Pacific Coast Tour – Day 24 – 25; Bullards Beach State Park to Harris Beach State Park -Southern Oregon

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Pacific Coast Tour

Day: 24
August 10, 2021

Distance: 43 miles (948 total)
Bullards Beach State Park (Bandon) to Humbug State Park

We had a short mileage day planned for today, and since we were about two miles outside Bandon, we opted to forego our instant coffee and oatmeal and instead enjoy breakfast sandwiches and coffee in town. We stopped at Bandon Coffee Co and it was super cute and super hopping.

Just outside the coffee shop was an art installation called “washed ashore” where they made these large sculptures out of trash picked up on the nearby beach. The project is an effort to raise awareness for plastics and other trash polluting the oceans.

On the outskirts of Bandon was a super cool, scenic beach called Face Rock. As expected there’s a giant rock that looks like it has a face. There was some sort of art installation in the sand as well with cool patterns drawn around a walking labyrinth. We didn’t climb down to the beach but apparently it’s also a great spot for finding starfish. Overall I was impressed with the small town of Bandon.

Our bag apparently reacted with our leaky bug spray and melted! We patched it with electical tape, but not something we were expecting

Sadly after Bandon it was all 101 riding for the rest of the day. We had another excellent tail wind though. At some point in the morning we had our first real scare of the trip. A logging truck passed by a little close and a lot fast right as there was road kill in our shoulder pushing us closer to the lane. Andrew got us through with flying colors.

That was nothing compared to the RV that passed us about 10 min later. We’re assuming the tailwind plus the speed of the RV caused some sort of vortex that sucked us in toward it. With a ditch to our right and a metal death trap to our left we had a scary fishtailing couple of moments. We survived unscathed, but mentally it was rough. We had to break on the side of the road for a minute to collect ourselves and lower our heart rates. After getting started again we took the first turnoff to a “Brown Sign” we saw, which was the New River BLM area. It was about a mile or two detour but it was pleasantly devoid of traffic and surrounded by cranberry bogs, so Andrew was able to get back some of his mojo.

The New River Visitor Center was closed but we were able to use their picnic tables and restrooms and read their interpretive signs so it made for a nice lunch spot.

Had a little water to dodge out of Bandon

After lunch we carried on a little stronger and didn’t have any other traffic issues, but Andrew was still a bit shaken and ready to be done for the day. To make matters worse the tandem had also started arbitrarily ghost shifting and refusing to stay in the right gear.

In Langlois we stopped at their surprisingly well stocked market and enjoyed some kambucha and treats. It was another pleasant break.

Most of our riding today was through forest, but once we hit Port Orford we were greeted with stunning vistas. The bay there has really cool sea stacks and islands. (A local told us about a trail on The Heads that is even more stunning, but we were both ready to get to camp, so we didn’t stop).

Vint and Geoff from last night’s camp site caught up with us on the road and we all more or less rode together for the last 6 miles into tonight’s campsite at Humbug Mountain State Park. They’ll be doing the same mileage with us tomorrow as well.

This campsite is super cute. The hiker biker sites are in pods surrounded by bushes. No power outlets or cell service for us though. Andrew and I also took the 1/2 ish mile trail down to the beach. With the rock features and the channel of clear water this is one of the prettier beaches we’ve been to.

Andrew also had a moment to flip the bike over and try and sort out the ghost shifting problem. It turns out one of our chain links got bent, likely in one of the many times we’ve tipped the bike over on accident. He straightened it out as best he could with some creative leatherman and multi-tool use, but we’ll see how tomorrow goes to truly know if it worked. We may pick up a spare chain at the next bike shop that has one in stock just to play it safe.

Clearly not all the cars are stopping to read these signs

Day: 25
August 11, 2021

Distance: 54 miles (1002 total)
Humbug State Park to Harris Beach State Park (Brookings)

We woke up a little early thanks to some noisy steller jays, and the proximity of the 101 traffic. So after striking camp we hit the road. Pretty early on in our ride we passed the prehistoric park where we snapped a photo with a dinosaur before carrying on.

Today was a “scenic middle of nowhere” type of day. We hit the town of Gold Beach around 11 and opted to eat lunch outside their visitors center by the beach.

The afternoon was full of climbs, mostly shorter ones at least, but it was a challenging ride. At least the climbs came with lots of scenic vistas. The sky also took on a brownish haze that at first we thought would turn into a storm, but later we realized was likely smoke from forest fires inland due to the shift in the winds.

We were doing pretty good on time, and since we hadn’t had our usual treat stop, we opted to ride the extra mile and a half into town for french fries! Annoyingly McDonald’s dining room was mysteriously closed (no posted signs, but likely they had to re-close due to Covid) and when we tried to go to the drive thru they said they couldn’t serve us without a car. So we decided to swing over to the Fred Meyers for their potato wedges, a soda, and a bag of cookies instead.

As we were leaving Fred Meyer we hit our 1000 mile mark! Since we were like awkwardly in the city we snapped a quick photo and carried on to Harris Beach State Park where we are camping tonight.

The views at this park are super cool. Typical of the Oregon coast there are lots of neat rocks. We also found a tide pool area as well.