motogeek 

The whole Jubilee ensemble (F&R der, shifters and cable guides) are the best looking IMHO. The BB cable guide particularly looks like it belongs on a Nervex lugged bike, like the Moto GJ and GR.

panzerwagon 

Some days I really wish I lived closer to the pacific NW to join in your adventures. In the meantime, will just have to make do reading these great threads 🙂

rccardr 

Surprisingly, there are these things called ‘Aeroplanes’ that will conduct one from here to there with some rapidity.
Unsurprisingly, you live in an area with excellent riding opportunities.
Perhaps you would be interested in a ‘host one, attend one’ swap?
Believe me, people will come!

johnnyace 

Day 2:

Spaghetti Legs 

Snow? Fog?

Or maybe not much happened.

johnnyace 

Dang it, pic upload from phone failed. Gonna have to try again later

northbend 

Ha ha.
They obviously haven't run outta Beer :-)

Glad you're having a good time, guys!

gugie 

Back home after a great time with 7 good friends. It got hot every afternoon, we adapted and rode early, typically ending our riding day around 1. Since the daily riding mileage was under 60 miles and less than 1,000 ft of climbing we weren't too stressed.

Here's the tour as I saw it in pictures.

Day 1


My Ritchey Breakaway with a big Swift handlebar bag on a custom rack and decaleur, medium Acorn bag was plenty of capacity for a summer credit card tour

@aggiegrads lives 20 miles from our starting point, so he drove over and parked his bicycle transport vehicle at my place. We rode together to get on Trimet (local light rail) to get us to the starting point of our ride in Hillsboro, avoiding many miles of suburban junk miles.

We met up with @Andy_K, @squire Black and Ben on the Trimet

Bob Freeman and Bill Wayne met up with us around mile 30 the first day. With a light tailwind all day we made great time. Bob and Bill are both in their early 70s. Bob won all of the KOM points, every time there was a decent rise of enough distance he sprinted past all of us. Bill is more of a locomotive, every time he got to the front the pace would pick up.


Day 1 stats

I need to upload some more pix tomorrow, but it's getting late and a good night's sleep in my own bed is in order.

Andy_K 

I don't have much to add to the Day 1 photos. In fact, I didn't get a lot of photos at all. I sure hope others did better. For day 1, here's my bike at the Beaverton Creek MAX Station as I wait for the train to the start.




And here's a picture of a cool old house inside a bunch of trees I stopped to look at while everyone else was waiting for me up the road.




And since I was there, a look across the valley on the other side of the road.




Mostly, I was too busy trying to keep up to take pictures.

johnnyace 

My pics:


My 1975 Raleigh International










Andy's Masi Gran Criterium


Ben's Norther Lyon


Andrew's Rivendell Atlantis


Bob's Condor


Bill's Jeff Lyon

johnnyace 

More pics:


At the Biere Library in Corvallis

johnnyace 

The last of my pics:



Only one flat tire in three days (Andy); not bad!

gugie 

Salem to Corvallis

Didn't get many pics this day.


We stopped as needed to keep the peloton accordian tight, often just to get off our saddles to cool off our tushes

Bridge outside of Jefferson

I was surprised that we did that much climbing. Mostly these were comprised of rolling hills.

gugie 

Saw more of the Willamette River this day

2nd breakfast in Harrisburg. Our hotel in Corvallis had a meager breakfast, knowing that in advance the plan was to shift the route through Harrisburg, where we were rewarded with a wonderful country diner. This is the type of place that prides itself on their homemade cinnamon rolls and biscuits. Yum!

Just one of the great things about touring with Bob Freeman is he always brings a show quality bike with him. This time it was a fully restored 1955 Condor.

Here's Bob in 2019 from the Last Winter Tour of the Willamette Valley - same spot as last photo. That year he was riding his Jack Taylor Tour of Britain. Another show quality bike!


Rack 'em and stack 'em. Carefully. We got to Eugene around 1 and had some time to kill before our train left. And take care of some rehydration requirements. And sharing in veloship with a good bull session at a brewpub.

Proper bike hooks. Added cost to trip: $5. Using trains to complete a journey, or get you to the start is something I've done often. It's an old concept.



Our easiest day, also the hottest. We left Corvallis at 7am and for the most part beat the heat.

bikingshearer 

Great sounding trip. Thanks to all for letting us share in the fun, if only vicariously.

My son lives in Portland. I talked with him yesterday. He is not happy about the heat. Starting an quitting early was a smart call. But you knew that.

gaucho777 

Congrats on a successful Tour. Thanks for sharing the pics and ride reports so we could ride along virtually.

gugie 

In 2019 seven of us did this tour. It was more or less the same tour, day 1 route was mostly east of the Willamette, whereas we went on the west side this time. We were able to avoid about 15 miles of suburban stop and go riding this time. I think it was an improvement. We did stay at the exact same cheap motels.

