Tour des Volconos des Cascades
Scheduled for June 20, 2015
by Bob Koen

Here is Bob Koen's proposed lower mainland Solstice 1000 km route:

It's that time of year again to start thinking about those looooong rides. The kind where we actually go somewhere and see some new scenery on new roads. And (hopefully) have a few adventures along the way.

Plan A for the June 1000 this year is another trip to Eugene Oregon but this time we will be taking an inland route. Kind of a "Tour de Volcano des Cascades". We will be going past (or partway up) Mts Baker, Rainier, St. Helens, Adams, Hood, and Bachelor to name a few. Then at the end we will ride up and over the Cascades of central Oregon on Hwy 242 on one of Oregon's premier roads through a volcanic wasteland. This road traditionally opens to bicycles a few weeks before it opens to cars. Wouldn't it be wonderful if we hit that window of opportunity?

A preliminary route map can be found here...

http://ridewithgps.com/routes/7430704

Please note that this isn't finished yet but does give an idea of where the route will go. The mapping tools aren't letting me route onto Hwy 242 now, possibly because the road is not open in the winter. But then again the roads through the two passes in southern Washington aren't currently open either. Assuming that Hwy 242 will be open when we get there the route will be about 20 km shorter than currently indicated, or right around 1000 km. If the road isn't open then we will go on the mapped route and finish at some appropriate spot near the 1000 km mark. If the roads in southern Washington are not yet open (unlikely given how little snow we had this winter) then we will need to do a different ride altogether. Likely the Oregon Coast 1000 since it ends in the same place. But we could also switch to a ride that starts and finishes in Vancouver like the Okanagan Loop.

Please note that this looks like it could be quite a hard ride because of the 4 big climbs. In fact it has about the same amount of climbing as the Oregon Coast or Okanagan Loop rides. But a lot of the climbing on this ride comes on the second day. I don't want people to fail on this ride due to missing an intermediate control so I plan to use the "Controle Ravittalement" strategy that I used on the Two Damn Far ride of a few years ago. That's where intermediate controls that could be time traps are not timed. You still need to get to Eugene in 75 hours.

Please join me. I think that this promises to be an incredible ride.

Bob

Go to: Event Page (Route& Info)

May 10, 2015