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Tualatin Valley Scenic Bikeway: where to park our car for a few days?

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Tualatin Valley Scenic Bikeway: where to park our car for a few days?

Old 01-29-21, 07:44 AM
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Cat Daddy
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Tualatin Valley Scenic Bikeway: where to park our car for a few days?

A buddy of mine and I are planning a short tour along the Tualatin Valley Scenic Bikeway, which starts in the Hillsboro area and ends in Vernonia. We plan to camp overnight at Stubb Stewart state park, and then stay overnight in Vernonia. On the third day we're going to ride from Vernonia back to Hillsboro along the TVSB. My big question is, where do we find a safe place to park our vehicle? So far my best idea has been for us to stay at a motel (a couple miles from Rood Bridge park) and pay them a fee to let us park our car in their lot, and just tack on the additional mileage to our bike trip. Any other ideas?

Thanks!
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Old 02-01-21, 01:16 PM
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Originally Posted by Cat Daddy
A buddy of mine and I are planning a short tour along the Tualatin Valley Scenic Bikeway, which starts in the Hillsboro area and ends in Vernonia. We plan to camp overnight at Stubb Stewart state park, and then stay overnight in Vernonia. On the third day we're going to ride from Vernonia back to Hillsboro along the TVSB. My big question is, where do we find a safe place to park our vehicle? So far my best idea has been for us to stay at a motel (a couple miles from Rood Bridge park) and pay them a fee to let us park our car in their lot, and just tack on the additional mileage to our bike trip. Any other ideas?

Thanks!
So the area around Rood Bridge is pretty safe. If you're staying within a few miles, you could probably park a lot of places on street and be fine for three days...most towns around here allow 2-3 days of on-street parking with no questions. There's a church on River Road pretty close to Rood Bridge Park...Singing Hills Christian Chruch...that might be fine with you parking in their lot for a couple days, but you'd have to check with them, and no, I don't have any prior contact with them. Even closer would be Minter Bridge Elementary School...again, you'd want to ping them ahead and get permission. And if you come up with a better place to park/stay further away, the metro area has an excellent bus system with bike racks on nearly every bus that can get you within striking distance.

Be sure you get reservations for Stubb Stewart now. The Banks-Vernonia Trail is where I do a lot of my summer riding. You'll go right by Fern Hill Wetlands south of Forest Grove (where I live), and that's a nice stop for a bio-break...decent bathroom, a few picnic tables. There's also a campground at the Vernonia end of the trail which takes reservations and has a few tent-only sites: Anderson Park. In Vernonia, Blue Cafe is bike-friendly/centric...actually has parking for bikes inside. I often ride from Banks up to Vernonia, do a lap around the lake (short, fairly pretty) and then come back...that's a 43 mile day, which is pretty good for me. Be advised that the BVT is a serious MUP...during good weather, there will be lots of runners, cyclists, equestrians (and horse poop) along the trail. There are a couple places where the path crosses gravel roads, and those require a little attention. And about 12 miles above Banks, there's a set of steep switchbacks on both sides of OR47 that get the path down to highway level to cross. Log trucks and other cross-traffic come roaring through there and have the ROW. I have seen plenty of cyclists wipe out coming down the switchbacks too fast, and plenty keel over trying to climb them in too high a gear.

Where are coming from? And when?

--Richard
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Old 02-07-21, 05:29 PM
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A couple more suggestions nearby your starting point.

1) Meriweather National Golf Club...it's private, but I've been there for a couple (non-golf) work events, and there's a lot of parking and the staff seemed fairly cool. You'd have to contact them first, of course, but it's the next thing south from Rood Bridge. And I would expect car-clouting to be not a thing there.

2) South Meadows Middle School/Witch Hazel Elementary (they share a large parking area behind the two schools). Less than a mile from the park. Again, you'd want to get permission ahead, but I can't imagine them saying no. Hillsboro High School is even closer, but my gut feeling is that there might be more opportunists among the older kids.
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