Here's the Winter Tour 3 day weather:

Compare to this last weekend:


Really no difference, plenty of sun both times! Seriously, though, the strategy changed from leaving later to let it warm up a bit to leaving early to beat the heat. Clothing choices changed, of course.

Neal Lerner showing how to keep warm in 2019


Johnny keepin' cool. Easy for him, he's a real cool cat.

I like to take pictures of my kit and weigh it. Winter Tour, 15 pounds including handlebar and 11 liter saddle bag, Summer Tour 12 pounds with handlebar and 2 liter seat bag. You'd think there'd be more than 3 pounds difference!

I'm pretty sure there wasn't much of a difference in after ride beer consumption, but these pictures suggest otherwise.





A three day tour, 50-60 miles a day with very little climbing is a great way to get into doing something like this. Cheap hotels means not needing to buy or bring camping and cooking gear. Looking at the varation of bags used on our bikes you'll see there's more than one way to skin a cat. Bob used just a large, English style saddle bag. I put most of my kit in a large handlebag bag. You can use some saddle bags on a rear rack and have plenty of capacity. Once you start doing a few of these tours you figure out what works for you. @aggiegrads showed that platform pedals allows you to bring just normal shoes. @johnnyace used non-cycling shoes with toe clips and straps. I like SPD touring shoes that are walkable - they even look like light hiking shoes. Bob, Bill and @SquireBlack prefer cycling shoes. Funny thing is we all made it to the finish line.

Bring some tools, a pump, and spare tubes. Go with a group, if you need a tool you didn't bring odds are someone else has them. Lose your toiletry kit on the side of the road when you stopped to water a tree (Andrew, cough, cough)? There's a reason it's called a credit card tour...

Some of our riders were stronger than others - of course. Bob Freeman led one of the original Bikecentennial groups across the US in 1976. @aggiegrads had never been done multi-day tours outside of several S24O rides. It was common for us to stop every 10-15 miles to regroup, take pics, chug some water, eat something, or just rest our butts. We had lots of conversations about our choice of kit, and we learned from each other what worked - next time I'll add another couple of items.

Am I trying to talk you into trying out credit card touring? You bet! To paraphrase Will Rogers, I never met a bicycle tourist I didn't like.

Andy_K 

My only day 2 pics are sad ones. With temps topping 90 degrees, we were looking forward to the hotel pool in Corvallis. Sadly, we were met with this:



No, the water isn't crystal clear -- it's missing. On the wall, they had this solid piece of advice.




When I did this tour in winter in 2019, by the end of the first day I was considering hopping on a northbound train early. I didn't start feeling like I could make it until partway into day 3. This time around I felt much better, but I got off to a rough start on the third day. You know how some days you just feel like your brakes must be rubbing, or you've got a flat tire or something? That's how I felt at the start of day three. As I came to terms with the fact that I wasn't going to be able to keep up with the rest of the group, despite a complete lack of hills, I took a picture of them riding away.



After they stopped somewhere up the road to wait for me, it turned out that I did, in fact, have a slow leak in my rear tire that was starting to turn downright bouncy. I had just kind of assumed I was running out of steam. That may have been true too, but after an attempt to pump the tire up without repair failed, I did a proper change and felt much better after that. Here's a pic from our "second breakfast" stop on Sunday at the 99 Grill in Harrisburg (great place if you're even in the area).

Andy_K 

I think @johnnyace already had individual bike pics, but I'll post mine anyway. You can see the diversity of baggage options @gugie mentioned.

@gugie's Ritchey Breakaway


Bob's 1955 Condor


My 1974 Masi Gran Criterium (perhaps not what comes to mind when you think of a touring bike, but it worked)


@SquireBlack's Rivendell Atlantis


Ben's Norther-Lyon


Bill's Lyon


@johnnyace's 1975 Raleigh International (with a few post-market improvements)


@aggiegrads' Page Street

gugie 

@Andy_K points out something important. You don't need a touring bike to do credit card touring!

nlerner

Nice work, gents. I’ll point out two details of my vicarious presence:

1) It was sunny the whole time.
2) I once owned John’s International.

gugie 

Coincidence?
I think not.

So it is clear that Neal doesn't have to actually be physically present on a ride to guarantee good weather. It's only necessary to have some relic from his past present on the ride.

Spaghetti Legs 

Well done lads! I'm a little disappointed no one broke a pedal. Bill clearly wins the award for light traveller but, being a deep old file I wouldn't be surprised to learn he snuck gear into Andrew's trunk bag.

mhespenheide 

That Raleigh is beautiful! Is that after some of Gugie's work? I didn't think they ran cantilever brakes.

//edit: perhaps so, seeing a later comment in the thread!

johnnyace 

No, not gugie's work. In fact, if I remember correctly, the work was done prior to nlerner's ownership of the International, so it's a mystery as to who did the modifications, including the addition of cantilever brake mounts.