What a weekend. So as you may or may not know Oregon is giving away
seven handbuilt bikes this summer. This past weekend was the
Painted Hills bike, a touring bike that comes equipped with everything you need to get started. All free for the taking if you're the first to find it.
The Painted Hills are on the Eastern side of the state and I live on the Western side so a road trip was in order. The second clue given was that it would be hidden on the
Mitchell-Service Creek loop. Also, given the information that the last two were found within minutes of being 'live', we decided to start early in our search. Oh, I forgot to mention the we: Me, my wife, and my 10-year-old son. As you can see form the elevation profile it's quite the climb no matter where you start.
We went to bed at 8 and woke up at 3:30 and were on the road by 4. Well, I was at least. I left by bike from Mitchell and they drove to the top of the loop and parked at the Shelton Wayside County Park. The idea was that they would ride down clockwise from there and I would ride up - also clockwise - from the bottom. That way we'd cover both sides and have a better chance of finding the bike. I'd grab the car and them come down to find them since they were slower bikers.
I hit the spot where I'm supposed to turn left onto Girds Creek around 5:15. The signpost doesn't list any of the towns that I was familiar with and there's also a really, really shit-looking
cattle grid that looked more like it was the entrance to someone's yard than an actual road. I decided to keep going because that can't be my turn. I crest the hill and at about mile marker 10, which is at roughly the 12 mile spot on that map, so the bottom of a lengthy descent (which I was coasting 40+mph the entire way to give you an idea of grade) I finally think about how I'm probably going the wrong way since I haven't seen another turn and I'm at 16 miles total. I pull over and spend about 15 minutes trying to get a GPS signal on my tablet (more on this later) but no dice. So I hem and haw for about five more minutes thinking, "hey, it's 5:30, the bike has probably been found by now." I just turn around and head for the top of the hill.
I don't rush this because I don't want to destroy my knees climbing too hard. Slowly making my way up, averaging about 7-8 mph (it's a damn big hill!), and I finally get back to where I needed to turn. The aforementioned shit-looking cattle grid presents it's own hurdle - almost literally - as it's so badly mangled that I basically have to walk across it like it's a tightrope and balance my bike at the same time. I'm across, and I start down the road. I'm not hurrying because, as I said, it's now about 5:50 and it's surely found by now.
So anyway about 20 minutes later (6:10 for those keeping track) I come around a corner and see a bike in front of me with white tires (!) and panniers (!!) just riding along. My heart drops, but on the off chance it's the people giving it away I speed up and catch the bike. No, it's not like Pokemon and I didn't get anything for catching it. I talk to the guy riding it (the article says a girl won and while technically true it was a guy riding it at the time; she was on another bike in front of him) and it turns out they found it just a little bit ago. Like, 20 minutes. You know, twenty of the 30 or so minutes that I wasted going the wrong way. The real kicker though was when he said that they went right by it but turned around because they saw a chalk drawing of a bike on the road and wondered if it was a clue. Yeah, it was.
I was nice and excited and was polite but when I was done congratulating him I took off because, to be frank, he was going a lot slower than I. When I'm a nice, safe distance away is when I start swearing like a sailor as loud as I can. I'm pissed at myself because if I hadn't gotten lost I would have found the bike. I'm going to be sweating that one at night for awhile.
Anyway, I made it to the top of the hill at the campground (and what a hill, holy crap) and took off to pick them up. They actually made it almost all the way to town by the time I found them. They went about 25 miles in the three hours from when they left to when I found them. Doesn't sound like a whole lot but he is only 10 and those are some insane hills compared to around here. Just under 10mph average for that is pretty damn good.
So about that tablet/GPS thing: Why do the manufacturers advertise a GPS chip/antenna if it doesn't connect sans wifi? I mean, it was my first time using the thing outside of a city/urban area so I didn't know what to expect. If I had known that it wasn't going to work that would have saved me 10-15 minutes of just standing there waiting for it to find a signal. I'm not blaming it - I'm the one who didn't turn left when I was supposed to - it just pisses me off in hindsight.
After all that we went to Bend to visit my sister-in-law and tool around downtown. We made it about 10 miles before a spoke on my rear wheel broke. The only good thing to come out of that is that we were in Bend where there are approximately 1.75 bike shops on every block so it was fixed and trued within the hour. Total cost, including labor? $21. Amazing. I don't know if it's just me not knowing how much that should actually cost but it just seemed cheaper than what it would cost here. Also faster. The LBS I usually go to always makes it seem like a PITA to true a wheel or do spokes. I even offended the guy when I asked if they used the machine that does the spoke tightening. He said, "No, we do everything manually here!" I tried to give him a tip but he said they can't accept them.
All in all a great and exciting weekend with also a bit of great disappointment. Oh well, just means that I'm still in the running for the Crater Lake bike since you can only win one of them.
I reiterate: I will cut you for that one.
