Day 17 - 19

Day 17




I had planned to ride from Raymond to Astoria a very long 82 km's. I started the day rode 2 km's and stopped for a breakfast, came out and it was raining, there was no way I was going to ride for more than 5 hours in the rain. I made a decision I would ride to Centre Bay instead 30 km's away. The only place to stay was an RV park (Camp site), but they had bungalows. It rained for about 20 minutes, just enough to get me cold, wet and miserable. It's hard to stay motivated in this weather. I got to the camp site and they had no bungalows available so I setup camp, after putting up my tent I went to buy some wood low and behold some one had cancelled and a bungalow became available, it was freezing and looking like rain so I took the bungalow.

Day 18


Sunset at Astoria

I was riding from Bay Central to Astoria about 62 km's, it was a long ride, from about 50 km's as my energy was dwindling I came to the Columbia river on the Washington side. I had about 7 km's along the Columbia river and then a long bridge across it to Astoria and into Oregon. Along the river I had a raging headwind. The bridge was about 4 km's and ended with a steep climb of about 75 metres, so the bridge could allow large ships to enter the harbour.  I looked at bookings.com and Best Western had a room at about 250 dollars everything else was fully booked, I thought I would ride through town and see if anything else more reasonable was available, The riding was dead easy and I thought I was feeling great, actually I had a raging wind pushing me along, after about 3 miles I gave up and booked the Best Western on bookings.com which was now all the way back about 3.5 miles. I quickly became aware why it had been so easy the opposite direction. I battled my way back to the Best Western only to be told there was a problem and they didn't have a room for me. Luckily they felt responsible to now try and find me alternate accommodation. They phoned around and got me a room at the Eliot, back the way I had come 2 miles. The location of the Eliot was way better, in the centre of downtown close to the Columbia river.

That evening I went to a small wine bar with live music on the pier, had a few glasses of wine and met some interesting people, The whole trip had been quit lonely and I had been quite desperate for conversation, I had gotten better at striking up conversations with strangers. In some ways I was glad I had done this on my own, but I wasn't sure if I would do it alone again. A problem with doing it with someone else would definitely be fitness levels, but would definitely be motivated to do bigger distances and push harder so as not to hold everyone else back. It is very easy on your own to take the easy way out and not ride long distances. The first couple of weeks with my fitness levels as they were it would have been almost impossible to push to keep up with a group. It was definitely much harder to motivate myself being on my own. The time I am least motivated is the morning, as soon as I get into a rhythm my motivation increases, but first thing in the morning I seldom feel like riding, special when its cold and even more so when its raining. 

After the fiasco booking accommodation that night I would need to plan ahead and book during weekends.

Day 19.

I had been told Cannon beach was stunning, so I decided my next stop would be Cannon Beach only 40 km's away. It was a really easy ride with the wind behind me all the way, mostly flat with one large hill just before Cannon beach. I left the Eliot just after 10, by 12.30 I was in Cannon and stopped for fish and chips, then made my way to the Tolovana Inn, a couple of miles outside of Cannon centre. The best part of the ride was the weather, the sun was out the whole time, it was not to hot and not to cold, probably about 18 degrees Celsius but the Sun made it perfect weather to ride in.