First Day of the Reverse Oregon Trail
After multiple delays and lots of flying I arrived in Eugene at 2pm their time which means it took 12hrs of travel to get there. I was pleased to find out the guy I was buying the bike from was an older IT manager and not some young stunter type. He had purchased the bike a while ago from some rich kid that was unsatisfied with the power who sold it to him with 2400 miles on it, it had 2632 when I was filling in the title. The bike itself (aside from the dust) looks perfect, you can definitely tell its been sitting for quite some time but it fired right up and sounds great with the aftermarket exhaust he had on it.
Now comes the human factor. I (as always) foolishly tossed the instructions on how to strap on the saddle bags and had no clue how to get them fixed on the bike properly. Honestly I think I’m missing some straps because there are clips that reach 5” away at best and others that seem they should be joined under the bike. Thankfully the DMV had a motorcycle shop nearby and I picked up some other clipping straps that have worked out perfectly. I’ve never ridden a bike this “tall” my TW200 is as soft and as easy as shifting motorcycles come to ride and this is MUCH faster, much more nimble, and infinitely more precise. It’s something I’ll get used to but I’m already worried about my endurance for this trip.
Riding from Eugene to Portland was a blast, the bike is fast and has no problems ripping up to 100 which to bike folk doesn’t seem like a big deal but when you’ve been riding something that takes forever to hit 70 it is. The wind noise at those speeds is significantly more and I’ve discovered that when using a properly fitted helmet apples earbuds will be pulled out before you have your brain bucket secured. Hip cramps became a problem after a while riding and I’m not sure if that has to do with me having sat 12 hrs in a plane or my positioning on the bike, I guess I’ll find that out on my ride to Seattle.
Last night I thought I might be able to take advantage of the Jupiter hotels check in after midnight special which is $60 a night. They’ve been booked full for some time now so that plan fell through so I thought I’d try my luck paying more for the Ace Hotel with similar results. So I stopped in a fancy coffee shop where they kinda looked at me kinda funny (probably due to the motorcycle gear) but noticed they were talking about Nicholas Cage and I cracked the ice by telling them about 4 Mins of Nicholas Cage Freaking Out (this video is the gift that keeps giving). I asked them where somewhere cheap in town to stay was and they pointed me to the Econo Lodge which had one room left and I took it. Who cares I’m only sleeping there.
After checking in I went to check out a place called Ground Kontrol which is a 5$ admission bar/arcade with unlimited play once you enter. After a long session of Xmen Arcade (3 Screen of course), Simpsons Arcade, and Smash TV I head out to get some food. After getting frustrated at all the NO TURN streets when trying to find a place Yelp recommended I went to the nearest food trucks, one sit with a group of happy people but they were serving Gyros which I dont care for and there was a lone Mexican truck. My first instinct was to avoid it since there was no one there but my lazyness got the best of me and I thought “fuck it” and ordered their $6 chicken burrito. This was a very good choice, I hate to say it but my favorite burrito is Chipotle and sadly never expected there to be any better but this was. After dominating dinner I headed back to retire to my discount motel where 12:30am feels like 2:30am. Overall a very informative and awesome day.
So here are my observations and bits of advice so far.
- Keep instructions: they’re just paper they dont take up that much space.
- Get better earbuds
- Eugene is a nice very small town whose DMV is very fast and polite.
- Portland is weird to ride in, lots of one way streets and lots of “No Turn” streets.
- Bikes that arent sloppy trail bikes are harder to ride than ones that are.
- Portland does have a better infrastructure for bicyclists and I see a greater number of bicyclists but not so significant that Minneapolis shouldnt have #1 bike town due to the elements factor.
Side Note: Dont be surprised if these journals begin to mimic the ones from Resident Evil as I atrophy along the trip.
