April 11th – 12th

Continuous, rainy wind in our faces slowed us to a crawl on our second ride. Though we reached a max speed of 24mph, we were often moving at a walking pace. No problem, keep pedaling. At mile 10, the bike’s front derailleur quit doing its job, so we rode another four miles and stopped in Sublimity, 12 miles short of our destination. Jax slept while I fixed the front derailleur and tried to work out how many centuries this trip would take if every day were like this.

But every day isn’t like that and the next day was awesome. It did rain on and off, but what little wind there was didn’t come from in front of us. My derailleur “fix” gave out with 8 miles to go, but we made up the lost distance and traveled 39 miles to Detroit, Oregon, seeing some pretty territory and meeting some very friendly people and a sweet little Rottweiler on the way. Jax got to run about 4.5 miles, which was fun for both of us. It was a beautiful ride.

I’ll try to fix the bike “for real” today and tomorrow we’ll try for Sisters, over Santiam Pass. With traffic and narrow shoulders on the road, I don’t expect to be able to let Jax out during the climb. It’ll be a slow ride, but the 36 miles to the top of the pass have to be done in one shot. All the campgrounds between here and the pass are closed and deep snow beside the road will prevent us from just going off into the woods and pitching the tent. When we reach the top, it’s 21 more miles to Sisters, hopefully downhill most of the way.