy was, and that this question was literally the first thing he said as he rolled down his window. But we told him that we were headed north, to which his reply was a disappointed "Too bad, you missed us!" Us because his wife was in the passenger seat. He then handed us two cookies and drove off. We weren't sure what he was talking about, until we read the message in the cookie bags. He and his wife had started a cyclist hostel near Cape Blanco, a good 250 miles south of where we were. Still, it's definitely a pretty cool thing to see with so many cycle tourists on the Pacific Coast. Oh, and for the record, they were not weed cookies, which was our initial suspicion before we saw the messages in the bags.
After that stop, it wasn't long before we reached the end of Tillamook Bay. It hadn't been my favorite stretch of riding, between the heavy traffic and the rough shoulder, not to mention the frankly mediocre scenery (I'm spoiled, I know). Leaving it behind wasn't exactly a great disappointment for me. The body of water, Nehalem Bay, was quite different, however. After we rounded the ocean coast between the two bays, the view opened up to emerald mountains rising on all sides, with chocolate-colored, sheer cliffs rising straight out of the sea at the north end of the bay. Traffic was lighter too, and the road was in good shape, if steeply rolling. It was getting late in the day too, so the light reflecting off the mountains gave them an orange-pink glow.
We made our way around the bay and through the town of Nehalem before turning off 101 into Nehalem Bay State Park. It is a couple miles off the highway on the peninsula separating the bay from the ocean, and more importantly, it had a hiker/biker camp. In addition, today is Oregon State Parks Day, which meant that we didn't have to pay for camping. Not too long after our arrival, we were joined by Other Matt, who filled us in on Starvin's fate. Starvin had apparently gotten stuck just north of Newport when his rear derailleur hanger broke. He had to hitchhike back to town to get a new one, and the delay, combined with the fact that he is turning east at Astoria, means that we probably will not see him again.
Trip Total - 978.3 miles
When I first woke up at 6, it was raining. I went back to sleep, awoke an hour later, and it was still raining. Same thing at 8. Finally, around 9:30, the sky began to clear, and we got ready to get on our way. Of course, while I had been packing everything I could in my tent, Kevin had decided it was too cold to get out of his sleeping bag, so he wasn't ready until noon. At least the sun had come out by then.
 |
| It cleared up a little bit overnight |
After a flat first few miles along Netarts Bay, we reached the eponymous town and were immediately faced with a steep climb. Then, after a drop into Oceanside, there was another. And finally, a third that took us to the top of Cape Meares, the last of the Three Capes. We didn't bother to detour to the lighthouse in view of our late start and the tough few miles leading up to it, but we did stop for a little while to snack.
The descent off the cape was rough, to say the least. The road, not a main highway by any stretch, had been bad all morning, but I had to stop at the bottom of this one to make sure everything was still attached to the bike and that nothing on the bike was broken.
We now had a tailwind temporarily as we rode southeast along the shore of Tillamook Bay. The road here was extremely level, running just above the waterline, so we made up all the time we had lost on the hills and then some. Once the steep cliffs on our right turned to flat dairy land, we arrived in the city of Tillamook at 1:45. We stopped at the grocery store, of course, and then rode north to the outskirts of town to visit the town's prime attraction: the Tillamook Cheese Factory.
The factory really is mostly a tourist trap, as I expected, but at least you could look through large glass windows to see parts of the chesse-making process on the factory floor. Kevin was terrified of the crowds though, so we didn't stay long. We got some cheese samples and I bought a brick of cheese on the way out. It was, surprisingly, priced well below what it normally would be in a grocery store. On our way out, we saw another cycle tourist pulling up to the bike rack (which we were completely blocking - they're not exactly made for touring bikes). It turned out to be the other Matt, a northbounder who we had first seen in Brookings and who had been largely keeping the same pace as Starvin (our name for the Starving Cyclist).
From the cheese factory, we rode north along Tillamook Bay. The flatness of the previous several miles continued, but we had our usual headwind back and therefore weren't moving all that quickly. Then, as we were stopped for a snack break, an SUV heading south on 101 abruptly pulled across the highway and stopped next to us. The driver asked us what direction we were going. It should be noted that we had absolutely no idea who this guy was, and that this question was literally the first thing he said as he rolled down his window. But we told him that we were headed north, to which his reply was a disappointed "Too bad, you missed us!" Us because his wife was in the passenger seat. He then handed us two cookies and drove off. We weren't sure what he was talking about, until we read the message in the cookie bags. He and his wife had started a cyclist hostel near Cape Blanco, a good 250 miles south of where we were. Still, it's definitely a pretty cool thing to see with so many cycle tourists on the Pacific Coast. Oh, and for the record, they were not weed cookies, which was our initial suspicion before we saw the messages in the bags.
After that stop, it wasn't long before we reached the end of Tillamook Bay. It hadn't been my favorite stretch of riding, between the heavy traffic and the rough shoulder, not to mention the frankly mediocre scenery (I'm spoiled, I know). Leaving it behind wasn't exactly a great disappointment for me. The body of water, Nehalem Bay, was quite different, however. After we rounded the ocean coast between the two bays, the view opened up to emerald mountains rising on all sides, with chocolate-colored, sheer cliffs rising straight out of the sea at the north end of the bay. Traffic was lighter too, and the road was in good shape, if steeply rolling. It was getting late in the day too, so the light reflecting off the mountains gave them an orange-pink glow.
We made our way around the bay and through the town of Nehalem before turning off 101 into Nehalem Bay State Park. It is a couple miles off the highway on the peninsula separating the bay from the ocean, and more importantly, it had a hiker/biker camp. In addition, today is Oregon State Parks Day, which meant that we didn't have to pay for camping. Not too long after our arrival, we were joined by Other Matt, who filled us in on Starvin's fate. Starvin had apparently gotten stuck just north of Newport when his rear derailleur hanger broke. He had to hitchhike back to town to get a new one, and the delay, combined with the fact that he is turning east at Astoria, means that we probably will not see him again.
View Day 26 - Netarts, OR-Manzanita, OR in a larger map
Hi Matt,
ReplyDeleteMy name is Jane and I'm with Dwellable.
I was looking for blogs about the dog festival in Manzanita to share on our site and I came across your post...If you're open to it, shoot me an email at jane(at)dwellable(dot)com.
Hope to hear from you soon!
Jane