A group of young tourists who passed through Bandon yesterday

I took a short day today and rode from Bandon to Gold Beach. When I did this route in 2004, I rode from Bandon to Brookings, the next town south of Gold Beach. See www.cs.unca.edu/bicycling.html/tour04/day03 (?) for my 2004 ride report. I did a shorter day today to give me time to work on ride reports/web pages and to get out of sync with my 2004 tour. I expect to be riding shorter days this year and to be stopping at different places.

I spent an excellent two nights at Michael A's house in Bandon. I really appreciate his hospitality and the opportunity to visit with him about his Tour of Gondwana. I also appreciate that he let me sleep in his Tour of Gondwana memorabilia room. The are many beautiful things in that room that he brought back from the tour, including a stunning collection of images. Visiting with Micahel was the penultimate event on this trip. Now I'm headed down the Pacific coast to visit my 'oldest' friend Kevin and his family and to ride with Kevin before flying back east.

Highway 101 south of Bandon
It is both 'scenic byway' and part of the Oregon Coast Bike Route

Riding out of Bandon going south was easy with a strong tailwind. Riding was chilly all day, so I wore a extra knee warmer and my wind vest most of the day. It was cloudy/foggy most of the time I was in Bandon, but today's ride was all in sunshine. As a result, it wan much more pleasant than my ride over the same road in 2004 when it clouded up and got quite chilly after Humbug Mountain. Today that section was very pretty and, as in 2004, very windy and very hilly ;-}.On both rides, the warmest part of the ride was in Humbug Mountain State Park where the mountains block the wind.

Humbug Mountain from Port Oxford

Humbug Mountain from the hilly section south of it
Notice the whitecaps on the water

I had planned to stop in Port Oxford for lunch, but the place I wanted to stop - a cafe/bakery - looked like it had recently gone out of business. No other place appealed to me, so I rode on out of town and then pushed my bike - the road was too steep to ride - up a side road and found a quiet, calm - no wind, and warm - sunny, place to have a second snack from my supplies before the ride around Humbug Mountain. I stopped again to snack at a beach/park about 10 miles north of Gold Beach. When I got to Gold Beach I had good meal at the Pot Hole Cafe before riding back to near the bridge to check into a motel.

Humbug Mountain from about 10 miles north of Gold Beach where the road is flat and close to the water

Beach, rocks, surf, and coastline in the hilly section