Eastern Oregon – Day 8-10; A Taste of the TransAmerica. Mitchell to Baker City.

Day: 8 – The Best Descent
June 5, 2023

Distance: 63 miles (328 total)
Spok’n Hostel, Mitchell to Clyde Holliday State Park, John Day

We awoke to cowbells and cheering. The first Transamerica racer was passing through Mitchell around 6:20am 4 hours earlier than the first riders normally get to Mitchell in previous years apparently. Rider number 2 also arrived   before 7am but they decided to crash at the hostel for a “rest”, so they ate some of the spaghetti the hostel crew had prepared, and zonked out in one of the beds for a bit.

It was a lazy yet exciting morning for us with the race excitement. We left kinda late, but still before any more riders made it in.  On our way out of town we swung by the general store to get Andrew some insoles for his shoes then we were on our way! (Andrew has been experiencing some worrying ankle pain/tendinitis, he’s carrying on like a champ so far, but we may start heading home or call it quits early if it gets any worse. But his baby goal was Mitchell, so huzzah baby goal achieved!)

Just out of Mitchell we had a long hot climb. It was definitely a morale killing kind of hill. Every time we paused to catch our breath we’d be drenched in sweat. It was a long 7 mile start. We were passed by two of the racers on our climb, one of whom was the guy who “rested” at the hostel.

Once we reached the top of that hill though the day absolutely turned around for us. It was one of the most amazing downhills ever. The kind that remind you why you’re on your bike and everyone else is just missing out. Andrew joked that he wished someone would shuttle us back to the top so we could ride it again. (Seriously though, Andrew later decided this downhill was one of his favorite parts of the entire trip).

Not only was the 25 mile downhill glorious for it’s downhilliness, but it also involved massive canyons we got to ride through and admire. And a neighboring storm cloud came to block out the sun which made for much better temperatures.

With our late start we opted to take an early lunch rather than eat second breakfast. Bean burrito in hand, racer number 4 whipped past us. It was fun to cheer him on while we were in full on break mode with chairs and snacks beside our bikes.

We rolled into Dayville around 2pm. This was our first bailout opportunity if need be. But Andrew’s ankle was holding up so we opted to carry on another 20 miles to the Clyde Holliday State Park campgrounds. But first we fueled up with ice creams and cold waters.

Those last twenty miles were at a slight uphill, but damn pavement is so easy compared to gravel. We mostly just felt like it was a flat surface so we were cooking it all afternoon. We did have one more Transamerica racer pass us right before camp though.

Overall our scenery was still stunning with several canyons and cool rock formations. Today there were more pastures along the road compared to other days so we saw a lot of cows. We also saw a couple roosters that needed to get their clocks checked cause they were cockadoodledoing well into the afternoon.  And, there was also a ton of cute red-winged black birds that cheeped us along.

Oh and we saw a beaver while walking around the campground working on their dam! Go beaver!

What We Ate

Breakfast: English muffin and cinnamon roll and coffee
Lunch: Bean burritos
Dinner: Fancy ramen with dehydrated veggies, vegan jerky, wasabi soy beans, and sea weed snacks
Snacks: Banana, granola bars, Clif bar, fruit snacks, helado ice cream, trail mix

Day: 9 – More of the Same
June 6, 2023

Distance:  38 miles (366 total)
Clyde Holliday State Park, John Day to Bates State Park

Sadly, the Clyde Holliday Hiker biker sites are just off the highway so it was a very noisy night. But on the plus side we did get to cheer on a couple racers in the morning from our site while we were eating breakfast and packing up so that was cool.

Unfortunately the campsite also was unreasonably damp. We woke up to everything wet, good thing we carry portable drying racks with us.  I guess it goes hand in hand, but with the dampness also came lots of mosquitoes. We had had a slight head/cross wind last night and I had been hoping it would blow away all of the mosquitoes, but alas the H/B sites were protected from any such hopes.

Well yesterday was too good to be true.  Andrew noticed a slow leak in his front tire. Flat number 10. One day we may have more riding days than flats. A girl can dream.

The morning was pretty easy. I think we trained ourselves trial by fire style because damn, pavement is so much easier than gravel. Can I just say how great it is to go faster than 10mph without trying while on a slight uphill no less?!

We swung into the grocery store at John Day to stock up, then stopped by Kam Wah Chung State heritage site per friends recommendations. We barely squeaked by to join in on a tour and I’m glad we made it because it’s a really cool space. It’s basically a preserved in time Chinese apothecary and mercantile.  It’s so neat that it exists, and interesting to know that some Chinese immigrants were prosperous even with all the Chinese exclusion acts the US had imposed. Apparently John Day had the second largest Chinatown in Oregon.

After John Day was pretty easy uphill/flat riding. It also had some amazing views of the Strawberry Mountains. Since riding was going so well we pushed into Prairie City before stopping for a lunch break. With the grocery stop shortly before lunch we decided to be fancy and fresh, so today we enjoyed avocado, tomato, and hummus wraps.

After lunch we made our way to the coffee shop, which used to offer bike services per our ACA maps, but I guess they don’t any more. (We need a second wrench to fix my shifting that seems to have gotten out of whack, so lots of ghost shifting for me).  No bike tools, but they do still have coffee so we settled for iced coffees to cool us off.

After Prairie City was a long hot climb. We had to take several breaks in whatever shade we could find. One particularly fun bit of shade was in the way of an overly sized Oregon Trail style schooner. By far the best break spot. Thanks Grant County.

As we continued climbing the fields of wild flowers started to shift into trees. Man have I missed trees.  It’s nice to be near a forest again.

