Ok, so we went out to the
Oregon Country Fair, my first long-distance (overnight) trip with Delilah. This was a big year for us, too. Beyond riding in, this was MickeyX's first year on our security crew and the Fair's 40th anniversary. (1969-2009)
120 miles there, so 240 round trip (or 193 km/386 km). This would also be my first time riding with everything fully loaded.
We didn't really get a whole lot of pics- like... uh... two.? and the camera is... um... somewhere? I'm really hoping we find it again.
Anyway, we got a couple of bikes fully loaded. That was it. Then the camera went away and wasn't seen again for the rest of the trip.
The trip there was a blast. 99W was great- small towns here and there for bathroom breaks with long stretches of open two-lane highway.
Delilah did great, with lots of power, balanced great, carried the load quite well. We split things up pretty evenly- I got the two sleeping bags, thermarest mats and various other camping accessories. MickeyX got the tent and a couple tons of other stuff.
Long story short, I was very happy to have my hard bags.
We parked in our camping space, unloaded, and ob-la-di, ob-la-da,la, la, how the life goes on...
Then, on Sunday, the rain came.
Pics will follow, but what basically happened was, an area populated by 30,000 in the trees, with paths made of basically just hard-packed dirt was subjected to a day and a half of serious downpour rain. The result of this was a woodstock-style mud bath.
http://www.peacefence.com/twomuddyhippieswoodstock1969.htmIt would've been way more fun if it were warmer.
but we still had fun. More importantly (ok,
as importantly) the crowd had fun, too. We directed traffic the best we could, but the roads were turning into mud soup under the cagers' tires, and we knew this was a warning of 'fun' to come. One rider was leaving and ate it big time in a muddy intersection, but we all helped him up and got him on his way.
We went to bed in our soggy tent thinking it'd all be better if it just stopped raining...
Obviously we woke up to hear rain pattering on the tent.
This was around 6a. Getting up for an outhouse run, we saw our only route out was deeply rutted and full of water. Just walking through was hairy. Riding through and staying upright while fully loaded was going to be an impossibility. After some discussion, looking for some way to make it passable, we started grabbing hay that had been cut from the field. The parking lot is open grazing land/prairie the rest of the year. We spread the hay on this muddy soup pretty thick, figuring the cars coming through would work it up and help it soak up the water, leaving a
cobb-style road. After all that work, we said "Ugh! Enough!" and went back to sleep.
Long story made marginally shorter: it took a lot more hay-spreading before we managed a narrow path through. Seriously, about a foot wide... anything on either side was far too soupy to allow any traction. The formerly gravel road out to the field was muck, too, but offered some traction. The grass was... well... damp grass, so kind of squirrelly.
We had a dear, wonderful, loving (any more warm, fuzzy adjectives I can use?) friend of ours walk along with us through the worst of it so if we dumped, we had some help getting back up, because there was no guarantee either of us would be able to stop, dismount, and/or find any good foothold in the slimy crap to get the downed bike up again. We were fortunate not to need his help, though.
We got out to the road with me losing rear traction a few times but never dumping, took off our muddy rain gear, took collective breaths of relief, and headed on our way.
After that, I felt like I could handle about anything on nice, dry pavement.
For having only started riding this spring really, I'm pretty proud of myself and the bike. I'm writing this and reading over MickeyX's shoulder. I like her writeup better and I'm going to make her post hers here as well.
Anyway, I'm exhausted and a lot of my riding gear is caked in mud yet, but it was a great trip, and built a heck of a lot of confidence.
