Cycle Oregon XIV
September 8-15, 2001
The Tour de Chip-Seal
After a year off, I was back into the Cycle Oregon madness. Originally this was advertised as a very limited-attendance tour of 1500 riders. The route was very remote, many of the camp sites were not even near sizeable towns, and the impact of the usual 2000+ cyclists visiting Steens Mountain (the highlight of the tour) was too great. Registration was opened on the Cycle Oregon web site on the same day that mailings went out, and I wondered how things were going to work for those who for whatever reasons did not want to use a computer to sign up. I don’t have a problem using computers and signed-up the first day. My riders handbook arrived in due course; I sent back my reservation for a shuttle to the top of Steens Mountain (many warnings about making sure to send this in), and sent-in my $20 parking fee for Prairie City.
Saturday, September 8 – Prairie City
You don’t have a lot
of options in finding a way to Prairie City. From Reno, you can
either take
Highway 395 north all the way to Burns or take Interstate 80 to Winnemucca and then head north on Highways 95 and 78 to Burns. At that point there is only one route to Prairie City. I elected to take the Winnemucca version and drove from Reno to the Hi-Desert RV Park in Winnemucca on Friday afternoon after work. This turned out to be a good idea, because the usual 2 ½ hour trip took nearly 4 hours due to considerable construction and many delays on I-80. Only one word adequately describes the section of Hwy 78 between Burns Junction and Crane – “bleak”. Once you make that left-hand turn, there isn’t much growing on all the
lava.
I made good time for the entire trip from Winnemucca and arrived in Prairie City around noon. In what has now become standard procedure for Cycle Oregon, I had to pay to park a couple of miles away in a large dirt lot near some sort of lumber products plant. The camp site was at the high school football field in town and was pretty nice. The check-in and camp site were nearly deserted, so that went quickly, and I unloaded my gear and set up the tent before heading back out to park and ride back. Things remained quiet until about 3:00 PM when people started arriving by the hundreds. The football field filled-up quickly and folks were camping just about anyplace they could find. Sure seemed like a lot more than 1500 cyclists were there in spite of the cutoff.
The evening entertainment and ride update confirmed my suspicion that there were a lot of riders. Internet registration filled the 1500 available spots in a few days, so all but a handful of the many people that mailed their applications got an entry slot. Cycle Oregon, never an outfit to turn down making a buck, then decided to let nearly all of the mail-in applications go on the ride, swelling the participation to over 2000. Apparently the problem of getting even 1500 cyclists around this very remote route was secondary compared to the income and dealing with 500+ irate entrants. Oh yes, forget about those shuttle reservations that I received dire warnings about sending-in ASAP, it was now a free-for-all because there were so many people.
In spite of the crowds, amazingly, I ran into Ann Colonna and her fiancée, Bill. They were heading to a late dinner as I was going back to my tent after the evening festivities.
Sunday, September 9 – Prairie City to Seneca
The first day in the saddle took me 68 miles and 3000 or so feet up into the Strawberry Mountains to the tiny town of Seneca. It looked familiar. Sure enough, I drove through it on the way to Prairie City!
It was cold in the morning, only -1°C, so it was necessary to start the ride bundled-up and then shed clothes as it warmed. That didn’t take long, as the first 18 miles of the ride were climbing. A few miles out of the start showed me what the Oregon DOT was doing all summer: chip-sealing the roads with large, sharp rocks. Unfortunately this turned out to be the theme for nearly every road we traveled upon. The end of the scenic option route put me right at the lunch stop, a rocky, dusty, gravel pull-off. Just in case anyone thought that this was some other ride, there was a steep climb right after the lunch stop.
After lunch, it was a
relatively easy 25 mile cruise into Seneca, where we were camping on
the local
9-hole golf course. Seneca consisted of a
small store, a school, a gas
station, the usual bar, a collection of dilapidated houses and
trailers, a post
office, and the previously-mentioned golf course. Needless to
say, my tour of
Seneca 
took about 20
minutes, including photo stops.
