Well, the fourth running of the Oregon Stampede is in the books, and boy was it a doozy. Grab a cup of whatever and I’ll share a tale of awesomeness with you.

For the first year since 2010, I was planning on skipping the Stampede. This wasn’t something that sat well with me, but the combination of my new house and the busy shop meant that it wasn’t in the cards this year. But the Tuesday before the event I glanced at my calendar and noted that I did in fact have the day off. I immediately made plans for the weekend. The one catch was that I had to be home by 11am on Sunday to work on a fence project. With everything in order, I organized my gear and tuned up the bike.

My sinuses had been acting up for the previous week, and as we arrived in camp I felt my head fill up. I wasn’t sure how things would feel in the morning, but I was excited to give it a go. I fell asleep in my tent wondering if I’d be able to breathe the next day.

The morning of every Stampede is a special time. Some people wake up extra early to get a headstart on the day, while seasoned veterans like myself sleep in until the last moment. That is, the last moment that still allows cooking water for coffee and oatmeal, getting dressed, and pooping two to three times. That may not sound pleasant, but ask anyone who participates in long bike rides or other endurance style events and they’ll tell you the same thing. You gotta get those nervous poops out before you find yourself in the woods looking for leafy greens.

With everything in order, Donnie gathered us around him at 7:30am. He gave the usual speech, and with that, we were off. In my haste to join the group I failed to fill two of my three waterbottles. It appeared that I’d be rolling with one bottle to Dufur. Thankfully, Mike hooked me up with a bit of water on our run in to the first stop.

Knowing the course is always a good thing. Back in March, a couple of us rode the first leg of the route, which ended up being really helpful. I paced myself up the climbs and enjoyed the scenery. As we crested the top of Center Ridge, we saw a herd of cows ahead of us on the road. We pulled as far off the road as possible, and the cowboy drove his cattle by us. He had some colorful language for his herd, and we were in awe of his task. I remember thinking that this would be a good omen for the day.

Shortly after our cow sighting we descended into Dufur. I love this little town, and it’s market. It’s fully stocked and the people who run the place are really nice. I picked up a carrot and apple, filled up the bottles, and got a move on. I don’t like to spend too much time at the stops on rides like these, so I left the group I was riding with, hoping they’d catch me on the next leg.

And then, things kinda went south for a bit. My stomach was tied into knots, and my legs felt like sacks of cement. Again, knowing the course was a great asset. I knew how far I had to go before Tygh Valley and everything that laid in between us. I purposely took a slow pace and tried to enjoy the scenery. The White River Wilderness Area was empty of people, and I rode in quiet solitude. As I exited the area, Mike caught me. We pedaled into Tygh Valley and made plans to drink some beer.

Halfway done and already cooked, we packed our beers into my bag and made our way to the Deschutes River. We split our beers with our friend Ed while joking about how sunburned we were getting. The beer helped to calm my stomach down a bit, and thankfully the climb up from Sherar’s Bridge was over after about 40 minutes. We continued on into the stiff headwind with our heads down. It was a rough fifty miles.

Somewhere just before Grass Valley my stomach made another turn. There wasn’t much to do for it, and I decided to head into Moro and take pavement the rest of the way home. With the exception of one hill, the route from Moro to Hwy 206 is mostly downhill and even with the headwind it was a good decision. I grabbed an ice cream bar at the store in town and we aimed for the finish. As I wrestled with the thought of not finishing the “official route” I realized that riding the same exact course four years in a row would be negligent. The other roads in the area are just as beautiful, rough, smooth, and remote. I was happy with our detour.

Unlike last year, the descent through Fulton Canyon was devoid of any wind. We took the opportunity to shred and pinned it. Exiting the canyon, we were greeted once again with our friend the headwind.

The last two miles to camp are almost comical. After 127+ miles of riding the sun is low in the sky and here I am giving everything I have on flat, fucking pavement. I can see the trees of the campsite in the distance and the wind knows this. Eventually we turned into camp and arrived to cheers from other riders. We cracked our beers, took showers, and made dinner. At some point I passed out.

