My first trip across the US, I started in Astoria. For that trip, I flew into Portland, rented a car and dropped it off in Astoria.
I have also cycled both directions between Eugene/Florence and Portland/Astoria. That was part of shorter trips when I lived in Portland some years later.
For what it is worth, if I were buying a brand new bike I wouldn't do what some suggest of ordering a bike and immediately setting off on day one with it fully loaded - for several reasons:
- If the bike shop had hiccups receiving the bike from their distributor, that could put start of my trip in limbo
- If I had any issues with bike fit, say wanted to swap out for a different stem, I would rather sort that out first - rather than have that be the first miles I am riding loaded for the first time
It doesn't have to be a lot of miles - but it would give me a lot more peace of mind to know the bike was fine before I started traveling to my start point.
A slightly different situation I had, but still illustrates the concern:
- In 2001, I decided I wanted to ride one lap around Australia, a trip that would take roughly eight months and ended up being ~12,100 miles because I didn't always go the most direct way. Plan was for me to start with a two month warm up ride across the Southern Tier and then fly to Australia - so departure March 1st from San Jose and May 2nd from Sydney.
- I was excited to have a new custom bike built for the trip and found a builder in Bend, Oregon. Over Memorial Day 2000, I drove to Oregon, from San Jose where I was living and met the builder. Plan was for the bike to be complete by Thanksgiving, which would still give me three months to do some shakedown riding with the bike.
- The builder had delays so Thanksgiving became Christmas and Christmas became January 2001 and then later. As it became closer in time, realized the bike wouldn't be ready to start my March warm up ride - so I started off on my old touring bike instead.
- Late March the builder finally had the bike ready. Now I had a dilemma, should I use the new untried bike to start off in Sydney or should I use the tried and true bike I cycled across the US? In the end, decided to have him ship the new bike to my parents in Colorado and stick with my existing bike.
- In 2002, after finishing the trip and coming back to USA, I got a chance to finally try the custom bike. Almost immediately, the top seat post seemed to tear out of the down tube. Bike builder told me his subcontractor that built the frame must have not followed specifications and to ship the bike back to repair under warranty.
That combination certainly made me happy I hadn't set off on a brand new bike - or even swapped it into use after my warm up ride and before departing for Australia. Purchasing more of a stock bike should reduce the variables of what goes wrong but there can still be small hiccups along the way. I would rather keep those hiccups in advance of the trip and not on days when I am taking vacation and expect to be touring.