The top of the Dixie Pass (elev 5277ft) finally appeared in front of us and graced us with a sweet 10 miles downhill into camp. Climbs don’t feel so bad when you get to enjoy such an amazing downhill!

Just before camp we stopped at the “secret” yet famous spring water pipe. We filled out bottles with delicious and cold spring water, as well as dipped some of our clothes in the free flowing water to cool off. What a great find.

Tonight we’re at Bates Campground, which is mostly primitive, although they do have pit toilets so you know we’re living it up in luxury here. It’s a strangely empty campground, but located in a beautiful meadow next to the middle fork of the John Day River (We meet again). Apparently there used to be a company town and sawmill here dismantled in the 70s.

What We Ate

Breakfast: Oatmeal and coffee and protein bar
2nd Breakfast: Twix bars and aloe drinks
Lunch: Avocado, tomato, cheese and hummus wraps with pretzels
Dinner: Couscous with nuts and sundried tomatoes and chives
Snacks: Bars, fruit snacks, pretzels, iced coffee

Day: 10 –  To a city
June 7, 2023

Distance:   57 miles (423 total)
Bates State Park  to Churchill, Baker City

Andrew made us get up early because we had a couple of climbs through what I believe are the Blue Mountains first thing on our ride today. Turns out climbing hills is way easier if you do it before it gets too hot out.

After filling up our water at the spring water pipe and noting a couple of weird creaking sounds from Andrew’s bike, we went straight into a climb.  This climb seemed easier than the Dixie Pass yesterday for sure. We only had to stop twice on the way up. And one of those times we got passed by another TransAmerica racer.  We basically stayed with him the whole ascent, at some point even passing him back! Woot woot.

Near the top there was some construction going on so they had pilot cars taking traffic one way at a time, but the flaggers let us through without waiting just telling us to be careful since it basically took us two rounds of pilot cars to get through the construction area.

We still had a second climb on the agenda, so at a nice mountain meadow between the two peaks we opted to stop for second breakfast letting the racer get way ahead of us.

The second climb was way harder. Not sure if it was the terrain, temperature getting warmer, or just the fact that it was our second climb but man that climb lasted forever. We did get passed by yet another Transamerica racer, but sadly it sounded like that racer might be quitting in Baker City. He’d had a couple unfortunate run-ins with really rude car drivers and just wasn’t having fun. (Although do racers ever expect to have fun?)

At least the downhill payoffs from our climbs were great. And scenery wise we are going in and out of beautiful Ponderosa Pine forests. Every once in a while we even popped out on gorgeous mountain meadows.

After our second summit we eventually came up to Phillips Lake, and since it was supposed to be mostly downhill to Baker City, I convinced Andrew to go on a side quest around the lake. There were some neat single track trails, but Andrews bike was still making unsettling creaking noises so we ended up leaving the single track and switching to the gravel forest roads. But we did at least have a nice lunch by the lake. We added some sun dried tomatoes to our usual bean burrito.  Talk about elevated burritos. Yum.

Deciding we were all gravelled out for now, and a little disappointed in the lake views rather than continue to take the gravel road all the way around the lake we opted to back track a little to get back on highway 7.

The afternoon was mostly a grind following the flow of the Powder River into Baker. What we thought would be all downhill turned out to have some uphills getting around Phillips Lake.  Andrew’s bike continued making creaking noises, and my brakes started rubbing.  We were ready to get to Baker City, our destination for the night. 

As we were getting going the what should have been expected at this point happened, another flat tire. (11th for the trip).  It was on Andrew’s rear wheel and happened in a place with no shade cover.  As Andrew was changing his tire he discovered one of his spokes had broken and was completely missing at this point. After the spoke had completely vacated the wheel the worst of the creaking was gone, so maybe we figured that mystery out, but not sure if that’s a good thing. 

We had 10 miles left into the city after that which were mostly a push yourself to get there kind of ride as we had left the Powder River’s greenery behind and had mostly desert to keep us company. We did stop in one shade puddle for a quick break and to move waters around, as we were both getting down to like half a bottle each.

When we made it to Baker City we bee lined it for the bike shop, Trailhead. Unfortunately they seem to be mostly mountain bike focused rather than road bike. We got ourselves some beers on their tap while we waited for the mechanic, Bob, to be available to chat with us.

In the end we ended up riding over to Churchill, our bike hostel for the night, dropped all of our bags off and rode back to the bike shop so we could leave them there overnight and hopefully Bob could look at them first thing in the morning. It was so weird riding our naked bikes.

At this point we’re almost resigning ourselves to having to take a bus back to Portland. The broken spoke is an unusual enough spec that they weren’t sure if they’d have a replacement available. If they can’t fix it it’s just not safe for us to continue on, so we’ll see. Although with how hard the ride has been we aren’t like super upset if we have to bail. Apparently Baker City is the unofficial bail out spot for a lot of Transamerica racers as well. So it seems fitting.

We are thinking that if the bike is fixable we may take a bus back to Bend and ride home from there. Get out of this heat and back towards the trees at least.

Only time will tell.

What We Ate

Breakfast: oatmeal and coffee and protein bar
2nd Breakfast: almond butter burrito
Lunch: bean burrito with sun dried tomatoes
Dinner: chicken sandwich and fries with a huckleberry mojito for me, taco salad and fries and a margarita for Andrew (from Main Event near the bike shop)
Snacks: dried mangos, wasabi soy beans, shelf stable tamale, vegan jerky, bars, fruit snacks, beer

Cans O’ Beans: 8

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