Now it’s Tuesday and all I want to do is ride the Stampede again next year. Thanks for another amazing year Donnie and crew! Velodirt goes hard in the paint and that’s what brings me back every year.

Days 0+1 can be read here, and Day 2 can be read here.

I woke up earlier than I was hoping and debated on getting up. My feet were frozen and I knew the fire wasn’t going to get started quickly. I finally heard Gabe rustling around and went for it. I found my last pair of wool socks and put them over the other two pairs I was wearing. We were smart enough to save a few pages from the fishing regs from the night before, and thanks to some dry twigs, we got a small fire going.

Because we’re classy, we had been slow cooking our dinners each night. Because of this, we ran out of fuel after two cups of coffee. Knowing that hot food would make gearing up easier, we fed the fire until we had a good bed of coals. We boiled some water and ate oatmeal while we huddled around to stay warm. The snow was falling at this point, but it was the small ball-bearing sized stuff that doesn’t stick around. We laughed together about the ladies at the restaurant the day before who warned us of the cold temps in the mountains. They thought we were crazy; to be fair we kind of probably are.

As we fed the fire, our rush to get out of camp disappeared. We took our sweet time packing up, feeding the fire, and sipping whiskey. Eventually, around 11am, we saddled up and started riding. I wore almost everything I had to stay warm.

After the previous day of climbing, we thought we’d be pretty close to the top of the pass. We were close, but still had a couple miles of steady gravel climbing before we found a winding descent. The road was much rougher on the backside, but we shredded along until we came to the intersection for Magone Lake. Our spirits were high.

A ripping two mile descent followed by a steep one mile climb popped us out right at the lake. It was still snowing and the campground was deserted. We rode the lake trail until we found a nice deck over the water to have lunch. Looking at our maps, we decided to climb back up to County Road 18 before heading back to John Day. Leaving the lake, we found the climb to be pretty gnarly. The road was freshly graded, and the few car tracks had barely compacted the loose gravel. We slogged away for a good five to six miles before reaching the top. We each knew that there would be a solid climb in the morning, and this one delivered on all fronts.

And with that, we were faced with a 10 mile descent back to reality. Ten miles passed quickly as we pedaled on quiet roads complete with breathtaking views of Strawberry mountain around every corner. The fastest descent of the trip was over before it even began it seemed, and we found ourselves standing at Hwy 26 with 9 miles to go.

The same headwind we had battled on Sunday was still kicking strong. We pedaled slowly back to John Day, partly because of the headwind, and partly because we weren’t quite ready for the trip to be over. The sun was out, we were full of fresh air, and none of us really wanted to get back to the real world.

Upon arriving back at the car, we each drank a warm Rainier and high-fived. Our trip to the Old West was a success on many levels. I felt relaxed, stress free, and ready to plan the next trip.

On the way home we stopped in Condon, OR at the Roundup Bar for dinner. As we left town, Gabe dug through the tapes in the car and found one with the words “Freaky Tape” in sharpie on it. We popped it in the tape deck and jammed out to a choice selection of classic funk and disco for the remainder of the drive home. It was a fitting end to a great adventure.

Check out Gabe’s photos here. They’re beautiful!

I found that my setup for this trip was pretty near perfect. I’m headed out tomorrow for another two nights with a similar setup. I’ll post what I used and what I thought about it next week.

Sometime last winter, Gabe and I started scheming on a trip to Eastern Oregon this spring. The recently designated Old West Scenic Bikeway seemed like a great way to get some sunshine and explore parts of the state neither of us had seen much of. I’ve floated the John Day River from Service Creek to Twickenham Bridge, but until this past weekend, I’d never been farther east in Oregon.

The website is lacking quite a bit of info (If you’re reading this Travel Oregon, get someone on this!!!), so if you can find the brochure it’s really handy for locating campsites and water sources. But be wary if you tackle this trip, some of the info is outdated already, such as the water icon for Kimberly. We didn’t see any, but it was a Sunday and the Post Office was closed. We contacted the local Chambers of Commerce to get the scoop beforehand.

