Ride: 350+ Hilly Flexible
Leader: Tim Koch, 916-952-9026, mtkoch44@aol.com
Description: Costs: $160 (Initially, I announced $150 at the November Zoom meeting but after looking closely at last year’s budget, I had to increase it by $10.)
Dates: May 15 - 21, with May 14th and 22nd as commute days. Several will opt to drive the 7½ hours home after the ride on May 21st so there will be a short ride option on this day.
Changes for this year: We will not have a truck to haul cases of beer, wine and sodas. Part of the reduced fee of $40 from last year is so everyone can buy their own drinks of choice. Drinks will no longer be paid for by the club.
This year’s tour will have seven days of bicycling out of two towns in Oregon. Our first town will be Grants Pass with four days of bicycling and then we will move to Ashland for three days of bicycling. The terrain can run from flat to mountainous. We will have our cars with us at the hotels. Therefore, no luggage truck is needed. Geoff Holloway will be our lone SAG driver.
With our vehicles, we will have the ability to drive to start locations and see sites that are too far away for a bicycle. We will park at the Rouge River Overlook State Park and do a 48-mile round-trip ride up to the Crater Lake Village which overlooks Crater Lake. An optional longer day of 70+ miles would be to ride around Crater Lake. We climb when our legs are fresh and enjoy the downhill upon return. Another 40-mile route is to park our cars at Cave Junction and bicycle 20 miles uphill to the Oregon Cave’s National Park. We can do a tour of the caves before the easy downhill ride back to the cars. Two other routes are in the works. A loop ride taking us to the town of Galice. Galice market/restaurant is a great stop for brunch or lunch at its nice balcony overlooking the Rouge River. A fourth route will take us through a valley to the interesting town of Jacksonville. Jacksonville is a great lunch stop. We will return via Gold Hill and along the Rouge River route.
From Grants Pass, we get in our cars and travel to the hotel in Ashland. One route has been planned at this time out of Ashland and up to Mt. Ashland ski area. This is a 47-mile route. The first half is uphill followed by the always welcomed downhill return. A second route will probably be on the bike trail that will take us all the way from Ashland to Medford plus a loop of some sort in Medford.