This is the first installment update of our quest to
bicycle across America. I’ll try to make these updates
short and to the point. I’ll spare you the minutia.
We flew into Portland, OR on Sat. night. The plane was
2 1/2 late taking off from JFK so that made a long
night even longer. We got the rental car and a few
hours sleep at a hotel near the airport. We drove to
Astoria, OR and got set up. The bikes arrived in fine
condition.
In order to officially start the quest and test the
bikes we rode about 9 miles to the Pacific Ocean and
dipped our wheels. Several hours of briefing took up
the rest of the evening.
Today we started the first of 50 legs of the trip. We
did about 70 miles in overcast, cool weather mostly
along the Columbia River. There were some challenging
climbs but nothing too overwhelming. We are spending
the night in St. Helens, OR.
Tomorrow we are scheduled to bike about 75 miles past
Portland and will end up in Welches, OR. The first 40
miles are flat and then there is 35 miles with a lot
of climbing.
Oregon is beautiful but I saw more logging trucks in
one day than I’ve seen in a lifetime. After tomorrow
we should have a better feel for the grind of biking
long distances day after day. We’ll see how it goes.
