Oh... The Wind! And a Great Climb

On Monday, Gale and Nancy decided to ride from Gale's home near Agate Beach down the Bay Rd. in Newport up over the hill to Toledo, then on to Siletz, then east to almost Logsden.  Other than the highway to Siletz (horrible shoulders and LOTS of traffic), it was a great ride with just enough hills to give us a challenge.  The return trip was a bit different!  Everything was great until we came down onto the Bay Rd. from Toledo, then the wind hit!  Gale and Nancy rode 10 miles with our hands in the "drops" and leaned over as much as we could; the more than occasional gusts almost knocked us off of our bikes.  For some strange reason, even though we had a headwind, climbing up the dreaded John Moore hill seemed easy to both of us.  We rode about 58 miles; neither of us was physically tired, but we both felt mentally tired from fighting the wind.  We later talked with Lisa who had ridden up 101 from Waldport in that wind (would have been a direct headwind), and even rode across the Yaquina Bay Bridge in it!

Today Gale and Nancy rode from Nancy's house to Drift Creek Falls.  To get there we had to climb over 1600 feet into the coast range; 1500 feet of the climb came in the first 4 miles; the average grade was 7.2% with portions up to over 25%.  After a brief stop at the first mile we didn't stop again until we reached the top.  We descended about 600 feet to the Falls parking lot.  With the ride back up to the top, which included some "ups and downs" we ended up with a total elevation change of about 2500 feet.  We both felt great and really wanted to ride some more, but when we got back down to civilization we learned that the road we were planning to ride (Anderson Rd.) was being paved, so we turned around and rode back to Nancy's house.  We ended up riding a little over 41 miles - not as far as we would have liked, but a good workout.  This was an absolutely beautiful ride!

We think Lisa rode from Newport to Pacific City and back today; if she did she rode over 100 miles!