Riding my Bike back from Portland under the 2021 Heat Dome

 As I told friends: You can plan a trip, but you can’t plan the weather. I did consider changing my mind, but decided to go ahead—and rode my bike home at the start of what was to be a historic Pacific Northwest Heat Dome where temps climbed to just under 120 degrees. Whoa—a scorcher!

I started on Friday and to be fair it wasn’t Portland proper. I was staying in Damascus, south and east of the city. On top of that, I asked my friends to drive me to Oregon City. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I’m a baby. There was a big hill I wanted to avoid.

I’d previewed the trip on Google and had a map of the “scenic Willamette Bikeway.” Both mentioned a hill in Oregon City. As we drove up it I saw it was in 2 stages. My friend told me Oregon City is the only town in the US to have an elevator sidewalk. Apparently an elevator takes pedestrians from the lower to the upper half of the town. In Italy, they are famous for their hilltowns where funiculars take folks from the lower to upper half.

Nevertheless, I did 54 miles on Friday, ending the ride at 1:30 just as the major heat was permeating. I sat n the shade and read or else sat in the cool waters of the Willamette at the Independence, OR hiker/biker campground, about 7 miles southwest of Salem.

Along the way I did do some climbing along shade-covered roads. Temps were still moderate at 8 a.m. but by 12, it was starting to feel awful. Scenery was mostly farmland, glimpses of the river. A few sleepy towns. I’d stop and eat a couple of times, but mostly pushed myself to keep going as the heat was a wolf at the door. In Salem there was a network of city park bikeways that though confusing were easily navigated, the river not far beneath tree canopy, so unseen, I rode River Road to the campground.

That evening, I expected temps to moderate or cool. Nevertheless, I slept without the rainfly and on top of my sleeping bag.

In the a.m. I awoke at 3:30 still under cloak of darkness, ate, rehydrated, filled bottles and was gone from camp by 5 a.m. This was to be the big push to get home before temperaturs reached the hundreds.

I kept my mileage at 10 mph average, mostly at 14 – 15 mph. There was no reason to stop—the rationale the same as the day before—I NEEDED to be somewhere before the intense heat hit. By 10 a.m. it was HOT. By 11 a.m. I was at a truck stop. A truck stop, y’all. This is where you get ice water and use a bathroom. EXCEPT this must be the only truck stop, Pioneer Village along US Route 5, without working bathrooms and staff that had no idea of service. I eventually found a pair of portos outside the gas station. Portos under a heat dome. This is my idea of hell.

No need to go on and on.

I made Coburg by 12 noon. By this time I was stopping every 10 minutes to douse myself with water. After getting my head and neck wet, I’d keep going. I cross the Mackenzie River and went past Armitage County Park and was in North Eugene. Yet things were still unrecognizable. It took another mile or two before I saw a familiar path, took it, then home. I collapsed on the floor and let the coolness of the tile seep into me.

I wasn’t dehydrated, just really hot. Eventually I sat up and took a shower. Eating wasn’t that important to me. I just wanted heat relief. That would be in a few days.

A couple observations from my ride:

*at one point in the heat mirage wavering up ahead of me on the road I thought I saw a garbage can by the roadway. But it kept moving. Then I thought it was a dee. It was a coyote that crossed in front of me and sat and watched me from a field. I wondered as I pedaled past it if it might chase me.

On one of my longest road stretches—Rowland Rd and then North Coburg—at some point I saw in the distance Spencer Butte ahead, and this gave me inspiration to keep going. To my left was a set of buttes called Twin Buttes. As a word nerd, I cannot help but see the word butt in butte. Here it was literal. The Twin Buttes reminded me of butt cheeks with the little space in between the crack. I could easily gauge my progress by how close I was getting, parallel, to the crack.

All in all, if it hadn’t been so dangerously hot, I would have really enjoyed this ride. It was mostly flat and had interesting stuff (except for the one gravel road bit). Would have liked to spend more time not in a fit of frantic pacing, but that’s for another time/day.

At least I’m alive!