Big Ride Pacific Coast 2008

DAY 7, Friday 9/19
Honeyman State Park To Bullard’s Beach State Park

Ride Time: 5h20min
Max Speed: 36.6 mi/hr (59 Km/hr)

We have an easier day today, as we are only covering 67miles (107Km) and 3,225 ft (~1,000m) of total ascent.

I started the day riding with the ‘NY Greyhounds’ (MJ, Cori) and Spoke (Peter). MJ (Flask) and Cori (Buckets) are lawyers in Manhattan and Peter (Spoke) develops drum patterns for Guitar Hero (the Activision Game) in California; fun people to ride with and very strong riders. Coffee at the first check point at 22.3mi in Winchester Bay, right off of US101, where we met up with the rest of the riders. Reading the newspaper and learning about the financial mess in Wall Street is quite odd considering how removed we are from that kind of reality right now. But I guess ‘it’ll all be ok in the end".

Financial Crisis in Wall Street?

The second check point is at mile 42, right before crossing Coos Bay's McCullough Memorial Bridge. This historic bridge is narrow and has no shoulders, so we are encouraged to be careful as we ride across (despite the signs on the photo below!) … the funny thing is whilst I was riding through it, I could swear I heard somebody yell ‘Vamos Chilito!!’ (Go Chile) from a pick-up truck, so I waved back. The guy must have seen the tiny Chilean flag stuck on the back of my helmet... my second guess is he was cursing something else because I was a cyclist on his way! Whatever… I’ll stick to the first scenario.

McCullough Memorial Bridge -walk your bike? Yeah, right...

Two things I miss from my normal day to day life at this point: my guitar and playing soccer. No way I am going to bother carrying a guitar with me, but a soccer ball? Why not, so I bought one on the other side of the bridge, at the local Big 5; I deflated it and latched it up to my bike rack, so I can it kick around while at campsite later.

Charleston, OR

There hasn’t been much climbing today and I have now reached the last check point of the day at mile 50-something, in Charleston, OR. Oysters are supposed to be good here and Cori and Peter are eating some, sitting by the curb outside a seafood place. The weather is really nice today, so hanging out and chatting under the sun for a while is not a bad idea, before heading to Bullard’s Beach State Park, near Bandon, OR.

Ridin' Seven Devils Rd & Whiskey Run Lane... both good themes!

The final leg of the day (12 miles) involves some ascents up to 600 ft (185 m) over the next 6 miles through Seven Devils Road. The first portion takes you up 500ft in 3 miles and, after reaching the top follows a hasty 3-mile descent of the same 600ft through called Whisky Run Lane (I got thirsty now…). After that, the last 6 miles is pretty much flat terrain.

The Village People at the campsite

Heading to Bandon via 101, on foot.

Downtown Bandon at night

After having quite a good dinner, setting up the tent and checking out my wheels, I put on my headphones and went for a ‘short walk’ towards Old Bandon, via 101’s shoulder, to explore the surroundings and meet up with some of the riders. Well, it turns out Bandon is 4 miles away from our campsite, so it wasn’t as short as expected, but what the hell– distances are a downrated matter these days anyway. Once in town I met up with Jennifer (Post), Bloxom, Steve and Bill, at the Arcade Tavern, by the waterfront, where we had a couple pitchers of IPA and talked, laughed and chilled for a couple hours, while Bloxom and Bill played yet another hand of Cribbage.

Sharon (Bristol), MJ (Flask) and Jen C. (Post)

I came back to campsite past 9:00pm with Bristol, MJ and Jennifer (above). Everybody was asleep already, so I opened up a cold IPA I bought in Old Bandon and listened to some music on my iPod, while writing part of this log on my BlackBerry, in the dark, under the stars, until Cori and Peter came by. We talked for awhile, until around 10pm, and then called it a day. I wouldn’t mind doing rides like this more often… Life is gUd.