79.61 miles (Total: 4355.81) Avg Speed: 12.5mph Max Speed: 35.5mph
Another chilly morning by the coast saw us pass through the towns of Newport and Waldport before we started turning inland in the direction of Portland, we have become east-bounders. At the aptly named Cape Foulweather we stopped in the visitor centre, drinks were limited. Siemen recommended the V8, a vegetable drink. I have had the fruit V8’s before which are nice but this thing nearly made me throw up after one sip. It was basically cheap & nasty tasting cold vegetable soup in a can. I asked the women behind the counter where the toilet was. “We don’t have one.” she said, so I pondered the fact she turns up to work and doesn’t need the toilet all day? I bet there was one out back.
Some weird didgeridoo playing nomad.
Who needs the ACA maps. A good old road map will get us to Portland.
Somewhere along highway 18 as I have Japandroids blasting in the iPod I see another cyclist coming the other way so we exchange the usual cyclist wave gesture when something clicks in my head, STU! We both stop and spin around knowing immediatley who the other is.
Stuart Woolger, also from England, emailed me before the trip and we have commented on each others blogs several times. He started the TransAm ahead of me and I thought the chance of a meeting had passed a few days ago when we put in some big mileage and missed him somewhere along the route. It turned out he wasn’t doing the alternate Florence route to the coast but was heading up to Astoria which explained him being on this road, now about 20 miles from the sea. We exchanged a few stories then headed opposite ways.
Me & Stu
For the rest of the day we enjoyed a nice tailwind all the way to Mcminnville where Siemen was finally starting to concede that he would ride the whole way to Portland with us. Me and Wim split a motel room for the night and allowed Siemen “The Budget” Jansma to stay for the nominal fee of $3.
Going to miss seeing this lad.
Another chilly morning hugging the coast took us through Newport and Waldport before the road bent inland toward Portland — we’d officially become east-bounders again, however briefly. At Cape Foulweather we ducked into the visitor centre hunting drinks, and the pickings were slim. Siemen talked me into a V8 — the vegetable kind, not the fruit kind I actually like — and one sip nearly turned my stomach; it tasted like cheap, cold vegetable soup poured straight from a can. I asked the woman behind the counter where the bathroom was. “We don’t have one,” she said, flat, which left me wondering how exactly she got through an entire shift without needing one herself. I’d bet good money there was one out back.
There was a nomad out there working a didgeridoo, for reasons nobody explained and I didn’t ask.
Who needs an ACA map when a plain old road atlas gets you to Portland just fine.
Somewhere along Highway 18, Japandroids loud in my ears, I saw another cyclist coming the other way and lifted a hand for the usual passing-cyclist wave — then something clicked. Stu. We both stopped and spun around at the same moment, already certain who the other was. Stuart Woolger, another Englishman, had emailed me before either of us left home and we’d been trading comments on each other’s blogs for months. He’d started the TransAm ahead of me, and I’d assumed we’d missed our window somewhere back during a big-mileage stretch. Turned out he’d skipped the Florence detour to the coast and was riding for Astoria instead, which put him on this exact road, twenty miles from the sea, at this exact hour. We swapped stories for a while and then rode on in opposite directions, the way these things go.
A tailwind carried us the rest of the way to McMinnville, where Siemen finally, quietly conceded he’d be riding all the way to Portland with us after all. Me and Wim split a motel room for the night, and let Siemen — “The Budget” Jansma, a nickname he’d more than earned — bunk in for the princely sum of three dollars.
Going to miss having that lad around.