P9170171. Photo: Mosier tunnels, Oregon Columbia Gorge A Bike tour From Portland (Troutdale) to Bonner's Ferry, Idaho. Eleven days of riding 530 miles (plus 40 miles of hitching). The return was made on the Empire Builder Amtrak train at Sandpoint, ID. For the tour Matt and Carye bought new custom built Bike Friday (www.bikefriday.com) folding bikes that are made in Eugene, Oregon. Neither Carye or Matt own cars, so investing in a reliable, flexible bike for travel was important. However the bikes arrived two days before leaving, so getting used to new bikes while on the road, was literally a pain in the butt! By the end of the trip, gears, seat and handle bar placement, and proper riding shoes were figured out. Everyday of the ride had awesome weather (not too hot, not rainy), and Carye and Matt met many friendly people, ate as much pizza and icecream as desired, and enjoyed some beautiful scenery (though Washington wheat fields get dull to the eyes after 20 miles). The fourth day brought bad luck - 4 flats (at once!) caused by Goathead thorns, and wind in the face most the day. Also a family of earwigs hitched a ride in C & M's camping gear, and it took about a week to finally see the last one. Idaho is a cyclist paradise (what a secret). From The State Border near Coere D'Alene to just before Bonner's Ferry, there were many bike paths, nice scenery, and most flat routes. Day 1:Troutdale to Hood River (55.6 miles) Highlights: Gorgeous Columbia River (Get the bike map from ODOT). Ride to Council Crest, Ride by Falls, bike-ped paths on the old historic highway. The campground listed on the bike map for Hood River was not there. We decided to treat ourselves and stayed at the Hood River downtown hotel. Hood River is a super nice town - though sad the Carousel Art Museum is closed and moving elsewhere. Also on this route, between Cascade Locks and Wyeth, do not take the Wyeth Bench Rd (aka Herman Creek Rd), it is a horrible grade hill, and you are better off taking the I-84. Note about I-84, it's not the most pleasant experience, but it's not bad, In order to bike to Hood River, you will need to get on I-84 at several points - The shoulder is pretty wide at most places, and it's a good idea to wear some bright orange! Day 2: Hood River to Maryhill, WA (52.5 miles) Highlights: The old historic highway section is really neat: it goes through the Mosier Tunnels (now just for ped/bike), The section through Mosier town, and to Rowena's Crest was on low traffic streets. No need to get on I-84 at all all the way to the Dalles. The crossing over to Washington on the bridge in the Dalles was difficult. It was so windy and the sidewalk so narrow we had to walk. Biking to hwy 14 across the wind was also difficult. But once on hwy 14 heading East, the wind was at our bikes, and we cruised past the Maryhill Museum (Too late in the day to stop!) and stayed at the Maryhill State Park (back down by the river). Day 3: Maryhill to Crow Butte (58.2 miles) Highlights: Cruising sometimes 20 miles an hour easily with the wind at our back on Hwy 14. Lovely more deserty scenery, waving to trains. A Stop at Stonehenge. From the campground, we hitched a ride in a pickup back up the top of the hill to hwy 14. The road was a major truck route, and the shoulder was pretty much missing for the first section of the hill, we decided htiching was the safest option. We enjoyed stopping at America's Stonehenge. I had been there before, but never thought I'd bike all the way! Crow Butte park was father than we thought. We could see it, but then had to ride about 4 miles all the way around and out to it. The RV park was expensive, and did not offer "primitive camper" sites. Day 4: Crow Butte, WA to Hat Rock Park, OR Highlights: Early morning hike past deer to the top of Crow Butte. Discovering the way over the I-82 - there is a bike route, but you need to go on the may freeway before the bike route appears, then you exit, cross under and go over on the otherside. Umatilla was nice little town to check out. At first we were excited about the Lewis & Clark Bike/Ped Bath, but it turned into a bad situation. The wind in the gorge changed from E to W today, so we had to push hard for 20 miles, going about 5-8 miles an hour. Very hard reality after the day before. The road moved away from the Gorge and was now less interesting. Onion (Walla Walla) trucks passed us all day, leaving onion skin trails. We crossed back to Oregon, and instead of the main road decided to follow the Lewis & Clark trail to Hat Rock State Park. Unfortunately it turned into a bad idea. The path was badly marked and kept changing from paved to shared road, to bark-dirt to gravel. After a gravel section we discovered that we had rode through thorns and had 4 flats at once. We pulled out 15-30 thorns and only had two new tubes, One tube needed to be patched 7 times. We were able to ride out to the main road and hitched a ride with a priest. Th

I've had great luck with rental cars lately. A hardtop bright red Mustang last year in Florida, now a groovy PT Cruiser. Well, it looked cool from the outside...the seats were actually pretty uncomfortable and I had a damn hard time finding the window control buttons (they're at the top of the center dashboard). Kinda made it hard to roll the window down as I left the lot. Stupid northerner.