Kiki Bikes Across America

Archive for August 7th, 2009

Friday, August 7th – Portland, OR to Cannon Beach, OR

I woke up early this morning to get ready to head to the coast by bike. I rode down to Rose Quarter to meet Chase and ride the MAX Train out of Portland to Hillsboro. We wound up skipping out on 20 miles to get out of the main part of the city and avoid the Interstate portion of Hwy 26. We got to Hillsboro and then made a pit stop and I bought some yummy jalapeno cheetos and some oatmeal cookie pies. Finally, around 11:30 we roll out of Hillsboro on our way towards Cannon Beach.

56 miles from Cannon Beach, we stopped in Banks at a Subway and got lunch and then continued on. At this point, we were getting excited and ready to see some ocean and to complete the coast to coast portion of the trip. The time went by relativey fast and the miles were going fast as well. We had some fairly largish climbs to do, but they didn’t feel that bad – the grades were good and the pavement was pretty smooth for the most part. The worst part of the entire day’s ride was the amount of traffic on Hwy 26 – everyone was heading to the coast as it was Friday. But we enjoyed the last 12 miles or so on Hwy 26 as it was mostly all downhill and the pavement was really nice – I was cruising at some points doing 30-35 mph without really trying all that much.

We arrived to Cannon Beach at 7:14pm and went to the far end of town and went out to the beach area – but didn’t dip any tires. It was a bit chilly and a little windy and Chase was calling all his friend and family to say he made it, so we wound up standing out in the cold for a good while before leaving and looking for a place to eat. We headed back into the main street area and went to the public restrooms to change into more normal clothes and get out of the biking shorts and all, then we went to Bill’s Brewery for dinner. I got a mediocre dinner – prawns with a tiny piece of garlic bread, a good size salad, and we split a thing of jalapeno poppers. Chase wound up with the better deal – a seafood medley with various things and he got his money’s worth, I think. During dinner, I called several campgrounds, but they were all full as were all the motels/hotels in town. It turns out there was some sort of event going on that weekend and everything was booked and reserved well in advance – no one clued us in on that.

Finishing coast to coast in Cannon Beach, Oregon with 3,570 miles for me and 3,755 for Chase.

So we biked around and were looking for a school to camp at, but instead found a city park and a big tree in the back, so we went there and pitched a tent in the back of the park (trying to hide it behind the tree) and locked our bikes up. We have just completed our coast to coast ride – 74 days from the east coast to the west coast. That includes all the rest days and the days off I had in Colorado when I got sick. Not too bad and I’ve ridden 3,570 miles to date.

GPS Stats (includes portion that was train/bus to get to Hillsboro to start riding):
93.6 miles
07:10 moving time
13.0 avg speed
57.6 max  speed

Computer Stats:
76.55 miles
06:26:40 moving time
11.8 avg speed
36.0 max speed