August 8 – 23, 2014:  Jerry and Odette biked from Fairbanks to Dawson (over the Top of The World Highway) then continued on to Whitehorse and Skagway on the Klondike Highway.  A ferry ride to Juneau completed the tour.

Odette surprised me with a Christmas present of a bike tour in the Yukon.  I didn’t think that she would volunteer for camping way up north, but it was her idea.  She said she wanted to try out bike camping in a supported environment before we took off for a long self-contained trip. She remembered me really wanting to hike the Chilkoot trail and thought that this would be a way to see that country without the boulderfields.   Pedalers Pub & Grill, the company that operates the tour she chose, guides trips mainly in Asia but they run three or four trips a year in Alaska.  We put a deposit down early in 2014 and then started riding our tandem hard to train for it.  We wondered if the Ibis would be a better bike for Alaskan roads, but we were told the route would be all paved.  A few weeks before we were supposed to leave we got an email saying that the chartered plane from Fairbanks to Dawson wasn’t running any more, so how did we feel about being driven or biking to Dawson and could we start a day earlier to allow time to cover about 300 extra miles.  We responded that it sounded good to us, we were flying into Fairbanks a couple of days early anyway, and that we wanted to bike as much of it as we could.  Apparently at that point all of the other people booked on the tour backed out, because it ended up with just Odette and me with the owner of the tour company as our guide.

Here is a Google Maps diagram of the route

Here is my journal of the trip:

Friday August 8.

did laundry and packed,  decided to take winter shoes.  checked the weights of the bike cases and stuffed some more things into the lighter one.  took Shuttle Express to the airport – sitting interminably on Westlake waiting to turn left onto Mercer.  Luckily I-5 wasn’t backed up.  security had to rescan my laptop.  the agent at the check-in desk made us take our bike cases to oversize.  stood in line at Starbucks to get a sandwich.  boarding seemed to be a free for all.  plane ride was long and cramped.  still light in Faribanks at 11:00.  good times.

Saturday August 9

after a breakfast that wasn’t my favorite, assembled the tandem.  no issues – chain went together easily.  had to start over on the rear rack.  met Tom from Pedalers as I was finishing the bike.  talked for a while about the tour and about his business.  rode around the block with Odette to confirm that shifting worked then took a shower.  rode to the University and did the museum – which was fun.  watched a movie about the aurora borealis then had lunch there.  tried to ride to the big animal research station but kept going exactly the wrong way.  had trouble remembering that the stoker is always right.  got there too late for a tour.  forget to turn on my cyclometer for the ride back to the motel.  the bike wasn’t shifting right so I fiddled with the cable runs and got it slotted in the right places.  rested for a couple of hours in the room then rode to pioneer park for the salmon bake.  the bike was shifting okay but we had some more 180-degree off experiences before eventually getting there (Fairbanks is just figuring out bike lanes – google maps kept sending us back and forth between frontage roads on either side of Airport way and they all seemed to end on sidewalks signed “no bikes.”  pioneer park was signed “no dogs or bikes.”  the food was okay but over-priced.  Odette got us a pitcher of beer and that was actually quite good..  we improvised a route back to the room which was better than the route out.  it sprinkled on us but we had raincoats.

Sunday August 10

same breakfast process as the day before, then hauled bike and bags out to the street.  had to unpack to retrieve the bike lock keys from yesterday’s pants pockets.  drove to delta and walked around a roadhouse – got mosquito bitten.  exceptional views of the Alaska Range and of various big braided rivers.  drove on to Dot Lake, had lunch and started our ride.  the van waited for us every 15 miles.  The   terrain was rolling hills with lots of stunted spruce.  played tag with rainclouds but never got wet.  about 12 miles out of Tok we picked up a bike path.  it had a lot of gravel on it and I couldn’t decide whether it was better or worse than the road.  ended up riding just under 50 miles but it didn’t really feel that far.  got to the campground and Tom suggested we go into town before setting up the tent.  We checked out the visitor center, emailed Will and bought some fudge before returning.  pitched the tent, had dinner, charged phones.  ate more than I should have

Monday August 11

lots of bacon at breakfast.  packed up and got in the van for a ride toward Dawson.  mlles of stunned spruce burned over by forest fires.  lots of badly maintained unpaved road.  Saw the town of Chicken and the mining relics (including a dredge.)  started biking where the new pavement started.  pavement ended at the border after a long hill.  the Canadian customs guy gave us a little bit of  a hard time but let us in.  lots of ups and downs on mainly unpaved roads.  we got tired after 45 miles and rode in the van for 20 mostly flat miles, then biked on into Dawson which was another 20, mainly downhill.  last segment was really muddy & slippery .  crossed the Yukon river on a very small ferry.  showered, had a very big burger for dinner.

Tuesday August 12

late breakfast.  walked around Dawson and visited museums.  City/federal places were really good; Holland America attractions, not so much.  skipped lunch and rode out to Dempster Junction and back.  flat, paved, pretty scenery lots of dredge tailings.  I’d like to drive up the Dempster and see the Ogilvie mountains.  got rained on coming back and then had a flat. tried to just pump it up but pump wouldn’t work so used c02, that lasted five minutes.  changed tube and used another co2 cartridge – that lasted ten minutes.  mad it back to town on the third co2 cartridge.  borrowed a pump and figured out that both of the flat tubes were pinch flats – then discovered that I also had a flat on the rear tire.  changed that and patched all three flat tubes  – still not sure exactly how I did that but know that R+E didn’t put new tubes on when they changed tires.  Ate dinner at the HAL restaurant and were the youngest people in the place.  I had liver & onions.  tried to get decaf but the power was out for the whole town…

Wednesday August 13

breakfast at the hotel then rode in the van to Dempster junction.  10k of roadwork that they wouldn’t let us ride so we shuttled most of the way through the construction zone.  in the next 10k we had three more flat tires and definitively broke my pump.  After that the ride picked up – no more flats for the rest of the day.  saw lots of poplar, lots of big vistas, low mountain ranges and far off rivers.  no people.  very few cars.  some up and down but no really steep hills (only got into the big ring a couple of times and only got into the small one once all day long.)  started to rain just before we go to the Moose Creek campground.  kept it up all through dinner.  climbed into the tent early.

Thursday August 14

woke up to no rain but cold.  had breakfast then rode to Stuart Crossing.  hit some construction and rode several small sections of gravel – got to a longer construction site and they wouldn’t let us ride and said they couldn’t shuttle a tandem.  we waited for the van and missed about three miles of our ride.  for some reason my gps kicked out at that point.  rode on to Pelly Crossing for the night.  lots of poplar, lots of spruce, lots of big vistas.  not a lot of traffic and not a lot of people.

 Friday August 15

after a warm night with lots of drive buys and barking dog packs we rode from Pelly Crossing to Carmacks.  headwinds all day.  spectacular views of the Yukon River.  at this point we’ve moved into forest and away from tundra – it feels more familiar.  played tag with a german sleeper-bus.  had several stretches of unpaved road – 10k of recent chip seal with one fast descent…  one bridge rebuilding project where the road was exceptionally rocky.  overall a slow day because of the winds but a good ride and no rain.  one flat tire – a quarter mile after the 10K stretch.  camped in a commercial campground with boaters and RVs.  shower felt really good.

