We decided to try to beat our longest ride record. The farthest we’d ridden previously was 70 very flat miles on the Coeur d’Alene trail in Idaho. This time we’d be riding a bit more hilly route from Banks to Birkenfeld and back. We’ve ridden from Banks to Vernonia and back on multiple occasions so we knew we could handle that 40 miles. It was the other 40, beyond Vernonia that we weren’t sure about.

After following their journal since shortly after they started I couldn’t pass up the chance to meet the Millers as they neared the end of their cross country ride. To make that happen we packed up our bike and headed to Coburg about 6:30 last Saturday morning. We parked at the Armitage County Park and started pedaling east on the TransAm. It’s a good thing I was curious enough to buy some ACA Maps a month or so ago otherwise the task would have been much harder.

We went on our first bicycle camping trip on Friday night. We went to Champoeg State Park,  toting 4 full panniers and our tent. It was a lot harder to ride our tandem when fully loaded than usual. We rode over 25 miles each way. It was a rather warm day for May - over 80°.