Seneca pulled out the stops for Cycle Oregon, and although care was needed when walking down “main” street (which is actually Highway 395!), the 2000+ riders found it easy to get around to the various events and entertainment. The bar had a party and a BBQ going, and in retrospect I should have had dinner over there! Dinner provided by Cycle Oregon/OK Cascade consisted of what can best be described as turkey gristle. Since this caterer took over food service for these rides we’ve had some pretty marginal meals, but this one hit a new low.
Monday, September 10 – Seneca to Crane
The “coolest spot in Oregon” somewhat lived up to its name, but any version of a cold morning has to be compared to the -9°C wakeup call in Ukiah on Cycle Oregon XII. Compared to chipping ice from the inside of my tent, the 4°C in Seneca was downright balmy!
I started out riding along Highway 395 through a valley to Silvies, and then made a left hand turn back onto the chip-seal and up into the Malheur National Forest. A beautiful climb through the trees yielded to a nice descent until, at about 25 miles, the road abruptly ended and I was on the first gravel section. The roadies panicked, the mountain bikers smiled, and I just sat back on my Della Santa with its cheapo heavy tires and cruised along. The gravel and rocks ended after only 1.5 miles and I was back on the pavement for a while until the 5-mile gravel section. In spite of the somewhat challenging ride, it was very pretty heading through a lot of ranch land. Lunch was at the end of the gravel road at a quaint old school house, and of course right after lunch we had a 12 mile climb to another summit. After that it was out of the juniper and into the sagebrush plain and 20 miles of the flattest riding I’ve done in a long time. As a matter of fact the last 12 miles into Crane were flat and straight. Seventy-five miles and 2650’ later, I rolled into Crane.
The
two sections
of gravel on the route today separated the pure roadies from the folks
that, at
least occasionally, get off the pavement and onto the dirt. The
dirt also
seemed to offer something of an intelligence test. The Cycle
Oregon promoters
warned everyone many times about how we would have to be doing some
riding on
gravel roads; they recommended at least twice that riders use sturdy
tires. Needless
to say, you’re not cool on your titanium bike if you use a heavy-duty
tire like
a Michelin Hi-Lite Comp. Not only is this a heavy tire, but the
sidewall color
may not match the rims or your jersey. The people who thought
that it was
possible to do about 7 miles of gravel mixed with
larger rocks on $50
tissue-thin racing tires failed the IQ test and spent a good part of
the day
patching flats or getting sagged. They spent the afternoon and
evening
throwing away the $50 tires and replacing them with sturdier rubber.
Crane is the home of one of the last two public boarding schools in America, and Cycle Oregon camped-out on the grounds there. It was very nice. There was grass, there were trees, there was shade! Students come from hundreds of miles around from the large ranches and tiny communities to attend high school there, often only returning home during Christmas and Spring breaks. The furthest student was from McDermitt, NV. The actual town of Crane is only about 4 square blocks and hit its prime back in the 1930s when it was home to 5 restaurants, 4 hotels, and a movie theater. Most of this has returned to the sagebrush, but the school remains.
Tuesday, September 11 – Crane to Diamond
I suppose that
everyone remembers where they were when the news hit about the attacks
on the World Trade Center in NYC and on the Pentagon. I was
pedaling through Harney Valley
and had just returned from a rough ride down a dirt road to the famous
Round
Barn. When I got back to the water stop and the pavement, the
folks operating
the Remsa medical van were trying to find out what had happened to
friends that
worked in NYC and had undoubtedly been called to the Trade
Center. As the word
spread, many people were in a panic to get in touch with friends and
relatives
who worked at the WTC. The campsite near Diamond was several
miles from the
actual town, the usual phone service could not be set up because there
were no
land lines nearby, and cell phone service was nonexistent. It
turned-out that
there were a couple of public phones in Diamond and a couple more in
Frenchglen;
the only cell phone coverage was at the top of Steens Mountain.