Saturday August 16

rained a little over night and was cold in the morning.  started off with lots of clothes on and left most of them on all day.  forgot to start my cycle meter.  had a headwind again for most of the afternoon but only a little rain.  the riding was easier than the last couple of days but the wind still made us slow.  one section of construction but the loose gravel really didn’t make a lot of difference in our speed.  lots of lakes today,  out of tundra and into northern forest.  huge vistas, little streams and tarns that never stopped, cat & mouse with the Yukon River, historic sites, still very few settlements which made the ones we did encounter (Braeburns) seem more memorable.  low mountains across the lake still have snow patches.  got cold as soon as we got off the bike – had dinner and then crawled into the tent at 7:00

Sunday August 17

started raining during the night and was going good in the morning so we delayed breakfast.  got up, packed, rolled up a wet tent, ate a Braeburns Cinnamon Bun, then biked to Whitehorse in full cold-weather rain gear.  stopped raining after about 10 miles and midway I shed a layer.  it was really interesting to come back into cultivated fields and civilization after several days of wilderness.  the Alaska highway has more traffic and more shoulder (even if it was more cracked) than the traffic lane.  took the bike trail down 2-mile hill.  got to the motel before 2:00 and found we were already checked in and our stuff was in our room.  the showers felt good.  the bike store in town was closed for Yukon Days but we found the local sporting goods store and bought a patch kit, two tubes and a blackburn airstick.  ate too much for dinner.

Monday August 18

Discovery Day in the Yukon so we didn’t ride.  most stores were closed, most restaurants, too.  had lunch at Tim Hortons.  Dinner at the Klondike  Salmon Bake, again.  walked around the shipyards trail and out to the SS Klondike.  visited the McBride museum.  walked to the Yukon Brewery, but no tours or tastings.  didn’t start to rain until about 7:00 in the evening.

Tuesday August 19

raining at breakfast but mainly stopped by the time we took off.  Alaska Highway out of Whitehorse has good shoulders but a lot of traffic; Klondike highway is chip seal.  interesting collection of buildings at Robinson Roadhouse.  miles of dense northern forests and the beginnings of mountains with patches of snow.  rain off and on, but never had to put on rain pants.  got to camp at Carcross at 2:00 –  missed the turn and got cross-chained so I had to fix it by hand.  Set up tent and then went into the old town, did part of the walking tour and looked at the burned steamboat.  rained some more at dinner time.

Wednesday August 20

sprinkles at the campsite but quickly took off rain gear.  rolling hills with dense forest out of Carcross.  miles of lakes and then views of peaks and snow.  lots of avalanche area signs and evidence of rockfall.  broad valley that reminded me of the Enchantments with exposed rock and subalpine vegetation and little tarns and streams – went on for ten miles.  one more flat and I booted a slit in the casing with an inner tube patch. skipped the log cabin for big views at Fraser then a climb to the actual border.  rained on while stopped but not enough to interrupt a fast descent to the US Customs.  Then more winding descent into town.  dodged tour ship passengers to the motel and broke the bike down and packed it.  Then walked the main street and looked at the shops.  Skagway is a tourist trap – themed like Winthrop or Leavenworth but without their charm or integrity. (for some reason it was full of jewelry shops selling loose diamonds)  dinner at the Skagway brewery and a short sleep before a 5:45 AM wake-up (for an 8:00 ferry)

Thursday August 21

early trip to the ferry and then all day on board.  Alaska state museum is closed until 2016. walked around Juneau and had dinner at a Tracy’s Crab Shack – best food on the trip.

Friday August 22

good breakfast at The Sandpiper. walked to Juneau city museum which was closed because of a power outage.  took the shuttle out to the Mendenhall glacier visitor center and walked to the falls.  had lunch then killed time until we could get a ride to the Alaska Brewery tour.  visited the city museum which featured a tow-gripper from Meany.  went back to the room and repacked, then had dinner at the Wharf.

Saturday August 23

flight back to Seattle at 8:20 was notable for the early check-in time and the views of the water and islands around Juneau on takeoff.  had remarkable views of the BC Costal Range as we got further south.  the word “reservation” doesn’t mean what Shuttle Express thinks it does – the trip home from SeaTac took longer than the flight from Juneau to Seattle.

Here are the GPS maps of our rides:

• August 9 – Fairbanks
• August 10 – Dot Lake to Tok
• August 11 – Top Of The World Highway
• August 12 – Dawson – Dempster Junction (out & back)
• August 13 – Dempster Junction – Stuart Crossing
• August 14 – Stuart Crossing – Pelly Crossing
• August 15 – Pelly Crossing – Carmacks
• August 16 – Carmacks – Fox Lake
• August 17 – Fox Lake – Whitehorse
• August 19 – Whitehorse – Carcross
• August 20 – Carcross – Skagway

Here are some materials scraped from the Pedalers Pub & Grill website.

• trip description pdf
• final email
• Klondike
• equipment
• camp rules
• checklist

Here are my photos and here are Odette’s

Here are the Garmin records

• August 9 – Fairbanks
• August 10 – Dot Lake to Tok
• August 11 – Top Of The World Highway (partial)
• August 12 – Dawson – Dempster Junction (out & back)
• August 13 & 14- Dempster Junction – Stuart Crossing – Pelly Crossing
• August 15 – Pelly Crossing – Carmacks
• August 16 – Carmacks – Fox Lake
• August 17 – Fox Lake – Whitehorse
• August 19 – Whitehorse – Carcross
• August 20 – Carcross – Skagway (recorded, but not retained)

Lessons learned from 600 miles and 35,000 feet of elevation gain:

The highlights of the trip for me were the Top Of The World Highway with its huge velvety treeless expanses and the summit at White Pass – the beginning and end of the trip.  Doing it over I’d spend less time on the touristy stuff and more time on the wilderness.  The ferry to Juneau was a great experience but I could have done without the second day in Juneau – and probably could have done with less time in Dawson & Whitehorse as well.  However, we got tired after three or four days and a rest day was welcome (as were motel beds and restaurant meals.)  Charging batteries is something I need to pay more attention to – the laptop worked fine but we used it up after a couple of nights.  Also need to pay more attention to tires.  We had nine flats in twelve days, six of them coming within 20 miles.  My theory is that I got a cut in the tread of the tire in gravel on that first out & back and if I had booted the cut at that point I could have avoided most if not all of the rest.  I need to rethink frame pumps, too.  a broken pump left me unable to figure out where the hole in the tube was and I had a limited number of CO2 cartridges (cartridges which Odette woke me up in the middle of the night in Juneau to make me throw away because she felt guilty taking them on the airplane.)  The bike did well but Odette and I both need to work on bringing less stuff.  (It’s like backpacking, you need experience to know what you can get along without.)  The camping gear the guide supplied was not sexy but it did a very good job – I was impressed by how dry and warm we were able to stay in the tent compared to what we would have experienced in my climbing gear.

We drank a lot of beer on this trip – one or two a day while in camp and more than that in town.  I think that everything we drank was either from Yukon Brewing or Alaska Brewing and they are both pretty good.  I prefer stouts and porters that taste stronger than theirs do, but in the circumstances I wasn’t complaining.  A midnight Sun after a long day of riding hits the spot quite well.

Breaking the bike down and packing it is not nearly as big of a deal as people think it is.  For what it is worth, here is an MKV file of the instructional tape Rodriguez provides for customers.  It is 30 minutes long covering both parts of the process for a single bike, but you’ll get the idea.

