Cycle Oregon revisits arduous climb

BAKER CITY, Ore. – Cycle Oregon, the state’s biggest bike ride, will return to Baker County in September, and leg muscles must be aching and lungs burning at the mere mention of the cyclist’s route.

This year is the 19th version of the annual event in which about 2,000 cyclists pedal around a part of Oregon for a week.

The 2006 tour revisits a local mountain road that, when it was included in the 1999 tour, rendered hundreds of riders cold, thirsty and exhausted long before they had reached the day’s overnight stop in Haines.

That road is the Elkhorn Drive Scenic Byway. As they did seven years ago, cyclists will have to ascend the west wall of the Elkhorn Mountains to 7,392-foot Elkhorn Summit near Anthony Lakes, the second-highest point reached by a paved road in Oregon. (The highest, 7,900 feet, is along the Rim Road at Crater Lake.)

In 1999, riders climbed to that summit during an 82-mile day that started in Ukiah and finished in Haines. But an estimated 600 riders rolled into Haines that evening in a bus rather than on a bicycle seat.

The 19-degree weather in Ukiah that morning delayed many riders’ departure, and the miles of steep slopes between Ukiah and Elkhorn Summit slowed their progress.

Some riders, after arriving later than they expected at the lunch stop at Anthony Lakes, decided not to even start the steep and sinuous descent of the Elkhorns in the dark.

Later, officials in Haines issued a statement criticizing Cycle Oregon organizers for picking a route that was too long and too difficult.

Numerous riders were forced to ride after dark, hundreds were stranded on the mountainside for hours, and many arrived in camp with what appeared to be severe dehydration and hypothermia, the statement read.

Jonathan Nicholas, a columnist for the Portland Oregonian and a Cycle Oregon organizer, said the one-day route on the 2006 tour that includes the Elkhorn Summit climb is designed to be less strenuous than the one-day ride in the 1999 event that covered the same climb.

“We hope it’s going to be a much more comfortable ride for people,” Nicholas said. “Every day is a balance. We want to make it a challenge, but not so you’re pushing people to the limit.”

There are two main differences between this year’s route and the 1999 version, Nicholas said.

First, riders will not have pedaled as far as they did in 1999, or climbed as much, when they reach the Elkhorn Summit climb on this year’s Cycle Oregon.

Second, the day after the Elkhorns ascent is set aside as a rest day, when cyclists can either languish in Union or take a 91-mile tour to Baker City and back.