Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
The cycling route up the gorge more or less ends there, and had I not felt energized
by my new gear configuration I might have stayed the night in The Dalles, but I rode
on. Determined to avoid another stint on the interstate, I followed instructions from my
GPS, which led me into remote ranchland along a gravel road. By then it was a steamy
late afternoon, but I felt surprisingly fresh, and I relished the solitude and quiet as I
rode slowly through wheat fields and cattle ranges. The light was amber, beautiful. For
a time, my bike performed admirably on the gravel, but the road grew worse, and after
several miles I was creeping along, hardly making progress and having to ride with high
caution downhill. At one point when the road turned rather sharply near the bottom of
an especially steep pitch, I squeezed both brakes, my back wheel slid off to the right and
I couldn't click out of my left pedal in time. I went down in what felt like slow motion.
It was painful and a little embarrassing, though there was no one for miles around to
witness it, but not serious. There's a knot on my left elbow and a bruise on the meat of
my palm. The bike is fine. No real harm done.
Still, there was seven miles of undulating road treacherous with sand and gravel yet
to negotiate, it was getting toward evening, and I didn't know whether Biggs Junction,
the next town, was actually a town or just a crossroads. Perhaps this was one of those
bad-bargain-with-the-universe days. Perhaps such optimism as I assumed after the bike
surgery was uncalled for; perhaps I'd had too much fun on the snaky downhill ride to
The Dalles.
Fate, however, was kind. Jim Markman, who works in financial services for a firm
that provides loans and insurance for farmers, lives up in those hills, and he was on his
way home for the evening when I flagged him down, and he stopped and let me throw