I would do this trip again. I would do the Alaska Highway or the Dempster Highway, too.   I would do a tour with Pedalers again (we talked about Tasmania.)  I would seriously think about a van-supported tour for less exotic routes, like the west coast or transamerica.

June 7 – 23, 2012

Odette, Will and I rode a loop beginning and ending in Aberdeen

Here’s the itinerary:

Depart 7th June (Thursday) – arrive mid-day June 8th Friday Aberdeen Scotland

Saturday and Sunday – Aberdeen

Monday 11th June cycle from Aberdeen to Ballater 44 miles
Tuesday 12th June Ballater to Pitlochry 60 miles
Wednesday 13th June rest day Pitlochry – cycle to Blair Atholl, Glen Errochty and Loch Tummel 37 miles
Thursday 14th June cycle to Killin 39 miles direct route or longer option via Glen Lyon is 67 miles
Friday 15th June cycle to Callander 25 miles
Saturday 16th June rest day Callander. cycle to Loch Katrine, sail to Stronachlahar – cycle round the loch – return to Callander 44 miles
Sunday 17th June cycle to Stirling via Aberfoyle and Drymen 47 miles
Monday 18th June cycle to Perth 33 miles
Tuesday 19th June cycle to Montrose via Dundee 63 miles
Wednesday 20th June cycle to Aberdeen via Stonehaven 54 miles
Thursday 21st June – 23rd Saturday – Aberdeen

fly home am Sat 23rd – arrive pm June 23 SAT

I’ve been thinking that it would be nice to get a new bike. My main ride is a 2000 Fuji Touring and it isn’t going to be long before I have to replace significant parts (the bottom bracket has some play, the headset shifts, etc.)

I thought about getting a carbon “go fast” bike but then I got a new tandem instead. I spent enough money on that to feel like I didn’t want to put any more into a bike so I held off another year. I’ve also started commuting and the noises and hiccups of the Touring are more memorable when you encounter them every day. (My other ride is a fixie – not much to go wrong but an old frame and not something I’d take on most non-commuting rides I want to do.)

Before we went to Scotland we got Will a Rodriquez touring bike with a custom frame. I rode it a little and it felt a lot like the tandem we got from them – light, smooth, solid. This spring Will asked me to get it tuned up while he was at a conference and I took the opportunity to ride it to work five days in a row. I was sold and decided that it really didn’t make sense to spend money on a road bike when most of my riding was either going to be the commute or longer country rides.  Here’s more or less what it looks like from the R&E website:

So in the middle of April I put down a deposit on a Rodriguez Adventure Plus. here’s what they have to say about it:

Rodriguez Adventure Touring Bicycles – from $2,399 as a frame only from $1,199

Utility, Touring, Adventure…

When you say “I want room for fenders and big wide tires, mounts for rear and front racks, a bomb-proof frame and fork, mounts for 3 water bottles and a custom frame made in the U.S.A”…. What I hear you saying is that you want a Rodriguez Adventure. This is a comfortable, American made, steel, classic touring bike with modern day and old school conveniences plus hand-built wheels with a 3-year warranty.

At Rodriguez, we’ve been building custom Touring bikes since 1973 (not many builders can say that). We started offering lower cost options when the bike industry gave up on making well designed touring bikes. Just like our custom 1970’s Rodriguez Touring bikes, the Adventure is a hand-crafted bike that is a class act right down to the stainless steel bottle opener on the seat stay. Whether you are planning an extended bicycle tour like Kurt M., or commuting to and from work like Matt, this bike is for you!

What about the frame you ask? All of our frames are custom hand-crafted right here in Seattle, one at a time from only the finest steels. Our frames are custom fit to you perfectly, and guaranteed to be the most comfortable touring bike you’ve ever owned. We build all of our bicycles with ISO compliant standards to ensure long life too. We offer a selection of different component set-ups, all with a triple crankset, and handbuilt wheels with a 3-year warranty. Starting at just $2,399, the Rodriguez Adventure the best value on a custom built Touring bike in the industry today.

Don’t Waste Your Money
Why buy a heavy, uncomfortable, poorly designed touring bike made overseas? For the same price, you can afford a comfortable, custom Rodriguez Adventure built just for you, from a company that’s been building them in Seattle for almost four decades.

Sizes: All of our bikes are offered in 18 production sizes . If you don’t fit one of our production sizes, a custom size frame in any model is just $200 extra. Plus we are offering every bike in our line-up with any choice of 4 different paint options at no extra charge. Custom paint jobs or colors are also available. If that’s not enough, we have 9 different decal options to choose from as well.

For those ready to tour the world, we’re offering the Touring travel version ($700 upgrade) that uses S&S couplings and fits in a 26″ X 26” suitcase.

The Rodriguez Adventure – from $2,399

The Rodriguez Adventure is a fantastic hand-crafted touring bike for an unbelievably low price. Now you can have that custom Rodriguez performance for half the price of other manufacturers!

If you look around, I think you’ll find that no other manufacturer has custom touring bikes built right here in the U.S. that are a better value than a Rodriguez.

I went in to buy a bike on a Saturday afternoon with no appointment. I kind of tailgated another customer but they already had my measurements and I really just wanted to put down a deposit. Smiley made me take a test ride – of a Rainier (not the bike I was buying) and without my shoes & pedals – but that was mainly so that he could get me out of the way while he closed the deal with the other guy. (I took their bike and rode a block south and then back to Ravenna and then I went over the hill. As I got to the first turn on the downhill side I found out that the front brakes weren’t engaged and I missed the turn and almost hit an oncoming car – but I managed to avoid anything more than a scratch on my shin from the flat pedal and the bike was really cool on the climb back up.)

I opted to upgrade to carbon bars and Phil Wood bottom bracket (both of which I got on the tandem) and I paid the $700 extra to get S&S couplers. it comes standrd with Rodriguez’ proprietary caliper brakes – which I like – and with SRAM 9-speed cassette & chain. As with the tandem, the only thing not nailed down is the gearing. I told them I wanted something with more high end than their 28/38/48 standard. The Fuji I’m riding now is 30/42/52 and the tandem is 28/44/56. As long as I get a big ring above 50…

I don’t get to pick it up until the middle of June. I can’t wait.

UPDATE

Been riding the Rodriguez a lot, but with the addition of the Litespeed it isn’t necessarily the bike of choice for a road ride.  Before the trip to Pakistan I mounted Continental Speedride tires that were 42 mm wide.  I left them on after returning from the tour and have been using the bike for gravel.  I installed MKS EZY Superior sockets and generally have been using Lambda pedals (better known as “grip kings” when sold by Rivendale.)  I drilled out my set and pinned them and they’re almost as good as clips.

It currently has an Avocet saddle and a Nitto rack that were stolen from my Fuji.

Litespeed Tandem

Ibis Tandem

Franklin

Litespeed Tuscany

Litespeed Classic

Rodriguez Adventure

Rodriguez Tandem

Centurion Elite R/S

Fuji Touring

Rodriguez Stellar

Burley Tandem

Giant Rincon

Windsor Carrera

old bike page

Serial numbers

bar swaps: one / two

Small Steel-Framed Touring Bike

2003 Rodriguez Stellar.

48 cm frame

650C wheels with Sun Venus rims.

Son Delux dynamo hub and E-Delux headlight and Bausch & Muller Toplight Plus brake/tail light.

Paul Component Engineering Touring Cantilever brakes and cross levers.

