Oregon Boy's Only Ride

[Madness]

Boy’s Only Ride ‘04

Day 1, June 25:

Day one started out cloudy and cool. Met my brother and a friend at my brother’s house at 7:00am. From there we met up with more of our group at a mini-mart a few miles out of Albany. Headed out Hwy 226 to Stayton and met up with a few more riders and headed off on Hwy 22 for Bend.
As we climbed into the Cascade Mtns. the weather warmed and the skies cleared nicely. Traffic was fairly light and we moved along at a pretty good pace. Just before the town of Sisters we had a short wait for road construction. We caught the line just before the flaggers let it through. Even with the construction, traffic flow about normal through Sisters, about 5-15mph. We stopped to refuel and take a short break. Then it was off for the Blackhorse Saloon in Bend to meet up with the last rider and have some lunch. After lunch we all browsed around Central Oregon Cycles, which sell custom choppers made by BMC Choppers. Lots of nice looking bikes but not what I would want to ride.
Now that our group of 15 bikes was complete, it was off for the desert and time to head for Burns. We headed out Hwy 20 for the 131-mile trip in the mid-afternoon heat. This was a pretty desolate area of Oregon. Very long straight stretches with nothing but sagebrush and scrub trees all around. We kept a good pace of 70-80mph all the way to Burns and arrived around 5:30pm. We pulled into the first fuel station and filled up. Jeff, one of the riders, on a HD Ultra Classic had a dead battery when he tried to fill up. A quick diagnosis was at the least he had a bad voltage regulator. At the worst he had a bad stator and a bad voltage regulator. The closet HD shop was back in Bend where we had just come from. Jeff made a call back to Bend and arranged for them to do the repairs in the morning. He was able to swap batteries with another HD in the group to keep him on the road to our camp. Since Jeff needed to get his bike fixed we all agreed that we would change our ride route and head back for Bend in the morning to get his bike repaired and then come up with a new route for the next two days. Once we had him running again we headed for the local Safeway and we all stocked up with deli sandwiches, munchies, and as much beer as we could carry on our bikes. Then it was a short 20 miles out of town up Hwy 395 to Idlewild campground.
What a beautiful ride. The road wound up a canyon into the Ochoco Mtns. The shadows were getting long and rim rock lined the top edges of the canyon. We finally arrived at Idlewild after a long days ride. Everyone was starved, so we all broke out the grub and brews. The campground had a large gazebo, which we took over. A few of the guys set up their tents. The rest of us threw our sleeping bags on the picnic tables under the gazebo or on the benches along the walls. After a few beers and talk about the days ride, a few others and myself were beat and turned in early. Daylight would come too early, and we were going to have to travel back through the same desolate highway we just came in on. To be continued.........

[Madness]

Oregon Boy's Only Ride

Boy’s Only Ride ‘04

Day 2, June 26:

Everyone started waking up around 5am. The birds in the area started making quite a racket at first light. The temperature wasn’t as cold as I expected when I crawled out of my sleeping bag. Must have been in the low 50’s. I also noted my head was pounding a little. I didn’t drink that much the night before, but I think I was a little dehydrated. As we all started packing our gear for the ride back to Bend we noticed someone must have had a few too many last night.
They left a big pile of pre-eaten food on the ground outside the gazebo we were sleeping under. We all tried to get a confession out of the guilty culprit, but no one would fess-up and there were no witnesses.
We hit the road again for Bend around 6:30. I was amazed again at the scenery back out of the canyon with the sun just starting to drop down the west side of the canyon walls. We kept a pretty conservative pace coming out very aware of the potential of a deer jumping out at this time of the morning. The skies were a deep blue with not a cloud in site. The air was cool but not even close to being cold on the way to breakfast in Burns.
Our original route was to leave this morning after breakfast and head NE for Baker City. Since we all decided to ride back with Jeff to the Harley dealer in Bend we were going to have to come up with a plan B. My brother was going to spit off from the group tomorrow morning and head for Denver to visit his daughter. Since he would have to double back if he road with us to Bend, he decided to get a head start and leave us this morning after breakfast.
After we all wished my brother a safe trip, we jumped on Hwy 20 again for the return trip to Bend. This was a much more comfortable ride in the cool air of the morning. We made on stop about 80 miles out of Burns so Jeff could swap his battery again to be on the safe side. He had pulled the fuses to his lights and accessories before we left, but we didn’t want to take any chances.
We arrived at the Harley dealer around 11am. They took Jeff’s bike right into the shop and told us it would be around 2hrs until it was ready. The salesmen told us to help ourselves to free hot dogs in their waiting room. Needless to say, when they mentioned free food to a bunch of hungry bikers, we made ourselves right at home. Most of us wandered around the showroom looking at all the overpriced bikes and accessories, or just lounged around outside in the beautiful sunshine. They had a large map of Oregon hanging in the waiting room, so we gathered around and started making a decision for Plan B. After looking at all the routes out of Bend, we decided to head up to the tiny town of Mitchell, then find a campground between there and Fossil for the second night.
Just after 1pm Jeff had his bike back and was about $270 lighter in the wallet. It ended up being the stator and the voltage regulator. Finally we were on our way again. We left Bend on Hwy 97 to Redmond where we would turn off on Hwy 126 to Prineville. By now it was getting pretty warm again and we got stuck in traffic in Prineville due to some sort of festival in downtown at the city park. We headed NE out of Prineville on Hwy 26.
We arrived at Mitchell around 4pm. We all lined up at the one pump gas station and fueled up the bikes. Then we headed across the street to the Little Pine Café for dinner. After some great small town food we headed for the for the store next door for restock our brew and snack supplies for tonight.
Once we were all loaded up again we headed north on Hwy 207 toward Fossil in our search for a place for the night. We found a small state park about 20 miles out of Mitchell. We found a couple of nice open sites together and went about setting up our gear. The brews came out and we got our fire going for another relaxing evening.
Somewhere around 10pm we were all around the fire laughing and making quite a racket when another camper wandered in from another campsite. His name was Erick. To say this guy had had few drinks would be putting it mildly. He said that he saw us pull in earlier and thought we looked cool and wanted to come down and visit. He said his friends at camp had told him that he would get his ass kicked if he walked into a camp full of bikers. He had a ½ gal bottle of vodka with him, which he was chugging out of. He was pretty humorous for a while. After awhile he started more and more obnoxious. He started to challenge us to arm-wrestle him, and then he started asking to get beat up. One of the guys yelled at him, and told him to get the hell out of our camp. We shined our flashlights in the direction he was headed and watched him as he stumbled through the dark. About 15-20 minutes later we could hear someone yelling in the distance. A few of the guys walked though the campground to where it was coming from. Somehow Erick had wandered up the hill beside the campground. He was up there yelling, “Help!! I’m lost!!” “I tried to cover up with leaves and I’m cold!!” over and over. The guys finally got him down and found his camp. Told his buddies they better keep an eye on him. We all stayed up laughing about went on until after 1am before we had had enough fun on this long day.

