Portland to San Francisco Bike Trip - Day 6
Day 6 Stats - August 24, 2006
- Bandon to Gold Beach
- 58.87 miles, 2539 ft. elevation gain, 349.40 miles total (14,694 elev)
- Ride time 4h 06m, trip time 5h 49m, start time 08:55am
- Average speed 14.6 mph, max 35.9
- Cities visited: Bandon, Langlois, Port Orford, Ophir, Gold Beach
- Total flats to date: Aimee:1, Pam:0, Preston:1
Sunny skies in the morning for the first time since we left Portland! We were able to drop our leg warmers, but the arm warmers stayed on all day. Ate fruit and cereal in our hotel room and then took off at 9am.
Biked along the coast out of Bandon and stopped almost immediately to take in the breathtaking vistas. Today was definitely the most scenic segment of our trip so far with striking views every time we were near the water (rocks, waves, birds flying).
Rode Hwy 101 most of the day. Made excellent time--pushed along by a hefty tailwind. Brief stop in Langlois for a snack then on to Port Orford. Hung out for quite a while at a beautiful city park on the water where we talked with two different groups of friendly onlookers interested in our trip. Also met up with several groups of fellow long distance cyclists: A married couple struggling up some of the big hills on their mountain bikes. A group of five men headed for Crescent City.
And, our favorite, two guys (Tom and Bob, ages 58 and 60, from Kansas and Santa Barbara) who had started in Victoria 11 days prior and were heading for Tijuana. They were credit card touring like ourselves, but without the luxury of a support car. At first glance, they were outfitted like day cyclists, but in reality they had ingeniously stripped every superfluous ounce of weight from their bikes until they were left with the bare minimum necessary. In their water bottles, they had stuffed all of their clothes (two bike shorts, long and short sleeve jerseys, bathing suit, rain jacket). Camelbaks for water. They each had an oversized saddle bag that held tools, spare tires, spare tubes, pumps, etc. They washed clothes every night and their only shoes were their biking shoes. In all, their clothes and gear came to only 10 pounds! Each one of their fully loaded carbon bikes and gear weighed less than my steel Jamis with no gear!
After chatting with these guys, picking and eating blackberries, and enjoying the sunshine, we continued on for our planned lunch rendezvous in Ophir. Unfortunately, due to a name change inspired by political correctness, the "Squaw Valley Road" indicated on our map was now "Valley Creek Road", causing us to miss the turn. It didn't really matter, we just stayed on Hwy 101 and pedalled straight through lunch to our destination for the day, Gold Beach.
Arrived at Clear Sky Lodging, a cluster of town homes, a pool room, a sauna, and a spa. We were pleased with the full kitchen, living room, and bedrooms set away from the rest of the house. We woofed down lunch (Thai leftovers), and Aimee also delighted in having organic skim milk available by eating Raisin Bran. We lounged about and napped, then headed for Cape Sebastian around 6 pm. The winds at the viewpoint almost blew us over. Headed to Ray's Marketplace and bought a $7 baked chicken, some bread, salad items, and fluorescent orange Easy Mac and Cheese (to Aimee's chagrin).
Ate a relaxing dinner back in our rental home and went to bed early.