Campagnolo drivetrain:

• Mirage levers and deraileurs
• Veloce crankset with 165 mm cranks
• Record rear hub

Set up as a 9-speed triple with 53/39/30 in the front and 13-28 in the rear

Gilles Berthoud stainless fenders

Currently configured with a stem extender and Panaracer Pascella – 28 tires.

Small Titanium-Framed Road Bike

2000 Litespeed Tuscany

47 cm frame

650C wheels with Mavic CXP-14 rims

Campagnolo drivetrain:

• Record-10 levers, brakes and deraileurs
• Long-cage Titanium rear derailleur and Ti cassette
• CX10 crankset with 170 mm cranks
• Veloce hubs

Set up as 10-speed double with 50/34 in front and 12-29 in the rear

Gilles Berthoud Marie Blanc saddle

Currently configured with a stem extender and Continental Grand Prix 4000 – 23 tires

That’s us in 2023 at Birds & Bicycles in Castro Verde, Portugal.

While planning for Scandinavia in 2024 I realized that we had done ten tandem trips to Europe!  Lot of fun and we’ve learned a lot.  We’ll see how many more we can do.

2025 Danube

2024 Denmark

2023 Portugal

2023 Netherlands

2022 Alsace & Berlin

2019 Catalonia

2019 Corsica

2018 Andalucia

2018 Provence

2017 Burgundy

2016 Languedoc

2012 Scotland

back to bike stories

From 6/13 to 6/27/2016 Odette and Jerry travelled to Montpellier and Paris, France

We flew Iceland Air to Paris, stopping in Iceland for less than an hour.  We caught a domestic Air France flight to Montpellier and walked around the city that afternoon.  We explored some more there the next day and in the afternoon assembled the tandem.  We took a short ride the next morning to confirm that everything worked and then walked around until the shuttle came to take us the St. Guilhem Le Desert.  We took a long hike to the hermitage that afternoon.  We rode out of St. Guilhem the next day combining two loops.  We did a hilly loop the following day and visited the Clamouse cavern.  The next day we rode from St. Guilhem to St. Mathieu de Treviers.  We stayed in a place out in the fields and didn’t get any dinner.  The next day we rode a loop back through St. Martin de Londres and then on to Sommieres.  An out-and-back to Nimes followed, mostly on bike trail.  The last day of the tour was the short ride from Sommiers to Montpellier.  In total we rode the tandem for about 250 miles and the only mechanical difficulty was a blown sidewall that took three flats to identify.

We dissembled the tandem the afternoon we returned to Montpellier and the next day we visited the Fabre museum and then flew to Paris.  We spent three more days in Paris, visiting museums and monuments, eating and drinking, and introducing Odette to a city she’d never visited.  Then we flew back to Seattle.

Here are maps of our rides:

6/22 – France Day 7 – Sommiers to Montpellier.  Here’s the map.  23 miles on the tandem with Odette

6/21 – France Day 6 – Sommiers to Nimes Out & Back.  Here’s the map.  19 miles on the tandem with Odette

6/20 – France Day 5 – St. Mathieu de Treviers to St. Martin de Londres to Sommiers.  Here’s the map.  58 miles on the tandem with Odette

6/19 – France Day 4 – St. Guilhem Le Desert to St. Mathieu de Treviers,  Here’s the map.  49 miles on the tandem with Odette

6/18 – France Day 3 – St. Guilhem Le Desert Vineyard Loop.  Here’s the map.  50 miles on the tandem with Odette

6/17 – France Day 2 – St. Guilhem Le Desert Gorge Loops.  Here’s the map.  47 miles on the tandem with Odette

6/16 – France Day 1 – Montpellier Out & Back.  Here’s the map.  11 miles on the tandem with Odette

Here’s our itinerary

Here’s a Bicycle Quarterly article about riding out of St. Guillaume Le Desert

Here’s a gallery of photos.

here are Odette’s photos

My main ride for a lot of years was a 54 cm Fuji Touring that I bought new from Recycled Cycles in late 2000.  It had a steel frame and a Tiagra groupset – Deore RD and Tiagra FD (with 52-42-30 in the front and a 9-speed 11-32 cassette) Tiagra hubs and Avid brakes with Tiagra brifters.  The BikePedia entry says that it should have had Sora components but the 2001 entry matches my bike pretty well except for the headset:  (The frame geometry matches the 2000 image but the colors are 2001.  The hubs say Tiagra, though, and have 32 holes, while both years’  entries would have you expect Sora with 36 holes.)

I did a lot of excellent rides on this bike – several STPs, Ramrod, RSVP, Washington Pass and a ton of local tours.  After a few years the brakes got changed out for another Avid model that was shaped as a triangle where you had to go into the center to change the brake pad using those mountain bike pads with a nut on the post.  I also commuted on it and mounted partial fenders for those rides.  In 2012 I got hit by a car while on my way to work and the rear wheel got mangled.  I replaced that but didn’t do anything else to the bike (the handlebars were asymmetrical afterwards and the rack had a bent stay) and instead got a new bike.  I kept riding the Fuji as my “rain bike”, but it was no longer a commuter after I stopped working in 2013.  I rode it enough in the rain that I knew I wanted to have it serviced before the 2013-14 rainy season, even though it had less than 1,000 miles since the last tune-up.

When I took it in to Greggs Cycles for service I got an attitude about how old and beat-up it was and was told that the rear wheel wear indicator was showing and that they didn’t want to work on it unless I was willing to replace the rim.  Considering that I’d replaced the rim (at Greggs!) a year earlier, and had ridden it maybe 600 miles since then, I was not particularly happy – but I ended up having them build two new wheels for me with Mavic rims on the Tiagra hubs.  The handlebar tape had a gap in it and I asked them to put new tape on it – they said it was in “good enough” shape but that they would be glad to re-wrap it for me.  They also sold me on a “cartridge” kind of brake pad where I only had to change the rubber not the whole assembly.  Of course when I picked up the bike and asked to be shown how that worked the guy on duty at the time had no idea what I was talking about and told me that I still had to buy a regular brake pad and mount the new post.

A couple of months and maybe 500 miles later I was hearing scraping noises from the rear and sure enough there was metal showing through the brake pads.  I was fed up and as it happened I was taking a tandem into R+E at that time and on impulse I bought a set of the cantilevers they fabricate.  I didn’t change the brake cables but just mounted the brakes and hooked them up and discovered that I loved the way it rode again – no noise, plenty of stopping power and a solid feel in the lever.

The original Fuji saddle had worn out long ago and I was riding on a Burley saddle salvaged from our original tandem.  When I installed the R+E brakes I decided to raise the saddle so that it felt the same as my other bikes, and re-discovered that it was already at the maximum line on the seat post.  I got a 400mm Origin8 seat post from Amazon and when I was at Recycled Cycles a few days later I bought a $15 used Avocet saddle.  It was a funny “X-Country” shape with a broad kind of shelf in the back to facilitate sliding on and off the saddle during mountain bike races, but I like Avocet and the price was right. I rode it quite a bit and put a lot of energy into the fore/aft and up/down adjustments as I tried to get it dialed in properly.  It’s overkill inasmuch as I’m not going to use the carbon shell to steer the bike on technical downhills and I could probably get along without titanium rails, but I told myself that the shelf in the back would keep my wedge bag from getting rained on.

