Aug 30
 |
| Sam approaching the Lewis & Clark river bridge and Astoria. |
Tagged Astoria in
August, just barely but it counts! I'm amazed at how similar the town is to
Yorktown. Both on a major river tributary just before the ocean, both
have a hilly district, both kinda small, both have a phallic statue overlooking
the waterfront....interesting.
We left Tillamook (home
of dairy and jerky products) early and was happy to get away. It's a nice
little town but stinks (see above reference to cows). It reminded me of
towns gone by in Kansas...yes, I'm talking about you, Larned, but without the
oppressive heat.
Anyway, we decided to
make a day of it and get this thing done. So away we went and went. I
knew it would take a while because we had two good sized hills (for this area)
and alot of scenery to try our best view at speed.
About 3pm we stopped in
at Cannon Beach and ran into a little 'bumble foot'...this is what I call a
trap that you can get yourself out of but will be time consuming. Allow
me to explain: Cannon Beach is a little touristy town about 2 1/2 bicycle
hours from Astoria that has one main strip and lots of upscale
shops...therefore, lots of upscale shoppers on a long late summer weekend
holiday. But before that and all the rest that happened, we stopped in at
a coffee/bakery shop that I really should have avoided just for the name
"Waves of Grain"....but I was interested in a quick espresso to keep
us moving on. I went in and once it was established that their snack
selection did not extend to gluten free items (surprise!) ordered a 20 ounce
(we were sharing) soy mocha. The barista says (and I am not joking here):
"One of the ports is broken and I can only make a 16 ounce.
Is that okay?"....Is that okay? uuuuhhhh...no. It
doesn't seem that hard to draw another shot from the working port.....but I'm
no barista.
SO...I say, "sure"
then I pass over the travel credit card. She takes it in the fingers of
both hands, turns a little then turns back to me and says, "Our minimum
order for cards is $5.00".
Let's stop here
momentarily because I need to draw attention to two things:
1. The overpriced drink
I was waiting for costs $4.50
2. The overpriced drink
I actually wanted would have cost at least $5.00.
I must have
subconsciously rolled my eyes, because she became very animated, apologized
profusely. Outside, Sam had caught the attention of two Scottish
retirees. They were talking about elastaplasters....can you believe
it....bandaids! as ambulance sirens go by. Uh oh..this could mean a
traffic stoppage ahead. Down the way we discovered that the emergency was happening
on a side road; that's good. You know the old saying, "Your
emergency is not my emergency". We rolled on and just out of town
(and up a hill) we met up with Weston riding a Surly Cross Check. He
passed, as the young guys always do, and had disappeared in the foreground when
he suddenly reappeared around a bend.
What happened next is
best explained in two voices…Sam adds his in italics below.
He was off bike and
tinkering with the back end. In some amazing way, his rear derailluer had
repositioned itself upside down, backwards and above the chainstay...totally
where it should not be. This
happens when the rear derailleur moves too close to the spokes of the rear
wheel. The bike falling onto the drive side or some other impact (always from
the outside to the inside) to the rear derailleur is enough to bend it inward
so that, in the lowest gear, it makes contact with the spokes… suddenly and
without warning. Sometimes the rider is
lucky and there is just some noise and you figure out what is wrong. What
loomed ahead on the roadside was, however, the worst case scenario. Now think about this for a minute folks, a
simple bump to a fragile piece of metal hanging very low on a vehicle can completely
destroy the most expensive part of the drive train and possible the rear wheel.
Shame on the bike industry for making such a hazardous oversight!
But wait… the industry has a simple solution to this problem that
they apply to every new bicycle. It is
called the pie pan, a small disc of plastic that rides between the cassette and
the spokes to prevent the derailleur from making contact with the spokes. Why then, does this still happen? Fashion! It has become very unfashionable to
have a “pie pan” on your bicycle. True, for the ultralight cyclist who can check the
alignment of their derailleur at home every night and never leaves their bicycle
propped outside a store while getting groceries, going pie pan free is a
statement of how minimalist they can be. Adhering to fashion can get a tourist
in deep trouble many miles from help.
Justin was lucky to have this happen so close to a town, and so
close to a town with a bike shop. Had
this happened in parts of Wyoming, thirst might have overtaken our friend
before we did. So point and laugh at my
pie pan, if you can see it behind my pannier, I don’t give a damn. Now back to
the story. As we were assessing the
situation roadside and discussing the options we were each supporting laden touring
bicycles. I mentioned to Justin that I
had a chain tool and that we could set him up with a single speed to get him
back to town. He was up to his elbows in
grease and wrestling his balking bicycle.
I decided that we needed to lean our bicycles to really be able to
help. I handed the chain tool to Justin but failed to fully explain how I
planned to first unlink his masterlink, pick the best gear ratio for him, then
cut the excess chain and relink the chain.
There was nothing nearby to lean a bicycle on (Surly refuses to put a
kickstand plate on their touring bicycles unsuccessfully defended on their
website and total lunacy guided again by fashion) so it took a few minutes to
find two spots to lean two bicycles and by the time I got back the chain had
been cut at a random point and the option for a single speed fix was gone. It was late, we all wanted to make it to
Astoria, we were all tired and my inability to vocalize what is in my head meant that Justin
would now have to coast back to Cannon Beach.
Luckily, it was a mostly
downhill trip back to Cannon Beach and Mike's Bikes so Sam helped him get the
thing rideable while I called Mike and wrote down addresses and phone numbers
for Weston. It was funny to watch him free pedal like a clown as he
headed downhill, coasting as far as possible with his chain in his pocket.
On toward Astoria we went...
Well, this tour has
shown me one thing: that is that the later in the day it is, the slower we go.
We finally crossed the Lewis & Clark River bridge and entered Astoria
about 7pm. We lucked into a hostel room downtown one block west from a
brewhouse/public house and one block north of the food co-op. In house
Italian sausages and Omissions gluten free beer for all then hot showers and to
bed.
the Bucket List is one
bullet shorter. Yay us!
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