Sprocketshift Oregon Coast - Part 2

What happens when two people on the same bike tour decide to have two completely different adventures? On this edition of The Pedalshift Project, day two of the Sprocketshift Oregon Coast adventure with Brock Dittus starts with a split decision in Tillamook. Brock points his bike north for a long, wet ride toward Cannon Beach. I slow things way down for cheese, side quests, a little local riding, and maybe a bit of a rethink about what I actually want out of bicycle travel these days. Two riders. Two very different days. One extremely cheap bus ride. Will the bike and bus gods allow us to reunite for fish, chips, oysters, and beer in Astoria?

 

 

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Oregon Coast Bike Tour with Brock Dittus – Part 2

 

Day two of our northbound Oregon Coast bike tour begins in Tillamook with a major change of plans.

 

With uncertain weather, challenging terrain, and Oregon Coast bus schedules that aren’t lining up particularly well, Brock Dittus and I decide to split up for the day. Brock heads north by bicycle toward Cannon Beach. I stay behind for a much lower-mileage day exploring Tillamook by bike before using public transit to fast-forward north.

 

The result is something a little different for The Pedalshift Project: two simultaneous tour journals from two riders having completely different bicycle touring adventures.

 

Two Riders, Two Very Different Oregon Coast Adventures

 

Brock leaves Tillamook with an ambitious goal: ride north toward Astoria and see how far he can get.

 

His day includes:

 

• Intermittent rain that becomes considerably less intermittent
• A thoroughly soaked ride through Rockaway Beach
• The climbs and terrain of the northern Oregon Coast
• Neahkahnie Mountain
• Roughly 40 miles of challenging bicycle touring
• The strategy of simply not stopping because stopping means getting cold
• A reminder that wet jeans and long-distance cycling are not necessarily natural allies

 

Meanwhile, I embrace something closer to a bicycle-assisted vacation day in Tillamook:

 

• A visit to the Tillamook Creamery
• The realization that I actually had been there before… roughly three decades ago
• A stop at Blue Heron
• A visit to the Tillamook farmers market
• Some local exploration by bike
• A side quest involving the elusive Oregon delicacy known as meadowfoam honey
• An extremely inexpensive bus connection north

 

Same bike tour. Very different days.

 

Rethinking How I Bicycle Tour

 

My slower day in Tillamook raises a bigger question about how I want to approach bicycle travel going forward.

 

For years, my touring style has often focused on moving from Point A to Point B. The places along the route are part of the experience, but mileage and reaching the destination can easily become the priority.

 

That means I’ve ridden through places like Tillamook many times without actually spending much time experiencing them.

 

This day was different.

 

Instead of riding through Tillamook yet again, I stayed. I visited places I’d skipped on previous Oregon Coast bike tours. I explored. I followed a side quest. I rode when I wanted to ride and stopped when I wanted to stop.

 

And it may represent a bit of a shift in how I think about bicycle touring.

 

The length of a bicycle trip doesn’t always have to be measured by the number of miles ridden. Sometimes the bike is the thing that gets us to the experience.

 

Brock’s 40 Miles of Type Two Fun

 

While I’m contemplating a new philosophy of slower bicycle travel over cheese samples, Brock is having a very different day.

 

Rain. Hills. Wet clothes. More rain.

 

Despite the conditions, he makes excellent time north from Tillamook, riding through Rockaway Beach and over the challenging terrain toward Cannon Beach.

 

He ultimately reaches Cannon Beach after roughly 40 miles of riding and decides that he doesn’t need to ride all the way to Astoria to prove anything.

 

The original goal may have been a much longer day, but sometimes knowing when you’ve already had the adventure is part of the adventure.

 

Also: prolonged rain, soaked clothing, and friction are apparently a combination worth avoiding.

 

This is useful bicycle touring information.

 

Reunited in Cannon Beach

 

Thanks to a combination of bicycles, buses, location sharing, and an Oregon Coast transit schedule that somehow works out, our two routes converge in Cannon Beach.

 

From there, we take the final bus together to Astoria.

 

The total cost of taking public transportation from Tillamook to Astoria?

 

Two dollars.

 

For bicycle tourists interested in combining cycling with transit on the Oregon Coast, the regional bus network can create some remarkably inexpensive options for shortening or modifying a route.

 

Astoria: Fish, Chips, Oysters, and Bicycle Touring

 

We end the day in Astoria with beer, seafood, oyster shooters, and a comparison of our radically different adventures.

 

That leads us back to a question that has come up repeatedly on The Pedalshift Project:

 

Where are all the bicycle tourists?

 

Even during prime touring season on the Oregon Coast—one of the best-known bicycle touring routes in the United States—we encounter remarkably few loaded touring cyclists.

 

Is traditional road-based bicycle touring declining?

 

Are more cyclists choosing gravel and off-road bikepacking routes?

 

Are hikers increasingly becoming the primary users of Oregon’s hiker-biker campsites?

 

And if bicycle touring numbers continue to decline, what could that mean for the future of the infrastructure that makes routes like the Oregon Coast possible?

 

Our data set is hardly scientific, but after several years of seeing the same pattern, it’s becoming harder to dismiss.

 

Sometimes the Constraints Make the Bike Tour

 

This weekend also offers another reminder about bicycle travel: sometimes the trip you wouldn’t have chosen is the trip that produces the best stories.

 

If we’d had several weekends available, we probably would have avoided this one because of the weather.

 

Instead, this was the weekend we had.

 

Rain. Bus schedules. Route changes. A split adventure. Unexpected stops.

 

Brock compares it to Brian Eno’s Oblique Strategies: introducing limitations and constraints that force you to approach something differently.

 

In our case, the constraints became the bike tour.

 

Also in This Episode

 

• The Tillamook Creamery: the Disneyland of cheese
• Why ice cream at 10:30 in the morning is a defensible life choice
• The search for Oregon meadowfoam honey
• Bicycle touring through Tillamook, Rockaway Beach, Cannon Beach, and Astoria
• Combining bikes and public transit on the Oregon Coast
• Cannon Beach’s continuing role as a mildly cursed bicycle-touring destination
• Businesses without Wi-Fi
• The mysterious economics of an artisanal s’mores establishment
• Oyster shooters and the deeply questionable possibility of oyster Jell-O
• Brock’s return to podcasting
• Why talking to your bus driver can save your connection
• A final full-circle return to Salem

 

Statistics

 

• Riders beginning the day together: 2
• Riders immediately splitting up: 2
• Cheese establishments visited: 2
• Approximate miles ridden by Brock: 40
• Approximate miles ridden by Tim: 6–8
• Bus fare from Tillamook to Astoria: $2
• Prawns consumed: 8
• Pieces of cod consumed by Brock: 3
• Pints consumed: 1 each
• Smokes broken: 1
• Questionable oyster Jell-O concepts developed: 1
• Flats: zero