To be continued…….

[Madness]

Oregon Boy's Only Ride

Boy’s Only Ride ‘04

Day 3, June 27:

Day 3, June 27:
After staying up into the wee hours drinking and having a good time last night, we were awoken around 5:30am by one of the group starting up his Harley. One by one we staggered out of our tents into the crisp cool mountain air. It looked to be another beautiful day today. There was not a cloud in the sky and the sun was just starting to shine over the hill onto the top of ridge on the other side. We all set about packing up our tents and gear. Then it was time to clean up all the cans we had left laying around the night before.
Around 6:30 we were back on Hwy 19 for the short ride to the town of Fossil for breakfast. It was quite a bit cooler this morning than the last, but the scenery was just as beautiful. We wound our way up and down through the canyons and marveled at the beautiful vistas that awaited us as we rounded every bend in the road. We arrived at Fossil just after 7 and took over one half of the small café for much needed coffee and hot breakfast.
After we had had our fill we all saddled up and were on the road again about an hour later. We left Fossil on Hwy 218 headed for the town of Antelope. Antelope is the town were the cult guru BHAGWAN SHREE RAJNEESH bought up 65,000 acres of land and built a huge ranch. He conned people into giving him all their worldly possessions and brought them out here into the Central Oregon desert to live in his commune of free love in the early ‘80’s. They brought in around 3,000 people and tried to take over the local town government seats. There were many legal investigations into some of the things going on within their “Ranch” including a possible contamination of a local restaurants salad bar by some of their devotees, which was reported to have affected about 750 people. Their goal was reported as trying to affect local voter turnout in the upcoming elections. Finally after several years of legal battles they folded up their commune and fled the state because of pending arrest warrants of their leaders.
The ride to Antelope was another 30+ mile one filled with new vistas with every turn and crest of a hill dotted with ranches scattered about like a small oasis in this brown and deserted land. We rode through the John Day Fossil Beds National Monument and the John Day Scenic Waterway on our way. After a brief stop at the edge of town, about half of the group headed north to Hwy 84 and back to the Portland area. The rest of us continued SW on Antelope Hwy to Hwy 97 into Madras. After a brief stop for fuel and water we continued south toward Redmond. A few miles out we turned off the main Hwy and headed west at the Crooked River turn-off and took a scenic short-cut which would allow us to skirt the Sunday traffic through Redmond and Sisters. We pulled off at the junction of Hwy 20 and 22. There the group would make its final parting as each of us headed for the home stretch. After the handshakes and talk of next years Boys Only Ride I headed off on Hwy 22 headed back to Albany.
After riding with the group for the last few days it was nice to be off on my own. Riding a my own pace and not having to be aware of other riders around me allowed me to relax and reflect on the beautiful parts of this great state of Oregon I had never been through before, and to marvel that parts I’ve been through many times before never get old. I’m already anticipating next years ride!!

Here is a link to my photo album of the trip:
http://www.imagestation.com/album/?i...e=album-invite

[mitch]

Jim

Hi Jim
Looks like you took the Venture on your trip . How did you like it! Great pictures and story i really enjoyed reading it. Hope you have many more . Keep on biking.....MITCH

[Madness]

Glad you enjoyed the write up Mitch.
Yes, I rode my Venture on this trip. First extended ride since I picked it up last fall. Very smooth comfortable ride. Still not sure if I'm going to keep for long though. It's just not as much fun to ride as my midnight.

[Geezer]

Originally posted by Madness
Glad you enjoyed the write up Mitch.
Yes, I rode my Venture on this trip. First extended ride since I picked it up last fall. Very smooth comfortable ride. Still not sure if I'm going to keep for long though. It's just not as much fun to ride as my midnight.

I rode the Mongrel from Tualatin to Yreka over the weekend and
the seat on the Mongrel has to go. It's just shy of torture.

Eventually I'll have a Venture in my stable. Sometimes smooth and comfortable are hard to beat.

Geezer