Our trusty rig

The first obstacle in making this trip happen was finding a vehicle that would take us five hours east. Neither of us own a capable rig and finding one that we could leave in John Day for three days seemed like a tall order. With a couple days to go, our friend Tobin offered up his Volvo. We were set!

In a flurry of emails and text messages, we recruited our friend Ed to join us and everything was set in motion.

Day 0

Gabe picked me up after work on Saturday and we scooped Ed on the way out of town. Getting to John Day isn’t all that easy. Every highway that leads there is a two lane affair that winds through valleys and alongside rivers, which done during the day is quite remarkable. We would discover this on the trip home thankfully.

We arrived in John Day around 1am to find that the only camping was in the RV park on the edge of town. At $27 a night and nothing but gravel to lay on, we headed for Kam Wah Chung State Heritage Site, which is essentially a city park with a historical landmark. We didn’t see any signs forbidding camping, so we set up camp and swapped stories until we were all tired enough to pass out. The soft grass was almost luxurious compared to the next two nights we’d be out there.

Day 1

I woke up around 6am, excited to get going. After a morning beer and a survey of the park and creek, we made some coffee and geared up for the day that laid ahead of us. We all agreed that a solid breakfast was the best way to start our day, and found the Outpost Cafe, which greeted us warmly. Hot coffee, and large portions set us up for success. I squirreled away my biscuit with a solid dab of butter and some bacon for later, and with that we headed off!

How’re those headwinds treating you?

A couple of miles into our first day, we realized that the wind we were riding into wasn’t going to quit. As we settled into a paceline, the reality of 20mph headwinds sunk in. We wouldn’t be discouraged though; this was our trip and we were having a killer time. Ed got a rear flat, and with that we took the opportunity to savor another tasty beer. Turning lemons into lemonade, we continued on to Dayville, where we stocked up on dinner supplies and yet more beer (are you sensing a pattern?). The owner of the Merc told us it was cool to drink in the city park, which we made good use of. Sitting in the shade, eating lunch, and drinking suds boosted our spirits!

What’s the name of the road? It doesn’t have a name…

After Dayville we hoped we’d lose the headwind when we turned north onto Hwy 19, but it was not to be. We stopped at the Thomas Condon Paleontology Center to fill up on water and archaeology info. The main exhibit is pretty cool and I highly advise a stop if you pass through.

With our heads full of thoughts of fossils, we headed out for the remaining mileage. We buried our heads and pedaled. We were tired. We were really, really sunburned. The entire day was supposed to be slightly downhill and fairly easy. As we rolled into Kimberly, we were cooked. And then something beautiful happened.

Kimberly, OR. Finally.

As we were hanging out, a guy named Jerry pulled over and offered us each a beer. The four of us cheers-ed and bullshitted for a few minutes. Jerry lives and works at one of the ranches we had just passed and was happy to see us out there rolling along. He clued us into some good fishing holes (a theme that would repeat itself) and wished us luck on the rest of our journey.

Full of happiness and cold Coors, we pedaled the last two miles to camp and made a home for the night. It was far too windy to fish, but I threw the line in anyway for a bit. We cooked up a huge dinner and made a nice fire. I passed out fairly early, exhausted and quite curious as to how the wind would treat us the next day.

Stay tuned for Day 2 tomorrow!

Growing up in Southern California, I always wanted a basement. They’re not all that common in that region, but I hoped that someday I’d have one of my own. Now that I live in Portland, it’s much more common. And with our recent home purchase, we got a basement! It’s perfect for the bike shop, laundry, etc.

It’s also good for laying out camping gear in an organized manner. I’m getting ready for a three day trip to the Old West Scenic Bikeway with some friends. I’m rolling sans-panniers for the first time and my hope is to get everything into a Revelate Designs Viscacha, a PDW Takeout Basket, and a small Osprey bag.

I’ll post pictures of the gear layout if it makes sense and there’s time. But, I’m sure I’ll have lots of photos to share when I get back.

The thing I’m looking forward to most on this trip? Corn dogs, Roadmasters, fishing, and waking up in the desert.

Yeehaw!