Rough Day of Climbing

This day (Saturday) started out great and ended great.  It was the large part in between that was a bit of a problem.

The plan was to bike 43 miles to the town of Sisters, which gets great reviews as a stopover point. Forty three miles doesn’t sound that bad, but as I mentioned in the previous post it includes  a climb of about 4000 feet (1200 meters).

To start with, I got out of camp just a little after eight.  Jeff, the guy from Wisconsin I had met the day before,  said he would be riding slower than I would so he didn’t leave with me.

Just a mile up the road from camp was a nice general store. I picked up some snacks for the ride and a sandwich to eat as breakfast. They had a couple of picnic tables outside, so I sat down. At the other table were two guys I had passed by minutes earlier on the road as they  were walking.  One of them talked about how the Cardinals only had two hits the night before but somehow won 1-0.  That prompted me to get into the sports conversation with them.

It was great.  Their names were Richard and Steven, from Oakland and St. Louis.  We talked about old time baseball and football for almost a half hour. They asked about my trip and wished me luck. If I had known what the next four hours would be like I would have talked sports with them the whole day. Super nice guys.

After a few more miles up the main road, I turned off to take the scenic route which goes to the top of McKenzie Pass.  It’s a very narrow two lane road that is not heavily traveled at all and is closed a good portion of the year.  It’s thick with forest and as quiet as can be.

From the start of this road to the top of the pass it’s 21 miles.  Once you start climbing, you never stop, at least for the first 14 miles. There is no coasting or taking it easy. You consistently go one speed: very slow. 4.6 mph was seen a lot on the speedometer.  Sometimes less, but hardly ever over 5 mph.

It doesn’t look steep, but it is very deceiving.  My odometer measures in hundredths of miles, and even those numbers weren’t changing very often.  At one point, there was a very brief stretch where the road flattened out just a bit and I was able to go 6.8 mph for about 50 feet. I felt like I was cruising on a motorcycle.

I was to the point where if I could do a half mile without stopping for a little break, that was very good progress.  At times I was going through switchback areas where you could look to your right and see the land and the steep grade that you would have to climb after you made the turn. It was very difficult.

Finally, some really good news came at around the fourteen mile point where it really did flatten out and all the sudden I was going along at 13mph.  That was like heaven.  The land opened up, no clouds and the temperature was perfect.  Then at one point I started going downhill, which was actually bad news because I knew to get to the top I’d have to make that elevation up again.

I eventually came to a sign which read 5000ft, which meant only a couple hundred more to go.  And it was tough. As I rounded the last corner to where the parking area was for the viewpoint, a group of people began applauding and cheering, which was nice.

Right when I got to the top, a couple arrived coming from the opposite direction. They were Andrew and Debbie from Scotland. Being a McKechnie, we hit it off. They began their trip from Yorktown, where I’m finishing. They told me how great their trip has been and how lucky they had been with the weather. We had a nice chat before heading off.

While it took me over four hours to bike the 21 miles on the scenic highway to the top of the pass, the reward is getting to go down the other side. The town of Sisters was eighteen miles away.  I was there in forty minutes.

Sisters is a fantastic little unassuming tourist town. Population 2038. Clean as can be. Everything was booked for accommodations, but being a biker friendly town they have $5 sites always available for cyclists at one of the campsites. I felt I earned a dinner out and ended the day talking with the locals and tourists at one of the Mexican restaurants. Nice way to end a difficult day on the road.