2023 recap of new tour options, looking to the future

by Peter Wendel, Touring Committee

2023 Recap

The 2023 Touring season saw an expansion of our traditional offerings - here's a list of tours that were new or modified in a significant way this year -

Ride to the Ride – Brownsville (New!)

This was an early-season shakedown ride to the City park in Brownsville.  Some members rode fully loaded, some car camped just to be part of the event.

Spring Overnight - Independence (New!) and Willamette Mission State park

The club's traditional 'practice' tour to Willamette Mission was supplemented this year with an option for a shorter ride and an overnight stay at the Boater/Biker Campground in Independence.  Some members camped at each location.

Spring gravel trip - Steens Mountain (Sorta New – a different route in a different part of the state!)

The club has offered a Spring Gravel Tour option for several years.  This trip explored the very south eastern corner of the state with a three-night, four day supported tour that began and ended at Crystal Crane Hotsprings resort.

Spring Gravel Camp - Camp Sherman (New!)

This is a new event that was very well received and will likely become an annual long-weekend event in early June

Crater Lake Rim Ride on one of the car-free weekends (Kinda new to be in on the car-free weekend promoted by local groups and the National Park Service)

The club has a long tradition of a Crater Lake Rim Ride. This year we piggy-backed onto a more broadly organized car-free weekend ride.  There will be discussions to decide if we continue to join the car-free weekend or do our own planning to ride the rim at a less crowded time.

Coast Range Gravel Adventure (New 3^rd night campsite at Leaping Lamb Farm!)

This popular Fall tour tried out a new campsite at Leaping Lamb Farm near Alsea. Feedback suggests that this campsite could be key for developing other short tours based in Corvallis.

Planning for 2024

The Touring Committee has already met once to start planning for tours under consideration for 2024

You can take a look at what is already scheduled by visiting the Club’s online calendar – http:/calendar.mvbc.com

Under discussion but still to be added –

Ride to the Ride – Brownsville – April 12-14 (tentative)

Spring Gravel Tour in Eastern Oregon 

Hub and Spoke rides out of Baker City?

Baker City to the Wallowas loop?

Ochoco loop in the Mitchell area?

Mini Loop

Harlan Gravel Camp

Tour de Honeyman – 5-night, 6-day tour with Honeyman State Park as the halfway point

How to submit your tour ideas

We are working on a model that allows any club member to take on planning and leading a tour. The process starts by making suggestions for possible tours in 2024 to the Touring Committee.  When suggesting a tour, give us a description including the route and campsites, any special logistics, like how meals will be done, remoteness, SAG considerations, road surfaces anticipated, etc. We will review tour ideas and add them to a member survey we will be sending out in November.  That survey will ask for members’ input on their interest in doing the tours and if you are willing to help with organizing. Survey results will guide the priorities for developing new tours for the 2024 program.

Tour suggestions can be emailed to touring@mvbc.com. 

Covered Bridge Bicycle Tour recap

by Rick and Sam, CBBT Co-directors

The numbers are in and it’s clear that our 2023 CBBT was successful. In spite of the heat, we had more than 500 registered riders (about 450 did the ride), and thanks to our great volunteers all went well. And, similar to last year, we generated more than $10,000 (after expenses) that will be used to support bike education and safety in our community.

We are very grateful to you and all of the volunteers who made it happen. We need new volunteers every year so please encourage others to be a volunteer; it’s fun and you're helping our club do good things. Those who are interested should contact Rick (sopints@gmail.com) or Sam (1samstern@gmail.com).

This year we opened up registration in January because of a potential scheduling conflict with a nearby ride. As it turned out, the other ride changed their date so as to not conflict with CBBT and relatively few people registered from January to March. So, next year we plan to start registration on April 1st. This will give us time to get the t-shirt design completed, and have the costs and images on the web site when people register.

We’ll begin our monthly planning meetings (second Monday of the month) in March 2024.

Thanks everyone and, as always, if you have questions, suggestions, or concerns, let us know.

Editors note: A big thanks goes out to co-directors Rick Olson and Sam Stern for countless hours throughout the year leading up to our annual fundraiser. 

Coast Range Gravel Adventure sees sunny days

by Tracy Hug

The 6th annual Coast Range Gravel Adventure (CRGA) was a great success. We had one night of light rain at Big Elk but never had to ride in the rain. The recent rains had settled some of the dust on the roads and cooler temperatures made for pleasant hill climbing. It did not rain on the coast at all and we had lots of sunshine days 3 and 4.

We had a group of nine riders this year and no one needed or chose to ride with the SAG at any point. We had club members from Eugene (2), Bend (2), Dallas (1) and the other four were from the local area. MVBC President (and one of the primary founders of the CRGA ride), Paul Liberman volunteered to be the SAG driver and he did a fantastic job of keeping track of our wandering group.

Early in the year, Christi Raunig had volunteered to do the planning for the CRGA and decided to try shifting the ride dates to a Thursday to Sunday trip. Previous years rides had been Friday through Monday and riders experienced noisy RV neighbors (think generators at 3 a.m.) the first night camping at Big Elk Friday and heavy, big truck traffic on Bellfountain on Monday. The shift of start date was successful for decreasing the noise in camp AND the truck traffic! (A big thanks to Christi for her insight into a small change that could really improve the experience on the trip.)

The riders took the typical route up Woods Creek for day 1, but chose an alternative route this year out Lobster Valley for day 3. No one had a problem with the 54 mile day, and everyone seemed to enjoy camping at a new site: Leaping Lamb Farm. While staying at the farm, we camped in a big open field, had access to hot showers and a large open barn area to park bikes out of the dew for the night. We gathered together to enjoy our final camp meal and watch the sunset.

Rides like this do not happen without the time and energy of volunteers: Christi Raunig who did the planning, Paul Liberman who drove SAG. The CRGA includes the C2C trail and club members continue to volunteer to help maintain sections of the trail. A group also did work at the Big Elk campground area prior to the trip. If you would like to help plan a tour or event, please visit the volunteer section on our website. 

See the CRGA photo album for more photos. You can find out more about upcoming club events here: Member Events.