Adventures of Slackers on Bikes
Traded smoke for heat! We are on our own, and miss our fellow bike bums, but looking forward to the roads ahead. About to eat lots of pizza. Met hang glider who climbed part of everest. Got a late start due to popped spoke and water fall. -megan
It’s been a great couple of days! Christian and theresa were once again awesome hosts – it was fun to hang out with the kids. The climb up lassen was probably the hardest i’ve ever done – 8300 ft in 2 days. The scenery once we entered the park made it worth the climb. There were a few times i’d cursed the extra weight of the clarinet i’d been carrying, but it paid off when jeff and i started jamming ‘eye of the tiger’ at the summit. Jeff the madman made a solo ascent of the peak, while we met up w/marcus the road angel – beer and truffles! – and coasted down. The next day megan and i bade our escort goodbye. It was rad riding with everyone – we’ll miss having such great company. Now that our bicycle armada is gone, we’re taking a short day to recouperate. got a late start fixing megan’s broken spoke plus we had a head wind and some cutoff grades to climb, so we took it slow. We’ve met cool people, none of whom want to live in oakland.
forgot to attach this to the last post.
We got a great early start this morning to ride through some really gorgeous country. Checked in with the well-traveled owners of the cafe in beiber, had lunch at the coolest old-time general store i’ve ever seen in Aiden, went over two passes, one of which was really nice – saw the first bald eagle of the trip. Unfortunately, megan’s shifter busted. Luckily it’s flat for the next few days, so marcus is gonna cannibalize the shifter from trigger and overnight it to us. In the meantime, we’re staying at a really cool bunk house motel here in canby. The folks here have been really nice helping us out. Okay – time for dinner and beer!
This didn’t in through yesterday, so I’ll re send. Well, It’s the end of the line for my front shifter. It’s decimated. I guess that’s what 4000 miles does to soras. But, in a stroke of genius, we realized that friends in oak land can rip that part off greg’s old bike and overnight it to us. So, thank you us postal service. And for that matter, marcus and skye. Thank you! The folks in canby took pity on us and are putting us up in the only hotel in town for 20 bucks! And don’t worry, It’s a super nice place. For getting stuck some where, canby is lovely. There are eagles and It’ll be a pretty flat ride into lakeview tomorrow. Good thing we don’t have a schedule! Bike bums ride on! After going to the post office, anyhow.
This from Greg via Skye BdM:
We just heard from greg and megan from Burns Oregon on sunday
afternoon. After waiting a day in Lakeview, they got the
replacement shifter we expressed out to them at the post office
(FedEx wanted $800 to deliver it, the PO did it for $21!). Judging
by the time they signed for the package, they must have nearly
ambushed the postal truck. The new shifter worked fine, and Megan
is back up to a full number of gears. They said the ride to Burns
from the Oregon border was OK, except that it was a hundred-something
miles with no shade. They may do some full-moon riding in the
future. Everyone they’ve met is has been very nice.
Fixed some issues with posting to BikeBums from Verizon when Greg & Megan are really out in the boonies. Updates should be hitting the site again.
Greg called in from Vale, OR — just shy of the ID border. Today should bring them through Ontario, OR and the first bike shop in 500 miles.
We’re just about out of the desert. Lots of miles, no shade. Four days without showers. Yuck!
We made it to idaho! It’s already much greener. Took a day off yesterday. Greg has a bit of a cold.
ok – hopefully now we’re going to be getting back in the groove. It’s been a spotty couple of days, mostly because of this nasty sinus cold i picked up. We spent a day holed up in a motel trying to recover. I’m feeling better, but It’s been pretty off and on the whole time. Anyway, We’ve made it to idaho, and joined up with the main adventure cycling cross country route that mike and i did, so hopefully we’ll start seeing other cyclists. The oregon desert wasn’t too bad except for me being sick. There was a stretch of 112 miles with only one place to get water, but we were prepared for that. What we didn’t think about was 112 miles with maybe 4 spots of shade. There was just nowhere to take a break! We had lunch in the gravel on the side of the road! Cars passed us like every 20 minutes. Anyway, we’re out of the great basin and heading into the mountains. Hooray for trees!
