Hey Mark- Welcome to Oregon! But I noticed that your plans don't seem to give any time for, y'know, exploring Portland itself. I can tell you from experience that Portland is slightly different than Winnipeg. ;-)
Anyways, I think that a North Coast Loop would be good option to get ocean and climbs. Though you'll have to use US 101 on the coast itself for a good part which would go against your wish for avoiding the busy. But the scenery makes up for it! This would be a mostly paved route. There are gravel options over the Coast Range, but they can/will be steep and a GPS unit is needed as most of those roads are un/poorly marked timber company roads. It could look something like this: - Sat May 16: Get into PDX, take MAX light rail to Hillsboro, ride 20ish miles to Stub Stewart State Park. - Sun May 17: Ride Banks/Vernonia Trail, OR 47 and OR 202 to Astoria (80 miles.) No camping in Astoria but hotels/motels, closest camping would be at Ft. Stevens, another 10 miles away. - Mon May 18: Ride 101 and some alternates to Nehalem Bay State Park (40 miles) - Tues May 19: Ride 101 and some alternates to Cape Lookout State park (40 miles) - Wed May 20: Back to Hillsboro MAX via Nestucca River Road (a smidge of gravel) (80 miles) It's a bit ambitious, esp. with the coast range climbs, but you can shorten/ease it by taking a bus on one of the portions, either the Point bus that goes out to Astoria, or the Tillamook Wave bus back from Lookout-ish to Portland. As for bridge/ferry, there is the Westport Ferry west of Astoria that crosses the Columbia. Then you'd have to get back to Astoria via the Astoria/Megler Bridge. At 4.1 miles (6.6 km) long, it's not everyone's cup o' tea. And it would also increase the overall length of this tour by a significant margin, maybe another 40 miles or so. Hope this helps! yours, Shawn On Wednesday, February 25, 2015 at 8:46:59 AM UTC-8, Mark Reimer wrote: > > Hi friends, > > So I've mentioned in other posts that I plan to ride the Oregon Outback > this year, May 22-24. As luck would have it, I've managed to secure the > full week prior off from work, as well as a day or two after. So now I'm > looking to fly out to Portland on May 16th, and leave on the 26th. That's > lots of time for riding! > > My friends will be landing in Portland on May 20th and plan to take the > train to Klamath Falls on the 21st, which I'll accompany them on. We'll > ride the O.O., then ride from the finish back to Portland on the 25th and > fly home the next morning. > > So that leaves me with May 16th (afternoon) to the evening of May 20 to do > some touring. > > For those in Oregon, what would you suggest I ride with five days? > > For what it's worth, I would love to be able to...: > - See/camp by the ocean. I live in the dead centre of the continent. The > ocean is a real treat for me. > - Get at least a couple nice climbs in. Again, it's flat here. I'd like to > see some elevation (but not 'too' much hah, I'm a prairie boy) > - Spend as much time as possible off the major highways. I'll be on the > Atlantis with 2.1" tires and a light setup. Gravel, trails, fire roads, > whatever. I'm game for all of that. I'll have a GPS with me. > - I also love bridges and ferries. Always take the opportunity to ride a > ferry if you can. It just adds that 'certain something' to a trip in my > opinion. > > I've considered riding to Astoria and doing a Northern loop. Also thought > about taking the train South on the 16th, riding closer to Klamath and > meeting the guys there instead. It's all open to discussion. Thanks! > -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "RBW Owners Bunch" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to rbw-owners-bunch+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to rbw-owners-bunch@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/rbw-owners-bunch. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
