The initial 20 miles flew past with my speedo rarely dipping below 30km/hr, and the sun in the sky. The road was wide and the bike lane even wider. For every short steep climb, we had the preceding drop to propel us up, and for the first time since hitting the States I barely changed out of my highest gears.
Lakeside then Hauser passed in a blink, until we were rudely stopped in our tracks by a long steel bridge into North Bend demanding that cyclists get off and walk along the sidewalk. The bridge wasn't busy, but the walkway was still unsavoury - a narrow ledge next to a hard shoulderless road. Half an hour later we made it across, cussing under our breaths that this little escapade would have greatly reduce our average speed for the day.
North Bend was as metropolitan as the west coast gets and took us four miles of traffic lights and stop signs to traverse. Stopping for a quick lunch, the delirium of the cycle so far led us to buy 3 cakes to take with us. Even in an American cafe I felt slightly piggy - 'they are just for emergencies' I kept telling Tim.
On exiting North Bend, we passed into Charleston and took a hard left onto Seven Devils Road. Our first view was that of what looked like a vertical climb and out the window went my delusions of grandeur for the day. This was a good lesson in not judging a book by it's cover.
The road soon gave us the most monumental ups and down. I found myself flying down one hill and charging up the next. I kept holding my tongue, scared to utter the words that we were on an amazing road, case I should jinx us. Stopping at one point it felt like we were on top of the world. All around was heavily deforested land, providing us uninterrupted views for miles on end. Some way along the road, Tim pointed out writing on the road - Devil #4, and sure enough each climb was labelled so. Fantastic - we still had three more to go.
Seven Devils road turned into Beaver Hill Road - all the way providing us with the terrain to act like kids in a sweet shop. Turning onto Whiskey Run Lane, the icing on the cake came in the form of an amazing long descent. I would say it was great pay back for the hard graft of the climbs, but the climbs had been so much fun that they hadn't felt like hard graft.Finally, we returned to Seven Devils Road and thundered into Bandon - sun on our backs, smiles on our faces and high on adrenalin.
After 7 days camping, we decided Bandon would be our site of rest for the next couple of days. At 3pm we checked into Sea Star Lodgings and enjoyed a well deserved hot shower. In fear that our clothes would get up and walk themselves to a launderette, we dressed ourselves in our only remaining clean clothes - for Tim this was one pair of shorts and a jacket - and set off for a monster laundry session. In reality if we had had the bodies of Levi's models we would just have stood by the machines in our undies, but there is of course only so much 800 miles of cycling can do for your body and miracle is not one of them.
In pursuit of food to put the cherry on the cake we wondered into Wild Rose Bistro on Chicago Street, where we enjoyed the most amazing steak and scallops.
1 comment:
.....I was going to ask what the high octane diet was doing to your physiques. Most days seem to consist of more coffee than is sensible and ridiculous quantities of food. Your writing suggests an unhealthy fixation with the next meal. Which at least means you must be burning some of it off. This sort of psychological condition is normally an accepted part of wilderness trips but worrying for someone with unlimited access to food!
G ;-)
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