As I continued to ride (in the rain) I discovered that every time I shifted in the back I needed to trim the front derailleur or else it would make noise.  I fiddled with the derailleur and with the cable tension and only made it worse.  I decided that I wanted to replace the front derailleur – but I wasn’t sure if the problem was there or in the brifters where I couldn’t adjust anything.  All of my other bikes had bar-end shifters and I found myself reaching for the end of the bar a lot on the Fuji so I decided that I would both change out the derailleur and swap the brifters for bar-end shifters to be certain that I fixed the problem.

Since I was going to have to mount new brake levers (and since the handlebar tape had come apart again) I figured that it was the right time to trade out the drop bars that had been bent in the accident and to go with the FSA carbon bars that I had on my new bike and on the custom tandem.  As I thought about putting all those new components on the Fuji I realized that I probably ought to replace the rear derailleur as well so that I had a matching set –  and I started thinking about 10-speed drivetrains.

I hadn’t really committed to this project (or to spending a bunch of money on a 15-year old Fuji) when I read an article about the Rene Herse cranks sold by Compass Bicycles.  I have a fondness for Compass because of the prose Jan Heine writes about rides terminating in North Seattle, and I share his opinion of “protected” bike lanes.  I was struck by the design of the Rene Herse chain rings and decided that they would really look good on the Ibis.  It seemed to me that eventually I was going to want to replace the Ibis drivetrain (which I’d left intact when I rebuilt that bike) with a 10-speed set up, and the Rene Herse cranks would really add a kind of elegance to that conversion.  I liked the idea that I could do the conversion on the Fuji as a trial run and figure out what I liked and what I didn’t – before I committed to doing it on the Ibis. (I buy the idea that three bolts are adequate and it’s a cool way to get a smaller BCD so that you can go with smaller chainrings and a single set of chain ring bolts.)

Besides the elegance of the design, what sold me on Rene Herse cranks was the fact that they aren’t ramped and pinned.  Maybe it’s the retro-grouch in me, but Jan’s description made a lot of sense to me and confirmed what I knew from the guys at R&E and Sheldon Brown:

These features [ramps, pins and hyperglide sprockets] help improve shifting, and make rider skill less important in shifting, but none of these features is actually essential to the functioning of any system.

So, the plan became “convert my 2000 Fuji Touring into a 10-speed with carbon bars and bar-end shifters using Compass’ Rene Herse cranks & rings.”  I had a quill adapter and a 1 1/8 inch stem that I could use with large diameter handlebars. I’d already replaced the brakes and saddle/seatpost, so if I replaced the drivetrain all that was left was pretty much the headset and bottom bracket. Compass recommended the SKF bottom bracket (that they distribute) so I figured I’d go with that instead of my usual preference for Phil Woods.  Considering how much I was upgrading the bike I decided I’d spring for a Chris King headset.

The next stage of the project was a bunch of indecision about cranks and cogs and derailleurs.  Compass said a regular triple front derailleur wasn’t suitable for their triple chainrings but that a front derailleur designed for a double would work just fine.  They recommended the Shimano CX70 because it had a flat cage (unlike the stepped cage intended for ramped chainrings.)  I was tempted by the idea of a 10-speed double because I rarely use either the biggest or smallest ring on my triples.  I didn’t really mind giving up the top gear since I believe the concept that you go faster downhill by getting into a tuck position than by pedaling.  I was reluctant to give up the bottom couple of gears, though, and read through the articles and forum posts about using mountain bike cassettes (with a low end of 34 or 36) with road shifters.  The consensus was that it used to work but on 10-speed components the road brifters didn’t work and you really needed a long-cage rear derailleur which Shimano didn’t offer in a 10-speed.  The solution seemed to be a 9-speed long-cage rear derailleur and the CX70 in front – but it wasn’t clear to me if I needed to do that at all since I was going to be running bar-end shifters not brifters.  Eventually I decided that I wanted an upgrade and that if I was touring with a load I would take my new bike.  That meant that I could stick with a conventional 10-speed cassette and a standard rear derailleur.  I decided I’d go with the CX70 in front (because I read good things about it) but this approach would give me experience with the Compass cranks, experience with a 10-speed drivetrain, and would result in a lighter back-up bike that would be fun to ride.  I decided to go with Ultegra components since the CX70 was listed as “Ultegra quality” and since that was a step up from what was on any of my other bikes.  Then I needed to decide between compact and standard chainrings for the front…  (I’m still not sure what the difference there really is and I settled on 52/36 because the 52 was the largest available and 36 was 16 teeth – the limit for most derailleurs – down from that.)

At the end of February 2015 I had Amazon send me FSA K-wing bars, a Shimano CX70 front derailleur, Tektro RL340 brake levers, Shimano DuraAce shifters, a Shimano 6700 rear derailleur, a Shimano Ultegra 6700 10-speed 11-28 cassette, a Chris King 2Nut 1″ headset, and a Wippermann 10 speed stainless steel chain.  (The chain was overkill, but if I continue to ride this bike in the rain it would be nice to have a chain that doesn’t rust.)  I had Compass send me a 52/36 crank & chainring assembly, an SKF bottom bracket with a 110 spindle and, on impulse, a $200 Compass 1 1/8 inch stem with a 31.8mm handlebar clamp and 100mm of offset.  I also had them send me the special wrenches for the cranks and the bottom bracket.

I went to Recycled Cycles for cables and handlebar tape and got a torque wrench so that I wouldn’t over-tighten stuff on the carbon bars.  I also got carbon assembly paste and extra Wippermann 10-speed master-links.

When the Compass shipment came I found that they’d shipped me a 100mm Nitto quill stem instead of the Compass threadless one I’d ordered.  I notified them of the error, not mentioning that I’d put a slight rip in the Nitto box, and they agreed to send me the right one and cover the postage for the return.  I volunteered that I’d save them the postage  by dropping the Nitto stem off at their mailing house since it was only a couple miles away.  (I did a loop around West Seattle one morning and came back over the locks and dropped the package off.  I confused the mailbox guy, but evidently it got to where it was supposed to.)

Once I had all of the components I disassembled the bike.  Everything was fine until I got to the stem and couldn’t get the quill out of the fork.  I spent several days with penetrating oil and pry-bars and ultimately got it to shift slightly but I was clearly going to spring the fork if I kept levering on it so I hauled it down to Recycled Cycles and asked them if they could get it out for me.  They couldn’t. They levered it and used penetrating oil and heat and couldn’t move it any more than I did.  I finally had them cut it off with their bandsaw – which meant sacrificing the fork.  (They told me that the fork was misaligned so that they would have recommended replacing it even if they had been able to get the stem out.)

They had a similar steel fork and extended the threads down lower on the steerer tube so that it would fit the Fuji.  (I was under the impression that I could stick a 1 1/8 fork in a 1 inch head-tube just by changing the bearing races.  They showed me that I was wrong on that and made me realize that the Ibis rebuild – where I had gone from threaded to threadless – was 1 1/8 to start with.)  Given that I couldn’t use a 1 1/8 inch fork, and given that I had gone to some length to get a 1 1/8 inch stem, I was committed to a quill adapter – and the one I had left over from the Ibis project had a 1 1/8 inch quill.

I ordered a new adapter (and a brake cable hanger since the old one hadn’t survived the trip through the bandsaw.)  The bearing races on the new headset went in with a little persuasion from a hammer on a 2X4.  The bottom plate went onto the steerer tube with the help of a cold punch.  Actually the headset was easier to install and adjust than any other threaded headset I’ve used – I guess you get what you pay for.  However, leaving the steerer tube long meant that the lock-nut wouldn’t screw down against the other nut because it had a lip that kept it from going beyond the end of the steer tube.  I had a 1″ spacer and was lucky that it with my cable hanger took up the right amount of space so that I could tighten the locknut without running into the end of the tube.  I was concerned about having the spacer below the locknut and figured that before I got done I’d need to cut the tube to length –  and then wondered where I would put the cable hanger.

