Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
It's an oddly jury-rigged path, much of it well traveled by sightseers in cars, some of
it along paved trails that are off-limits to motorized traffic (I love that!). And then there's
the hell to pay: the bike route, much of which follows the Historic Columbia River High-
way, runs parallel to the I-84, but it sadly peters out for about ten miles, just west of
Hood River, and the cyclist is forced onto the interstate. It's legal to ride on the inter-
state in Oregon, though I'm not sure it should be; the road gets congested with high-
speed traffic. For me, on the debris-strewn shoulder, that was a tense, teeth-clenching
ten miles.
Still, I'd have to say it was worth it. Today I continued upriver, and the twenty-five
miles or so between Hood River and The Dalles were the most joyous of my journey so
far. It began in the late morning, after Eric Anderson, Ben Ketler, and Mike Scott, the
skillful bike doctors at Mountain View Cycles, performed rear-cassette replacement sur-
gery on my bicycle, giving me a sprocket with thirty-four rather than twenty-eight cogs
and a whole other dimension of low gears in which to climb. I felt the difference immedi-
ately. The change wasn't a panacea; it didn't absolve me of the sin of not training enough
for the trip. But though the road out of Hood River curved immediately uphill and be-
came a long, twisty ascent, I was able to find the pedaling rhythm that had eluded me
on previous climbs, one that propelled me with sufficient progress to be satisfying psy-
chologically, that allowed me to hum along to the downbeat of my left pedal stroke—the
soundtrack in my mind was from Copland's “Appalachian Spring” (a.k.a. “Simple Gifts,”
a Shaker song)—without anguish in my thighs or lungs.
At the top, I reached a lovely bike path, deliciously, smoothly paved, that travels for
several miles high above the river, passes through twin tunnels (relics from an aban-
doned section of highway), and descends into the tiny town of Mosier. From there the
route climbs again through woods and dramatic hillsides, up over Rowena Crest, where
the views upriver are spectacular, and then snakes down to The Dalles in thrilling fash-
ion, a cyclist's version of a roller-coaster descent. All in all, the best three hours of the
ride so far.