Oregon Hideaway: Ada

Living on the central Oregon coast provides many miles of pleasurable forested riding in the Coast Range, often with magnificent views of the Pacific Ocean. There are secret little spots tucked deeply into the primal woods, and there is no better way to discover them than by tricycle, a slow moving portal to realizing the totality of life as you move along inches from the ground, able to sense all that nature has to offer. A trike wanderer is out there in the midst of it all, in a way that exposes him to the grandeur of Planet Earth.

This ride began near the ocean, with cool breezes that build into the afternoon. Once up in the mountains, sheltered from the ocean wind, the full warmth of the sun made itself known as Matt and I pedaled up the hills through the forest. At the lake, the wind was blowing, bringing whitecaps across the water, which was ideal for another sport in which I used to engage: windsurfing. Once back at the coast, the weather cooled from the calm 73 degree inland temps.

Here are some photographs from a ride I took with my cycling buddy Matt Jensen. It was to a little woodsy resort on Siltcoos Lake, so well hidden and off the beaten tourist track that one must specifically have advanced knowledge of it in order to have any hope of even finding it! The farther one progresses towards Ada, the narrower and more rural the roads become, until it is what auto drivers would consider only one lane. Eventually, the pavement disappears several yards from the Ada resort, where folks in RVs can come during the summer months and park right at the shore.

On our cycling trip, Matt was riding his Long Haul Trucker bike, a reliable steed for bicycle touring, and I was riding my ICE Qnt, another reliable rig for the long haul. The round trip was just over 37 miles. We left my house at 10:30 AM, and returned at 4:30 PM, having kicked back at the lake for a while, along with stops at the bike shop and Safeway. It was a challenging test of one’s triking fitness level with all those steep, but sweet, mountain grades.

According to Matt’s electronic gizmos mounted to his handlebars (bike computer & GPS unit), here are some stats: Slowest speed traveled: 2 mph; Fastest speed traveled: 41 mph; Elevation gain/loss: somewhere over 3,000 feet; Calories burned: just over 2,000; Miles traveled: just over 37.

This ride to Ada Resort, a tiny little old place in the backwoods, is through hilly mountainous terrain, with the longest uphill slightly more than 1 mile in length, which means a low gear spin up, and a thrill ride down the other side – same on the return trip. I could definitely feel my inner quads burning at times, and today as I write this, my legs are experiencing a slight soreness, which I love, as I prepare for the 2013 Pacific Coast Tricycle Adventure, a ride of 1162 miles, but fully loaded with gear, unlike today, where I was running empty.

I ate 5 energy bars at our half way point at the resort, on a picnic table at the waterfront of the lake. The wind was howling across the water. It felt nice to sit in the sun. The 1100 total calories of the 5 bars supplied just over half the burned calories of the ride. I was again hungry for dinner!