The ride today was a
relatively easy one. I covered the 35 miles and only 200’ or so
of elevation
change in a couple of hours. The first stop was the previously
mentioned Round
Barn, built some 117 years ago by the cattle baron Pete
French. I next went
through the Diamond Craters “Outstanding Natural Area”. From the
road this
looked like a lot of lava 
beds, so I’m
taking the BLM’s word that craters are
located there and that it is truly outstanding. The next stop was
a large
field where Cycle Oregon set up camp. The actual town of Diamond
was still
several miles distant.
It didn’t take long
to get camp set up, grab lunch, and put myself
on one of the
first shuttles up
to Steens Mountain. Over the years I’ve learned to take most of
Cycle Oregon’s
hype with an entire shaker of salt. But, with respect to Steens
Mountain, they
delivered! This was easily the high point of the tour in more
ways than one.
The school bus bumped and wheezed its way through Frenchglen and up to
the top
of the mountain. Once there I had about an hour
at the top and caught the next
bus down. The views were nothing short of spectacular: I could
see the Harney Valley
and the Alvord Desert just by walking to one side of the trail or the
other.
Some other sites were Kiger Gorge and the Gunsight, one of the few
natural
formations that I’ve ever seen that didn’t require a huge amount of
imagination
to understand how it got its name. After the allotted time at the
top, I got
back on the bus for the somewhat scary ride back down.
Fortunately the brakes
on the bus were in better shape than the rest of it.
Evening in camp was pretty subdued for a Cycle Oregon; many people were out trying to find cell phone coverage or tracking down the few public phones in the area in an attempt to get in contact with friends in NYC or Washington, DC.
Wednesday, September 12 – Diamond to Frenchglen and return
Since this was a
layover day and I’d already taken my trip to the top of Steens
Mountain, I
didn’t hurry to get started. The destination was Frenchglen, a
short 24-mile
jaunt, and then on towards the Roaring Springs Ranch. Frenchglen
itself is a
neat little town, home to the Frenchglen Hotel. This historic
place opened in
1916 and has been in business ever since; they can’t claim that George
Washington slept there, but Teddy Roosevelt did! Right outside of
town was a
1-mile 14% climb towards Roaring Springs Ranch, at nearly ½ million
acres the
largest cattle ranch in the west. Established in 1872, it went
through some
very turbulent times of boom and bust until the mid-90s when the
current owner
decided to take an environmental approach to cattle ranching. By
focusing on
restoring watershed and native wildlife habitat, and marketing its beef
directly to consumers, the Roaring Springs Ranch has achieved a rare
combination of sustainability and profitability. 
The afternoon and evening back in camp offered some excitement when severe thunderstorms moved into the area. All people were evacuated from Steens Mountain and trips to the top were halted. By mid-afternoon it started to get windy as cells moved across the flats. In camp the cover for the sound equipment took a trip back towards Crane, and a number of tents that weren’t properly staked followed in its wake. When the main dining tent started to take off (fortunately it only came loose on one end) I made a run back to my own tent and hauled-in the laundry. Not long after dinner it started to rain, and it kept raining for the rest of the evening. I was amazed that my “instant” tent survived the onslaught of wind and water without collapse or leakage. Sometime in the early morning hours I had to get out to visit a Blue Room and found that the sky had cleared, presenting an impressive night sky that you only see in these remote places of the Oregon high desert.
Thursday, September 13 – Diamond to Burns
On a cool and foggy morning I once again broke camp and got back on the road to Burns. I can’t tell you very much about the ride out of Diamond since it was so foggy that visibility was only a few feet. The Oregon State troopers slowed people down considerably and actually controlled bike traffic for several miles until visibility improved. I believe that there was a hill someplace in there. When I rolled out of the fog banks, I was near the turnoff to the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge headquarters where we had lunch. After that is was flat riding again through parts of the refuge until we hit the final hill of the day followed by more flat riding into the town of Burns.
