About to go touring around Oregon...

Hello, family and friends!

Tomorrow morning I leave for yet another bike tour. This time I will be heading out from my front door for a loop tour around the state of Oregon. Along the way, I will climb up and over the side of Mount Hood via Government Camp, through Warm Springs to Prineville, where I will pick up the ACA TransAmerica Trail. I will follow it until I get to John Day, where I will drop south through Seneca to the Eastern Oregon desert country to Burns, OR. I then intend to begin a clockwise loop around the Steens Wilderness area via Fields-Danio Road, passing through Mickey Hot Springs, Alvord Hot Springs, Steens Mountain, the Alvord Desert, Frenchglen, Pete French's Round Barn and finally ending the loop near Hines, OR. Then I will pick up Highway 20 west, travel through Riley to Bend, then on to Crater Lake. From there, I will follow The ACA Sierra Cascades route north, all the way to Hood River, which I will then follow back to Portland.

This will be one of the longer bicycle tours I have taken, and probably the most diverse. The entire route will encompass well over 1,000 miles, and I have right at 16 days to finish the trip. This will be my first door-to door trip, meaning I will leave from my front door and return to my front door (all of the others began or ended in a distant location- Washington, DC, Waynesboro, VA, Awendaw, SC, etc...).

I plan to leave as promptly as possible tomorrow morning. On the trip I will be carrying a few things of note:

My Motorola Droid, which will show you where I am by that nifty little applet up there in the right hand corner.

A full tent, which I have never toured with before- I will miss my beloved Hennessy Hammock, but I am afraid that in the high desert there will be no trees to tie it to.

The Surly (of course). I procured a set of Nice Racks since my last tour, so they will see some use.

A neat little gizmo that I built to convert my dynamo hub's power to the range of usefulness for USB devices (5 volts, so I can charge stuff by just riding).

An MSR water filter and dromedary bag for the long, dry stretches.

A new wheelset, a pair of 700c Ryno Lites laced to XT and Alfine dyno hubs that I built especially for the dirt and gravel road sections of the trip. I am also using a set of super tough Marathon XRs in 700X40. I hope that takes care of any wheel/tire troubles that may arise, but I am taking an extra folding tire just in case, along with extra spokes and a cassette tool. The last thing I want is to break down in the desert (for obvious reasons).

I do plan to post from the road as often as possible, stop by and see what I am up to. I will have links to my web album, as well as pics from the road.

Wish me luck!