Day 6 - Sept 13th

Today would be another long day.  It was cold and we’d be descending for about 40 miles to start the day, so we dressed in layers again.

We took the road next to the lake, climbing briefly before starting a very long descent on Highway 138.  The grade was gradual and there wasn’t much traffic, so it was easy to keep up a good pace.

We stopped at the first rest stop near Tokatee Lake.  Then we rejoined Highway 138.  Soon after that we saw that there had been an accident.  A rider was down, off the road on the right.  Other riders and emergency personnel were assisting, and we found out later that the rider was ok.  It looked like there was some tape and maybe some gravel on the road there, but it’s hard to know exactly what caused the accident.

We continued the descent, eventually turning right to start a climb on forest service roads.  These roads had little traffic - in fact, maybe the only traffic was the Cycle Oregon vehicles.  The road surface was good, and the grade was easy (almost flat), and we made good time up to the lunch stop.

At the lunch stop, the gear drop was overwhelmed by riders, but they opened up another drop.  It was hot as we ate lunch, so I made sure to drop off some layers at the drop before we left.

After lunch, the climb continued, now on steeper roads.  At some point some rider I’ll call Music Man passed me.  He had a red JBL speaker (I know this since I have the same speaker) tucked into his back pocket, blaring out a playlist for other riders to hear.  I got a kick out of hearing the music and wanted to keep up, but couldn’t at first.  I tailed another rider trying to catch him, and eventually Music Man slowed down.  Then I settled in behind Music Man for about 20-30 minutes.  Huey Lewis, early Madonna.  I think I heard at least 6 different songs, propelling me up the climb.

Eventually I reluctantly passed Music Man, as his mountain bike and big pack were slowing him down.  After that, the climb wasn’t nearly as much fun.  The grade grew steeper, and at some points several people got off and started walking.  I kept going as the grade went up to maybe 11%.  Finally, the road flattened out a bit.  We started to get some views through openings in the forest.  The road started climbing again, the sun shining through the tips of the trees on our left, where I stopped briefly to take pictures before finishing the climb at the rest stop.

We’d been warned that the descent from here would be treacherous, so I took it easy.  It was steep and bumpy, so I went relatively slowly at first before the road improved and the grade lessened.  The road became better the further we went.  We stopped briefly at a water stop while locals fired guns nearby (some sort of target practice).

After the water stop, we continued along the road until we turned onto the Row River trail.  This had been a former rail line and was now a paved multi-use trail.  It has some beautiful forested sections as well as some great views of Dorena Lake.  I wanted to stop more to take pictures, but there wasn’t a lot of space to stop.  I did stop two or three times, passing the same casual bikers 3 times in the process.

We passed the dam, exited the trail onto the road, and pulled into Schwarz Park where our final camp would be.

After dinner we sat on chairs on the wide grassy expanse in front of the main stage.  During announcements they brought up many of the volunteers who helped make everything go smoothly throughout the week.  They announced pre-registration for next year’s ride.  The band played at least one Eddie Money song; it wasn’t until later that I found out that he’d died that day, so maybe that’s why.  Tons of people were dancing, many more than I’d seen earlier in the week.  Maybe it was because it was warm (for once) and the music was good, or maybe it was because it was the last night.