Before working out cable hanger issues I needed to get the handlebars into the stem and the stem onto the adapter.  The clamp on the stem was the right size for the clamping point on the bars, but to get it there I had to go over some much bigger and oddly-shaped sections and around the bends that define drop bars.  I stuck a couple of skinny bolts through the clamp holes and worked nuts onto them.  I got a dime in-between the end of the bolt and the other side of the clamp and then by tightening the nut I could spread the clamp.  I got it around the first bend that way (with no scratches) but had to insert another pair of bolts into the opposing clamp holes to push against the other side of the dime in order to spread it enough to get around the final curve and over the flats.  Once I knew I had it I smeared carbon paste on the bars before taking the dime and the screws out and the clamp came back to shape and tightened down just fine.  I used my new torque wrench the first time I tightened the clamp, but I trusted my wrists for the subsequent adjustments.

The quill adapter went in just fine – with a lot of lube so that I would be able to get it out again. It turned out that the collar on the stem was about 3/4″ longer than the shaft of the adapter and when I matched the adapter up with the top of the stem there was nothing behind the pinch bolt and I couldn’t secure the stem to the adapter.  Consequently, I lined it up with the bottom of the stem which meant that there was nothing for the cap to tighten down against when you set the quill.  It tightened okay against the stem, but I didn’t like the void that was left  under the cap, I didn’t like using the thin walls of the stem that way, and I didn’t like the fact that the cap didn’t have anything to center itself on.  I figured that a 1″ spacer would fit inside the stem and that I could bevel the top if it to match the bottom of the cap, so I put that on the list of things to talk to Recycled Cycles about.

The brake levers went on easily and with nothing to make me think about using the Torque wrench.  I had plenty of cable housing left over from the Rincon project.  The shifters came with their own cables and housing and they went in with little fuss.  I couldn’t figure out how to use a torque wrench inside of the shifter, though.  I re-installed the brakes and threaded both brake and shifter cables through the channel in the bars and hooked up the brakes.

The bottom bracket went in much easier than the Phil Woods’ went into the Ibis.  I spent some time on the internet trying to confirm that the alloy cup went on the non-drive side but nobody seemed to think that would even be a question.  The cranks were no problem and the bolts tightened down just like they were supposed to (simpler than using self-extracting bolts) but the quarter-inch drive on my torque wrench didn’t support a socket large enough for the bolts (and it would have needed to have been a very thin socket anyway.)  The chainrings were already installed on the drive-side crank so I didn’t have to worry about getting the chainring bolts tight enough.

Getting the cassette off of the hub took a little muscle but the new one went on cleanly enough – I had read that a spacer was needed to mount a 10-speed on a 8/9 -speed hub but since there was no spacer in the box I went without.  The rear derailleur went on with one bolt and the cable connected just like it was supposed to.  As I went to install the front derailleur I discovered that I had purchased a top-pull mech and my bike was set up to run the cable under the bottom bracket.  I kicked myself for not asking more questions – I had seen a comment in an online forum remarking that it was good to see a solid top-pull FD again and when the item description said top-pull I just went with it.  At least it was only a $45 mistake.  I ordered another derailleur but decided to get a regular Ultegra model 6700 (2×10)  instead of the CX70 so that I would have an entirely Ultegra drivetrain – and because I wasn’t certain that “bottom sprung” meant the same thing as “down pull” and I didn’t want another surprise.  In the interim I put the Tiagra FD back on and mounted the chain so that I could set the limit screws on the rear derailleur.  When I got the new FD I broke the chain again, put the new FD on, and set the limit screws on it, too.

I took a short ride (10 miles up to Shoreline) and found that the handlebars wanted to rotate and that the rear shifting wasn’t right.  I tightened the bars (by feel) and fiddled with the cable tension but just succeeded in making it shift less well.  I put bolts in all of the open braze-ons and took the bike to Recycled Cycles for an inspection and consult.  They supplied a length of 1 1/8″ steerer tube to fill the void in the stem.  They replaced the 1″ spacer with a set-screw type nut and a couple of thin spacers.  They fiddled with the brakes until they felt they were good.  They straightened the derailleur hanger and adjusted the indexing until they felt it shifted pretty well – although they still noted some issues with the smallest cogs.  They tightened the crank bolts but said everything else was fine.  They were impressed that I got the stem onto the bars with no scratches.  I bought a set of full fenders and when I got home I installed them and a bracket for a handlebar bag.  (The home-made cable supporting the bracket was too long so I had to cut off one end, which meant going to TrueValue to buy another screw-terminal.)  The guys at Recycled Cycles had evidently loosened the bars because the drops were rotated forward; I opened it up and rotated them back again without resorting to the torque wrench.  I mounted a mid-fork headlight mount.  I mounted a carbon bottle cage that I bought for Will’s bike and which he didn’t want.  I replaced the original 15-year old Time Atac pedals (that got scorn from the guy at Greggs) with a set of the X-Country model – XC6 – I bought in 2014 (had to match the saddle.)

I took a longer ride (Mercer Island loop) and found that the chain wanted to skip in the two smallest cogs when I loaded it hard. I also found that the rear brakes squealed.  When I got home I cleaned and lubed the chain (the ride was wet) and fiddled with it enough to see that the skip happened when the master link passed the cog.  I also adjusted the brake pads to toe-in more.  Another short ride confirmed that the brakes no longer squealed but that the chain still skipped.  A google query reminded me of this advice from Leonard Zinn:

As always with a Wippermann chain, I would first check to make sure that the ConneX master link is not inverted. It happens all of the time… one side of the link is concave and one is convex (i.e., it is taller above the connector hole). If you let that convex, or taller, edge be facing your cogs, it will lift the chain out of the tooth valley wherever it rides up on the spacer between cogs. On most cogsets, this only happens on the smallest cogs, but on machined SRAM Red cogs, this high spacer situation exists between every pair of cogs, so you will get skipping on every cog.

Orient the ConneX master link so that its taller convex edge is away from the chainring or cog. Another way to think about this orientation is to notice that the pair of connected holes on each plate (into which you push the pin) forms a heart shape. When the chain is on the top of the cog or chainring, make sure that the heart is right-side up. Either way will ensure that the taller, convex link edge is facing outward from the chain loop.

I flipped the link and the skipping stopped.

I taped the bars, then unwrapped them and taped them again to put more padding under the hoods.  Then I decided that was too bulky and that I’d be better off if the tape came closer to the center of the bars so I unwrapped them and taped them over again.

I may get a new rack if I ever use this bike in a way that requires panniers again.  If I ever have to replace the rims again I’ll probably spring for a whole new wheel set, maybe with Chris King hubs.  I think that I may need to replace the straddle cable in the front – the adjustable stopper seems to have its socket stripped out. Someday I may take it over and get it powder coated.

