THE HEAT IS ON

DAY 61 

FRIDAY 3 JUNE 2016

PORTLAND - CLATSKANIE

0915 - 1850

107.54 km (66.82 miles)
Av. Speed: 16.2 km/h (10.1 mph)
Max. Speed: 53.3 km/h (33.1 mph)
Time On Bike: 6h 36m 15m

Friday morning was the time to farewell my excellent hosts in Portland.

Tanja and Darren amongst other things, had been good enough to allow me to stay an extra couple of days than originally planned which allowed me time to take a day trip down Columbia River Gorge by car (see previous blog) and also attend to some last minute logistics.

This involved posting a bag of excess items ahead of myself, which proved to be a little easier said than done.

To cut a potentially long story short, the final outcome was to forward said bag onto Port Angeles in Washington, which will be my final destination in the U.S - and all for a grand total of US$17.

We will re-convene from there and see to moving it across the border and onto Vancouver.

MINE HOSTS IN PORTLAND, DARREN & TANJA

Today was also the maiden voyage of my new piece of equipment. The pressure was on....

AND A FOND FAREWELL FROM MECHANIC LOUIE @ RECUMBENT PDX.....

CLATSKANIE

Funny name, nice place.

"CLATSKAR-NIE" is how it sounds and I found it purely by chance.

I had originally scoped out a place called Longview, Washington along the Highway 30 route as an obvious place to break up the 2-day trip through to Astoria. 

However the accommodation options and perilous bridge crossing to get to the other side of the Columbia River were not exactly winning me over.

With the able assistance of Google Maps I located a nearby town called Clatskanie which happened to have a hostel of sorts called the Bike Inn, which as the name implies, caters specifically to travelling cyclists.

Perfect!

The deal was to travel on a further 13 miles beyond Longview and avoid the return bridge crossing altogether.

In exchange, there was a hill to climb.

Who would have thought??

Heat wave conditions were well and truly forecast for the Portland region over this weekend and the temperature was sliding upwards accordingly throughout the day.

By the time I hit the base of 750 ft Rainier Hill at 5 pm, there was absolutely no mercy on offer.

Mid-90/30's and pedalling directly into the vicious bark of the afternoon sun, which in June at 46°N is at its hottest at this time of day.

2½ hours later, I was still rolling down the long side of the double-crested monster and into Clatskanie, somewhat in a state of heat and distance-induced distress.

After a brief false dawn, I managed to make contact with the good folk at the Bike Inn and gain entry for the evening.

Aside from being as physically drained as on any previous day of this tour, I also noticed that I had coasted down the hill with a flat tyre on my trailer - the first so far on the tour.

After 2300 kilometers, it didn't seem like a particularly good omen for a new piece of equipment - even though I had been unable to get the new items "slimed" in Portland, which is surely one of the main reasons the cruddy little cheese cutters on my recently deceased trailer had not flinched since leaving Los Angeles 2 months ago.

LEWIS AND CLARK BRIDGE, LONGVIEW WITH MOUNT ST HELENS IN THE BACKDROP