540 miles on a 12 foot pain trrain

Brandon and I decided our original touring bikes weren't getting us going anymore so we sold them and bought a tandem. We haven't spent much time in Oregon. From middle school I remember the famous Oregon trail, I know they pump your gas, and there aren't taxes on beer- so we decided to go there for vacation. Our summer bike trip started in Salem Oregon and basically did a big ass circle around the state and back.

Our impressions of Salem; if Betty Crocker grew up there, she'd have a whole book about cooking drugs-not casserole. We struggled to find a place that allowed overnight parking and ended up parking the van at an Amtrak station. As we pedaled away through shopping carts, office furniture, takeout pizza littered all over the sidewalk, we held onto high hopes that the van would still be there when we got back. AND that nobody would be living in it.

Our route took us through some Oregon vineyards, along scenic backroad rivers and uphill. Every day was type 1 fun. Riding a tandem really is something special. We were 50% faster than on our other bike trips and could actually hear each other and talk the whole time. We were getting to the campsite between noon and 2:00pm each day and had more time for leisure activities such as riding our bike to a bakery, riding our bike to the brewery, riding our bike to get some pizza, and riding our bike to the local swimming hole. We discovered plenty of uncharted long-cuts, and ended up spending the same amount of time on the bike seat, just with more cookies, doughnuts, swimming trunks, pizza and beer. Same amount of work as before, just more fun too.

The route took us over 25,000 feet of elevation gain and loss with 5 solid mountain passes. After day #4 Lisa declared she loves riding up and down mountain passes (I already knew that). Fiendishly we both enjoy the challenge of pulling uphill, a good lunch and hearty celebration at the top, followed by the challenge of not touching your brakes on the downhill. Silently thinking to yourself 'technically I am pulling a trailer, I wonder if I should follow the recommended speed limit signs of 35mph through these turns'.

Now, I'd like to say we never road uphill with our brakes on but that would be a lie. It was only 1/2 mile riding with the brake-on, but that tandem has a parking brake that can make any moderate incline seem just plain savage and ask the other person, "are you really pedaling?"

Mckenzie pass was our favorite. Right before the climb Annabelle was loaded up with some free swag (Crap) from a ranger station which put her in good spirits. She serenaded us with every Raffy Song she knew while we grinded non stop 4,000 feet to the pass to avoid hungry bugs. The scenery was awesome - it changed from old growth forest to lava rock leading to a really cool mountain observatory at the top. Then as a bonus we ran over a dead deer with the bike trailer on the ride down.

Santiam pass was the opposite- our goal for that day quickly changed from 78 miles and 1 mountain pass -to- lets just try to survive. We hit a drainage grate around a bend going downhill at 37 mph on a sandy corner and flatted the back tire out. It went flat immediately and we slowed down as fast as we could using mostly the front brake. When we felt we'd basically stopped, Brandon put his feet down and steered us towards the ditch, as we entered the loose sloping gravel we both realized we were still going 19mph! No crashes. The valve on the spare tube broke and Brandon used 4 patches to patch up the old tube. Annabelle and I passed the time by cheering the cars for "their race". If there is an easy way to do something we typically go the other direction.

I'd also like to say that we only met friendly dogs- also a lie. At the crest of a hill, we got chased by a weiner dog inside a janky fenced enclosure. We made some snide comment about how we could change that dogs name to pancake or flapjack if he got out of the enclosure. As karma would have it - out followed the weiner dog's bigger brother from another mother. If you take a weiner dog and make it fuller instead of longer you get a rottweiler. Janky fence enclosure held- we road pretty fast up the rest of that hill. Maybe I won't call dogs pancake anymore.

On the good days, a tandem is really a special thing, but on the bad days it can really stink to be on the back. If I could bottle Brandon's baseline camping scent- its flavor would be called "citronella swamp ass". Top that off with some gastric distress, and it turns out everyone in the family gets to participate in the distress. For future rides we may need to install a windshield for the stoker or possibly one of those exhaust snorkels that you see on jeeps that drive through rivers. Spoiler alert: I didn't get pink eye.

Brandon got to talk to some really cool people on this trip - blue grass musicians, other bikers, through hikers adventuring the PCT, other rad dads. For every cool person he got to talk to I got chatted up by some deranged homeless guy or old hag reminding me to "You're going to have to work hard to burn that ice cream off".

If I had a dollar for every time someone told Brandon " You're lucky to have such a strong rider back there on your tandem" I'd have zero dollars.

Annabelle was an awesome companion on this trip. Truly a champ who thrives outside. She loved camping- liked helping daddyo find a big rock to pound in tent stakes- and very good at making sure the rock got put in her trailer for the next campsite. She ran two solid miles during our "shortcut". She liked dragging logs around with the hammock ropes, was an avid swimmer and even dunked her head under water if promised marshmallows. Her only epic melt down was because she wanted hairy legs like daddyo and she was pretty pissed off that she couldn't just get hairy legs right now, we had to explain she'll just have to be patient and wait.