The chip-sealed
roads today were brutal. My hands were partly numb and my arms
were sore from
the constant pounding.
Are you a computer weenie? Do you want a choice of three different high-speed Internet providers? You don’t have to move to San Francisco or Silicon Valley – you can just head to Burns, Oregon. They don’t call this place “The Fiber Capital of Eastern Oregon” because of an abundance of roughage in the residents’ diets, but because it is a terminus for several large fiber-optic cable runs. The fiber didn’t come here for the heck of it: Burns is the backup site for the State of Oregon Archives. Needless to say, you don’t see a lot of people in Burns using AOL dialup access for their internet services!
I took a walking tour around town, checked my e-mail at the library, had a latté at a quaint espresso shop, and had a real dinner at Linda’s Thai Room. The cell phone was operating once again, so I took the opportunity to call my mom and see what was happening back home. By evening the thunderstorm activity was starting to move-in once again, and by 9:00 PM it had started to rain. Although the rain stopped after only an hour, it did not clear up this time.
Friday, September 14 – Burns to Izee
Izee is not so much a
place as a state of mind. After carefully reviewing my photos and
notes, I
have concluded that there really isn’t a place there at
all. There is,
however, the T. G. Brown ranch, which was the destination for the day.
It was cloudy and cool most of the day, but actually one of the warmer mornings of the tour. I was finally back in the hills again with turns in the road instead of miles of boring straight riding. The route today featured the usual bumpy chip-sealed surface and added some 25 cattle guard crossings to the mix. That aside, it was a pretty nice ride.
Camp in “Izee” – actually part of the Brown ranch – was a good one. In spite of it being the usual field, this one featured grass and a nice surface to set up my tent. Right across the road from camp was a hill that was tall enough to allow a panoramic photo of the entire Cycle Oregon operation: camp, showers, dining, and entertainment. It rained a bit again this afternoon, but had cleared and cooled by evening. T. G. Brown provided the cows and cooking for dinner, and the prime rib was excellent. He even made an appearance before the nightly entertainment.
Saturday, September 15 – Izee to Prairie City and back home
My last day on
the road. Up at the usual 5:30 AM on a cold and overcast morning
for my final
marginal Cycle Oregon breakfast, then I packed up my wet tent and was
off on
the 15-mile climb through the Strawberry Wilderness. The reward
was a
beautiful cruise through a meadow before turning left onto Highway 395
for
lunch and the descent back to Prairie City. The route descended
some 20 miles
along the highway, through Canyon City and into John Day for a rest
stop at the
city park. I’ve been there before on my first Cycle Oregon ride,
and the Kam Wah
Chung museum was closed this time as well. One of these days I’m
going to have
to make a special trip to John Day just to see what’s inside this tiny
museum!
After that it was mostly flat for the last 12 miles into Prairie
City.
Fortunately
the
showers and baggage were located at the parking site. I loaded up
and cleaned
up and then had to spend a while cleaning the wood chips off my
car. The
weather was moving-in once again, and it made for a very interesting
trip back
home. Before I had left Prairie City it was already raining, and
the rain
increased as I headed towards Burns. Before Seneca I encountered
several
inches of hail on the road! The rain had quit by the time I got
back to Crane;
the rest of the trip home was the usual drudgery of driving through the
bleak
landscape to Nevada.
Comments and Impressions
Bumpy roads aside, this was a spectacular route. I’ll be going back to the Steens again for hiking and/or mountain biking. The small communities along the way offer gateways to some of the better outdoor spots in Eastern Oregon. I think that I could easily plan a 2-week adventure with the road bike, the mountain bike, and my hiking boots!
I think that this may be my last Cycle Oregon for quite some time. I certainly can’t fault the choice of route nor the places that we visited, but the support has become second rate. I appreciate the fact that it is difficult to feed and care for 2000 cyclists over a period of a week, but the first few tours that I participated in managed to do this without resorting to catered meals that serve up institutional food. When the culinary high point of this tour is a community getting together to do the dinner, something needs to change.
