Day 15: Tillamook to Lincoln City, OR

Day 15: Tillamook to Lincoln City, OR

Miles: ~50

What I rode by: guy in a tree, robot traffic only, “Road Closed Ahead” sign

Due to the constant rain all night, our wet tent went into the newly coined “wet bag” (formerly known as our orange dry bag). This was heavy. We had a killer headwind most of the day. I was probably a bit dehydrated.

Late in the day, we came across a road closed sign on Old US Highway 101. We interpreted this sign to read as follows: closed M-F, 8am to 5:30pm. It was just after 5pm and we wouldn’t arrive at the construction area until after 5:30pm so we were all set. When we got to the construction area, we realized that the sign really read “closed 8am on this date until 5:30pm on that date” because the road was closed. This was a few miles up one of the big climbs for the day. Well, it was still after 5:30pm so we pressed on hoping for no open trenches. And, success! We were able to ride through the short sections of gravel, up to the top, and down the other side.

We camped at Devil’s Lake State Park. At the hiker/biker site, we met three touring cyclists: a couple from Montreal who we refer to as “the Canadians” and a guy from NYC who we refer to as “Brooklyn” because we didn’t get his name. We told the Canadians about taking the closed road. We lucked out because we rode it so late in the day. Brooklyn overheard this and planned to do the same the next day (he was traveling north). We hope he made it!

One other point to note: we’ve started drinking chocolate milk at the end of the day because Kristen read somewhere that it has an optimal protein to carbohydrate ratio for recovery. It does taste good.