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Mitch_Rider
May 13th, 2008, 2:47 am
Hey all,
Had a great ride this weekend doing about 1200 miles and catching 6 Grand Tour Checkpoints in Southern Oregon/Northern California. A few tips to pass along.
-The Alsea highway(34) to Waldport is a fun road and the checkpoint is actually up from Waldport on this road.
-Highway 42 back to Roseburg is also a fun road and even more so when you find a crotch rocket guy who wants to think he can out corner the GT and that he can run away in triple digits.
-Maple Leaf Motel in Shady Cove is very clean and relatively reasonable.
-Klamath River Highway is fun and scenic with very little traffic. Just a bit of a long 100 miles of it to Orleans. Get gas ahead of time. Regular gas(best available) in Orleans was $4.49/gal.
-The other route, the road from O'Brien to Happy Camp, was not open yet.
-No matter what the locals say, the road (Salmon Creek Road) from just north of Orleans to Cecilville (where the start of the #2 rated Destination Highway in Northern California starts) is not the preferred way to go.
It is about 30 miles of barely single lane poorly maintained road with no guardrails, blind corners, and regular drop offs. The only white lines are occasionally along the edge to mark where the road has eroded away.
-DH #2 is a fun road that will be better later in the year when the rest of the gravel(especially in the corners) is cleared from the road.
-Still lots of snow along the sides of roads with much elevation.
-Hiway 97 from Chiloquin to La Pine is still as boring as ever with lots of police presence
-Hiway 20 to Sweet Home is a lot better without snow showers and near freezing roads.
Sunday morning breakfast with the grandkids...priceless!
Enjoy,

ErnieA
May 15th, 2008, 12:39 am
Sounds like a great trip Jeff. Soon I hope we'll be back in the saddle. This weekend is our sons wedding and next week Pauline gets ready for her new hip. I'm thinking she'll need 3 to 5 weeks before she gets on the LT. This will give me time to get a few things done on the bike, especially the crash repairs and my new Thomas air compressor.

How much time spent on this trip you took. 12k in how many hours? ;)

meese
May 15th, 2008, 1:11 am
Tell Pauline we'll be pulling for her. Oh, and Bob & Nora, too. :)

I'll be flying to Korea this weekend to pack up another machine. Then it's back to Oregon for the summer. It will probably be really crazy, but I may manage to get in a ride or two over the next couple of months.

See y'all soon. :)

Mitch_Rider
May 15th, 2008, 1:57 am
How much time spent on this trip you took. 12k in how many hours? ;)

Pretty lazy on the pace. There were very few roads that you could make any kind of IBA time on (unless of course you found a crotch rocket rider to play with along the way) :) The barely single lane 30 mile Salmon Creek Road section and coming down Hiway 20 into Sweet Home in the snowy/close to icy conditions at 25-35 mph really killed the average. :)