What I like:

• shifting into the lower ring and still having a lot of cogs for shifting down into
• short jumps between gears
• smoothness of headset, bottom bracket & shifters
• lighter weight
• drops at the right height
• bar-end shifters
• brakes that work and don’t scrape
• full coverage fenders that don’t rattle
• stealth value of expensive components on an old frame

What I don’t like:

• chain threatens to hang up when I shift down quickly in front while in a small cog in the rear
• brake levers have a little too much play
• headset stack is too complicated
• handlebar bag bracket flips up

In any event, my “rain bike” is back in service and it feels like it’s brand new!  I’m more convinced than ever about converting the Ibis drivetrain to a 10-speed Rene Herse set-up.

Here are some photos of the bike from the second real ride after the rebuild – a March loop around Lake Washington on a sunny day (plus some shots outside our garage.)

Here’s the final build list:

UPDATE

After this was written I tweaked the set-up so that the rain bike could travel.  I replaced the pedals with MKS US-B Nuevo ezy superior rinko pedals so that I didn’t need a wrench to unmount the pedals. (The most frequent use is to mount platform pedals when I need to be someplace in street shoes, but it would make it quicker to put the bike in a case, too.)  I cut all of the cables (except for the front brake cable) and installed cable splitters.  I bought new slotted barrel adjusters and had the braze-ons slotted. (I tried to do this conversion myself and broke a tap in the braze-on and had to be bailed out by the guys at Recycled Cycles.) I replaced the Avocet saddle with a retro-style Selle Anatomica NSX.  I bought a Nitto rear rack but ended up using it on another bike.

Over the course of a year I put about 3,000 miles on the Fuji and I still really enjoy the way it rides.  I had to replace the drive-side crank because it apparently bent warping the chainring enough that the chain wouldn’t stay on the large ring.  (I thought it was a chainring problem but when it wasn’t bolted to the spider the chainring was perfectly flat and a new one didn’t fix the problem.) The Compass guys emailed me

The original Compass René Herse crank arms were made from 6066 aluminum, which is softer than the new 2014 alloy. It is very unlikely that you’ll be able to bend the new crank spider (the spider/tabs are where the previous bend most likely occured, not the main arm), so your rings should run true. The alloy of the rings, 7075, is even harder and very difficult to bend. You can read more about the new alloy and crank lengths here: https://janheine.wordpress.com/2016/02/25/rene-herse-cranks-177-and-165-mm/

From July 11 to July 19 Jerry and Odette rode their tandem on the Hells Canyon Scenic Byway, the Elkhorn Drive Scenic Byway, and the Blue Mountain Scenic Byway.  The seven days of riding covered just over 400 miles and involved 31,000 feet of climbing (according to the GPS.)

The route was based on a modified Wallowas & Blue Mountains Loop (#13 in Henderson, Biking the Great Northwest.) The plan was for 418 miles (omitting Henderson’s stop at Lehman Hot Springs.) The 15,700 ft of climbing according to the book turned into 24,800 ft as mapped in Ride With GPS (and 31,421 as actually accumulated on Cyclemeter.)  The total route, as mapped automatically by Google, is 382 miles and 22,600 ft.

Day 1. Saturday: Drive to Pendleton and spend a night before biking.

We stayed at Working Girls Hotel (17 SW Emigrant Ave, Pendleton) 541-276-0730, because of good on-line reviews, and it was near the museum where Henderson said you can leave your car.  Maybe 20 years ago when the book was written they were less concerned about parking, but now there are “10 hour Parking” signs all around the  museum and the staff there said to ask the city police where we wouldn’t get towed.  The police station is out near the airport and getting there is complicated.  It is distinct from the state patrol station in the basement of the same building.  We finally called the non-emergency number and they said to leave it at Walmart – so that’s what we did and we rode the tandem back downtown and carried it up the stairs to our room.  We were the only people in the place and had no contact with the proprietors but we thought the room (and the whole floor) was really cool. We had lunch at the Prodigal Son Brewery – which was very good – and we had dinner at some steakhouse that I wouldn’t return to.

Day 2. Sunday: Bike from Pendleton to Elgin over Tollgate (64 miles and 5,000 ft. according to the map, 67 miles and 6,769 ft. the way we did it)  The plan was to have lunch in Weston at the Long Branch Café and Saloon  201 East Main Street – about 25 miles into the ride – or buy food there and picnic at Tollgate. We couldn’t find a breakfast place in Pendleton that opened before 7:00 and we wanted to get going before it got hot, so we had coffee and Kind bars in the room and then got on the road.  We rode Adams Road to Adams, the old highway to Athena (where we bought nectarines and pop-tarts,) and Banister Road to Weston – getting there at about 8:30.  We had a great breakfast at the Long Branch and then took the Weston – Elgin highway for a long but gradual climb.  It turned out that there was a restaurant open at Tollgate, but we didn’t stop.  We had a good fast run down from the summit and got to Elgin by 1:30.

We stayed at the Stampede Inn (51 S. 7th Ave, Elgin) 541-437-2441 where they let us check in early.  It was a 1940s vintage motel/cabins but they had wireless and were happy to have us put the bike indoors.  We ate lunch at a place called Angels & Cowboys which had a neighborhood vibe and where they called everyone “honey”.  There was a pretty hard thunderstorm while we were eating but it was basically over by the time we walked back to the motel.  We had dinner at the Brunswick where they called everyone “sweetie” and which was recovering from the Elgin Rodeo.  The next morning we had breakfast at a drive through espresso place where they had subway quality breakfast burritos.  Don’t know what they called people but at least it was open early.

Day 3. Monday: Bike from Elgin to Joseph through Lostine and Wallowa and Enterprise (51 miles and 3,200 ft. according to the map, 66 miles and 4,586 ft. the way we did it.)  I wanted to start early enough to get to Lostine for lunch at the Lostine Tavern, 125 Highway 82 – but they were only open Wednesday – Sunday so we pushed on through to Wallowa where we found most places were also closed Monday and Tuesday.  We went to the Glacier Grill at the far end of the lake (after ditching our panniers at the B&B) and had a good lunch featuring Terminal Gravity beer.  We got back to town before the thunderstorms started.

We stayed at Bronze Antler B&B (309 S. Main St, Joseph) 541-432-0230.  The proprietors were former heath-care workers with a cool second career.  The room was spectacular and there were deer wandering around the yard.  They had us park the bike in the garage.  We visited Stein Distillery and were surprised that they were able to ship to our home so we had to buy a couple of bottles.  We ate dinner at Embers which is to be recommended more for its beer (I had Barley Brown’s) than for its food.

Day 4. Tuesday: Bike from Joseph to Halfway over the Salt Creek and Imnaha divides and past the Hells Canyon overlook (71 miles and 5,100 ft. according to the map, 72 miles and 6,119 ft. the way we did it.)  We were worried about road construction but the people at the B&B said bikes and motorcycles had been going over the construction zone for the last couple of weeks.  They got up early and made us breakfast so we were on the road by 7:00.  The valley is spectacular at that hour.  The climbs weren’t as bad as I’d anticipated but we were hot by the time we crested Salt Creek.  The construction zone (where there was a wait and where the flagger wanted to put our bike in the back of the pilot car) wasn’t bad at all – we kept up with traffic just fine.  The issue was the several miles before and after which were loose gravel and really badly washboarded.  We kept the speed down and didn’t have any incidents until a couple of miles after the pilot car left us when we hit a section of washboard too hard and blew a tire.  I changed it using a CO2 cartridge and the inflator malfunctioned wasting both the first and second cartridges I tried.  Luckily, the back-up pump worked like a charm.  It was hot by the time we got to the highway and climbed up to Halfway.  We had a thunderstorm right after we got there so it was good that we didn’t lose any more time.

