JANUARY AND A NEW YEAR

December had those long nights, cold days and snow. January has had its own days of woe! That snow from December stayed long into some icy days of January and temps plunged into the teens. By Minnesota standards, that is not so cold; by our standards around here that is frigid and we are not used it. 

So, there was the weather. We could however, see that daylight hours were lengthening. That is a good thing about January.

Enter our bikes to be taken down to Eugene to Bike Friday (a 6 hour drive) for each to get a full overhaul, and days of non-cycling added up. A LOT as we would have to leave them there for two weeks. More about that later…

Most of my bike riding is done solo and I am thankful to continue some of my on the bike challenges. Recall I did ‘Teaneuring’ a few months ago. There are other challenges too, like taking a photo of particular items … like CHIMNEYS.

I have become aware that there are oh so many different chimneys. Once you start looking for them you notice them all the time and how different they can be from on to the next. I will NOT post all of my challenge photos here, but those challenges kept me interested on the few rides I could do during less than nice weather.

Bringing our bikes to Eugene, OR for their overhaul meant we would be driving back down to retrieve them. Fist the good part.

We left home early on Friday morning and were treated to a beautiful sunrise. Not a very good photo as we were speeding along on I-5, but it gives the idea.

After picking up our bikes, and not test riding them (a decision we would soon rue), we made our way to the Oregon Coast.

Oregon has the most beautiful coast line and you get many views of the ocean. This sunny day not only made the beauty even more outstanding, it was such a fantastic change for us after the dismal months we have been having.

We camped one night in Newport before continuing north for more beauty and a stop at Lincoln City where we did some ‘rock hounding’, looking for agates.

Sidewalk art for Sheri.

One of the first things I learned on a drive along the coast when I moved to the West, was about people who searched for agates. It is almost a cutthroat activity and if you search in someone’s preferred area, you will get their wrath! I never thought I would be an agate hunter, and this will likely be my first and last time as one. Susan had (of course) had a conversation with a neighboring camper the night before, and learned all she needed to then want to do a hunt.

There were lots of people hunting on Taft Beach. This shows mainly the beach with only a few hunters.

There were several of these structures about.

Here Susan is either seeing her shadow, looking for me, or wondering if she has just passed an agate.

Though I did look for, and found a few, agates, my interest was more to the beach and rivulets that formed its own art work.

It was soon time to move on up the coast to Fort Stevens where we would spend two nights. It turned a little cold and we had some clouds for the morning of our bike ride. We were of course dressed for the weather and soldiered on for a ride on our newly, expensively, completely overhauled bikes. We were excited (but stay tuned).

Fort Stevens. You can see where our camp is. There are miles of nice biking trails, but with no traffic I decided to ride on the road rather than the tree covered trail that had lots of moss. We did get on the trail on the way back to camp. We had brought the Smoldon Grands here several years ago and the had a wonderful time riding the trails, tumbling down the dunes, and running from the ocean waves.

We did not climb up the steps.

Explored one bunker.

You’ve seen one bunker, you’ve seen bunkers.

Here is now the not good part: OUR BIKES ARE MISERABLE!!!!! We brought them down to Eugene to the ‘experts’ — to where Bike Fridays are born, to those who know all about them. After only a few miles my bike became close to non-rideable. I was able to limp back in one gear, being very sure to not change gears no matter what (fortunately it is a flat ride)!! Susan’s gears had been slipping right from the time she started riding, I was smug about mine being ‘just fine”, until they weren’t. My gears are worse than Susan’s as they will not even engage except for that one gear I got (Susan got) to work. We are beating ourselves up for not taking a test ride while at Bike Friday, now we are way too far away to go back there.

Susan has already called our favorite bike mechanic and has made a time for us to bring them in the morning after we get home. My major hope now is that we will not have to wait a long time to get our bikes, and that maybe, just maybe, it is an easy enough fix. I will not go on and on here, but I am beyond angry with Bike Friday — mainly for this issue, but there are at least 3-4 other ‘little’ things done incorrectly. At the experts hands, and at the price we paid, these bikes should be perfect.  I will try to do an update on this dilemma in a later post.