Making Lemonade

So long story short I got laid off. But on the bright side I am probably in a decent financial shape to do nothing for a while because nobody is hiring for my title at the moment. Really though I was completely burned out at work having really not taken a vacation in years, not enough to really unplug and recharge anyways.

So with that in mind I've decided to do "nothing" for a while, which with me means I'm going to ride. Not sure exactly where, but I don't have much tying me down, so I'm going to be gone for a few stretches at a time.

Pretty  straight forward eh?

Baker City Run

So every year it seems like I've tried to put together a group to do a weekend run out to Central or Eastern Oregon. Most years it falls apart and I solo it, with the exception of 2018 which was great.

This year of course it fell apart. Bad weather, economic problems, bike breakdowns, and last minute scheduling conflicts meant that I started the trip with one companion and by four hours into it was solo.

We set out in the wet of the Willamette valley. Up and over the hill and it turned dry. This was about as far as the "plan" survived.

Mt Something viewpoint. Honestly I couldn't care, it was clouded in.

By Prineville though my companion's bike started acting up.

Just after lunch in Mitchell we tried to go visit the painted hills where her bike really started having problems  She decided to head for home and a friend from the valley picked her up before the big hill.

The last couple miles to the official painted hills overlook (if you want to hate humanity go on Instagram and search #paintedhills to see what I mean) were gravel and with my partner's bike down I said the hell with it and turned back. I could see them from here.

Solo I pressed onwards zigging and zagging Central Oregon into Eastern Oregon. Part of my planned route turned out to be gravel so I rerouted. I was behind "schedule" anyways and needed to make up time. I wanted to get to Baker before the thunderstorms...

Speaking of thunderstorms I spent about twenty minutes riding towards one over the plains, watching lightning strike and seeing curtains of rain thinking about my nearly bald tires and that the only rain gear I'd brought was an overjacket... But I lucked out because my route turned 90 degrees just before the storm!

At this point I thought I'd lucked out and everything was going to be just fine. Past John Day I drove through some damp roads and weather where a storm had just moved through.

Note the snow up in the John Day mountains. I continued East until I found what some people call the Little Tail of the Dragon, Highway 245 past Hereford. By the way, the boat house at Hereford is brown. Anyways 245 was excellent (a little dirty) and I arrived at my motel in Baker nice and dry. The weather was great and I got dinner and walked around.

My read of the forecast was "overnight precipitation". In reality that meant overnight it dropped into the 40s and was raining hard. Well there's only one way to go. I put on the gear I had and headed out. Just past Sumpter into the hills the temperature dropped into the 30s and the rain started turning into snow. Discretion is the better part of valor, I don't have the gear or tires for this, so I turned around and rerouted back through Austin. I stopped at the Austin junction for some life saving pie and coffee and a chance to dry off next to their fireplace.

I worked my way back towards John Day mentally flipping the coin over whether to call it a win in mother nature's camp and just go home or whether to press on with the rest of my planned route. Well I'm pretty stubborn and kept on route, and had some good fun through the lower lying and sheltered canyons.

Eventually I ended up back on the high plains where the temperature dropped and the wind kicked up. I was shivering and exhausted by the time I pulled into Condon for lunch. Again I was flipping the coin about just white knuckling it home, but the weather conditions on the hill were pretty bad. Down into Cottonwood Canyon things warmed up and the Gorge was at least warm and super windy. I was a little ahead of schedule so I  ran up to Rowena Crest Viewpoint before heading down to my motel.

Due to the continuing pandemic I had a hard time finding a place for dinner that I could walk in to. Eventually I got some fast food and went back to my motel to rest. In the morning I was able to get a real breakfast though, so that rocked.

Then back on route. I went out Dufur valley to where it becomes a national forest service road and then up into the Mt Hood area. Where once again it got freaking cold and wet. I found the turn off and went back down into the low lying areas and into Tygh. I rode the "Stairway to heaven" , then made the mistake of taking the long way to Maupin because of the wind on the plains. I met up with a group from Portland for another run up the "stairway", had lunch, then headed for home.

The weather over Skyline/NF42/Breitenbush had improved from the days prior and it was pretty dry all the way through. I stopped at Detroit Lake for ice cream and so an old guy could tell me about the bikes he used to have, then I continued on home. There's no such thing as bad riding weather, just improper gear. I jumped the gun on wearing summer gear to tour and on wanting to finish wearing out some tires before I put new ones on. Both of those made rain riding kinda suck. Oh well, no tickets and no crashes, so it was a good mini-tour.