FDOC-Day 7-No Rain, No Flats, Three Big Climbs

Ah, it was so nice being in the yurt last night as the rain pitter-pattered on the roof. The rain had quit by morning, and we were up and at ‘em for another day, continuing south on the Oregon Coast. Sue and I rolled out about 8:30, and Matt was just 15 minutes behind. Right out of the gate we had a 2 1/2 mile climb up to Cape Lookout. 

Go Sue Go!

It’s not an easy climb, and even though it was shorter than our last climb of the day, it had some 10-11% grades. It being first thing in the morning doesn’t help. 

A nice view at Anderson’s Viewpoint on the way up gave a bit of a break. 

It took me exactly one hour from when I started my Garmin at the yurt, to get to the top of the climb. Just as I pulled off at the turn up to the trailhead parking, Matt was nearly at the top. 

While my average was 3.6mph, Matt’s was 6…nearly double mine. 

Sue was not that far behind, even though she had to walk the steeper bits. 

Here comes Sue!

I walked down to meet Sue, and take her bike for her. She said she wanted to ride, but was in too hard of a gear. I told her to get on, and I would give her a power boost (push from behind) so she could shift into an easier gear. 

Sue making it to the top. 

Of course, the descent was a blast. Matt andAue caught up to me on Sand Lake Rd as I was taking off my rain jacket (it wasn’t raining, I had just had it on for a bit more warmth under my hi-vis jacket. 

We continued on to Cape Kiwanda. Matt arrived first. Just as I arrived, a young woman came over asking the usual questions. Her name was Anna, and she lives in Vancouver (my home town). She is getting into cycling, and was very interested in touring. 

After a bit, we went over to Stimulus Coffee and Bakery. We had some treats, then headed back out on the road. Before we left, I went down to the beach to take a photo (even though I have many from here). 

A paño of the beach. 

There were a ton of surfers out. I’ve never seen so many at one time here. 

Climb number two was not too difficult. At the view point at the top, we met Mary and John from Georgia (originally Ohio…Mary anyway. John was definitely from Georgia). They, too, were quite curious about the whole touring thing. They were driving down the Coast. 

Our new friends, Mary and John. Nice couple. 

Another descent brought us to Neskowin. We stopped to use the public restrooms, then headed toward Slab Creek Rd for our last major climb of the day, up and over Cascade Head. It’s a long one, but only occasionally steeper. Sue did an amazing job! I couldn’t even catch her, until almost the top where she took a break. 

I thoroughly enjoyed that descent too. When we got to Otis, I plugged Devil’s Lake State Park into my Garmin. It actually routed us a different way than I’ve gone before into Lincoln City. We had to backtrack .6 of a mile to Three Rocks Rd. That took us to 101 on a nice quiet backroad. We skipped Hwy 118 altogether, which was awesome, because that is a sketchy section. There were still a couple of short hairy parts in Lincoln City, but skipping that other part made it not so bad. 

We stopped at Safeway for some resupply. Matt is doing the same thing I used to do…buying too much food, then having to figure out where to put it. 

Another 1.7 miles on 101, and we turned off to the Park. They have made some improvements to the H/B site since I was last here. They fenced off the site from the road (to keep transients from hanging out without paying), and they made a path up from the registration booth. There is also a code for the showers. 

There are two young women here, Anna and Fiona. Fiona is from Michigan, and Anna is from Utah. They started in Bellingham on the 16th, with plans to do the Coast to California. However, they have been less enamored with the traffic, so tomorrow they are taking a bus to Bend, to then pick up the Sierra Cascades Route, going south. I’m afraid they will find that there is traffic everywhere, but maybe not as much as the Coast. The Sierra Cascades Route in Oregon is pretty good. They will find, though, depending how far south into California, that they have to go on I-5 for about 8 miles (there’s no other road). 

Tomorrow is a relatively short day at 30 miles to South Beach. It’s time to do full-scale laundry, so we’ll stop in Newport for that. There’s only one major climb, so the day shouldn’t be too difficult.