We stayed at Pine Valley Lodge (163 N Main St, Halfway) 541-742-2027 which was modern and hip and totally different (in a better way) than we expected.  There was only one open restaurant in town for dinner on a Tuesday – Wild Bills.  It was definitely authentic.  They had a salad bar. I was glad I ordered my steak rare.  A group of cyclists sat next to us – they had somebody driving a van for support and had come in from Joseph the previous day.  Most of them took a rest day in Halfway with some riding down to Oxbow (and getting driven back in the heat.)  On their trip through the construction zone they hadn’t gotten off the road in time to avoid a thunderstorm so they got to ride the gravel wet.  We had a light day coming up so we stayed late and had breakfast at the B&B.

Day 5. Wednesday: Bike from Halfway to Baker through Richland and over Flagstaff Hill (54 miles and 3,700 ft. according to the map, 54 miles and 4,194 ft. the way we did it.)  The ride was hot even though we were out pretty early.  I hadn’t been out there since the landslide at Hole-in-the-wall rerouted the road.

We stayed at the Geiser Grand Hotel (1996 Main Street, Baker) 541-523-1889 because in early May the Dancing Goat Inn (where I’d originally made reservations) emailed to cancel. We got a flat from a thorn just as we arrived and I fixed it while Odette took stuff up to the third floor room.  The hotel was fine with us taking the bike to our room but we had to turn the front wheel sideways to fit the low ceiling in the elevator.  We got into town just after noon and tried to get lunch at Barley Brown’s, 2190 Main St., but they didn’t open until 4:00 so we ate at the hotel which was fine.  We walked around town after lunch, exploring most of the Leo Adler parkway which was new since I’d been there last.  We waited 10 minutes for dinner at the brewpub and it was worth it both for the beer and for the food.  We had breakfast at the hotel and it was fine once again.

Day 6. Thursday: Bike from Baker to Sumpter past Phillips Reservoir and through the dredge tailings (29 miles and 1,400 ft. according to the map, 40 miles and 1,847 ft. the way we did it.)  We spun around town for 10 miles to kill time and then went to the Safeway and picked up stuff for lunch.  We followed the river for a really easy ride and I was surprised and how much had changed from the way I remembered it.  We got to Sumpter at noon and had lunch at the SVRR depot there.

We checked into the Depot Inn (179 S Mill St, Sumpter) 541-894-2522 early and they seemed fine with that.  We walked out to the dredge park and toured the boat and the gift shop and got ice cream at Scoop N’ Steamers – the new-looking restaurant / log cabin place.  The trauma of the day happened when Odette dropped her scoop of chocolate.  We were warned that there was no place to get food between Sumpter and Ukiah and that there was no place to get breakfast early, so we visited the general store and the truckstop looking for food.  We bought one wilted green pepper because it was the only thing we saw that wasn’t alcoholic or a canned good.  We patched a couple of tubes and then had dinner at the restaurant next door to the motel which seemed to be called “Carol’s Mad Dog” but is evidently known as Borello’s on-line.  (We tried to eat at the ice cream / log cabin place but despite their posted hours their dinner is over at 4:00 during the week.)  The food at Carol’s was actually pretty good.  After dinner we talked to a couple of motorcyclists who’d just come from Ukiah and who raved about the road and the scenery.  We watched a couple of buck deer with their antlers in velvet while we talked.  The next morning we had breakfast at the log cabin place which opened at 7:00 and offered deli sandwiches to go.  The place was full of old guys (miners, mainly) and was clearly where one goes for breakfast in Sumpter.

Day 7. Friday: Bike from Sumpter to Ukiah past Granite (66 miles and 4,900 ft. according to the map, 67 miles and 5,867 ft. the way we did it.)  The guys on the Ducatis were right – the road was great, there was no traffic, and the scenery was spectacular.  (The popular cycling routes evidently go from Granite to Anthony Lakes.)   The climb up Granite Hill road to Blue Springs Summit got us down into the lowest gear and it was cold starting out.  The forest was full of little meadows that opened up views of the mountains.  We saw deer and elk and lots of raptors.  The other van-supported cycling group spend the night in Granite so there must be an inn there (and likely food) but we didn’t go into town to explore.  We got hungry after Crane Flats and just stopped by the side of the road for lunch.  The climb out of the North Fork John Day seemed to go on forever but the new forest on the site of a big fire was really fascinating.  After we topped out we got views down to the Columbia plateau and it got hotter and hotter as we descended.  We came into Ukiah in the middle of the afternoon with showers on our minds.

We stayed at the Antlers Inn (103 Main St, Ukiah) 541-427-3492 which was the only place in town to stay.  Odette said it reminded her of my parent’s house, but that is a nice way of saying that it was remodeled by a handyman about 40 years ago and hadn’t been touched since.  Actually, except for the linoleum that was worn through, it was an adequate place to spend a night and certainly better than camping.  The bathroom was down the hall but it had a shower that was exactly what I was looking for.  (They only gave us one towel so I dried off with the bathmat.)  It was, however, the only place we stayed on the tour that didn’t have wireless.  There was no room on the first floor for the bike because it was full of stuffed animals, so we chained the bike up to a post on the porch.  (I didn’t think I could get it up the stairs and around into the room.)  We walked to the grocery store / gas station and bought sodas from a mother/son team that could have been out of Grapes of Wrath.    Their store was decorated with outsider art whirligigs made from 50-gallon drums.  We had dinner at the Thicket – the only cafe in town.  The lady who checked us in at the Antlers was the bartender at the cafe, too.  It was pizza night so we had homemade pizza from a waitress who couldn’t figure out how to get us a beer on the cafe side of the establishment.  The tap list was actually really good – I had Irish Death.  We got up early and ate pop tarts and had coffee in the lobby of the Antlers with a couple motorcyclists.

Day 8. Saturday: Bike from Ukiah to Pendleton through Pilot Rock and spend another night in Pendleton before driving back: (51 miles and 1,500 ft according to the map, 50 miles and 2,039 ft. the way we did it.)  It was cold in the morning but warmed up after we crested Battle Mountain.  The scenery changed too, to wheat fields and basalt layers as we dropped in the coulee down to Pilot Rock.  We’d thought about stopping there to have breakfast at Archie’s but it was too early to eat again so we just rode on into Pendleton on the shoulder of SR 395 (I didn’t know about the frontage road that would have kept us off of the highway for most of the way.)  We headed straight for the Walmart and found our car in the shade.  After unsuccessfully looking for regional specialities to take back as gifts to co-workers and unsuccessfully attempting a tour of the woolen mills, we had lunch at Prodigal Son and walked around  town for the afternoon.

We stayed at Working Girls Hotel again and were the only ones in the place, again.  We settled on chocolates from Alexander’s for the co-workers.  We had dinner at Plateau at the Casino on the Warm Springs reservation.  We had to walk through the slots and tables trying to figure out where the restaurant was but the view was spectacular.  The food was good if you like pepper sauce on your steak.

Day 9. Sunday: Drive back to Seattle

Here’s the Cycle Oregon web site – in September 2015 they are taking 2,000 people from Baker to Elgin – here’s their brochure for the 2015 ride.

Here’s the Wallowa County tour website and here is the state bike route through Baker, here’s the one through Ukiah  and here’s Joseph to Halfway

Here’s the national Forest Service construction alert and here is the update on the Joseph to Halfway road

Odette’s photos

GALLERY