Eight more days until my next bicycle touring adventure.  Actually, I should say "our" adventure because this time my sons, Dante (16) and Kaden (18) will be joining me.  How I talked them into this I don't know, but once one agreed, the other did too.  The route this time is the Oregon Outback Bikepacking Route.  It is a North/South route mountain bike route between Klamath Falls and Deschutes River State Recreation Area at the OR/WA border.  I really enjoyed riding the Great Diving Mountain Bike Route in 2022 and at least for now an leaning toward any future tours as also being mostly off road.  Its nice to get away from the noise and risks that some cars and car drivers create on the road.  I also like that these types of routes get much further into the wilderness. 

I will be posting on this site for anybody who wants to follow our ride.  My posts may only be every couple of days, when I have cell service.  You can also see where we are and follow our progress here.  The password is 0utb@ck24!  First character is a zero.  Do not use "go" on your phone when entering it on the site.  You must press "enter" on the website instead.  At least that was the case with my wife's phone.  The GPS unit I am using will update our position every 10 minutes throughout each day (except when I inevitably forget to turn it on in the morning).  One thing to be aware of is that the mileage and average speed info tends to be way off.  Since the app assumes straight lines between locations 10 minutes apart it fails to account for a lot of the side to side movement along the way.  I don't plan to do a post on our equipment but if anybody has any questions just message me.  Same for any sort of "how to" questions.

Today I spent most of the day unpackaging, sorting, and loading the various clothing, gear, etc. that I have either pulled from my garage shelves or purchased over the last several months.  A dozen or so items ended up being removed from the pile before loading the bikes since the space in our bags is pretty limited.  Pictures of the starting pile (on top of the hood of the Mustang and on the floor) and our loaded up bikes, appear below.  Kaden's bike being the heaviest loaded is not a coincidence.  He is a stronger rider than me at this point and regularly leaves Dante and I behind without even trying.  I figure his load might slow him down a bit.

My bike - considerably lighter than when I did the divide due to there being no fork bags and no top tube bags:

Dante's bike - He gets to use the fork cages and bags, along with a trunk bag (which will be almost entirely filled with whatever food we carry):

Kaden's bike - vintage 1980s Cannondale panniers with some of our heaviest items in them:

These trusty steeds are what we will be doing about 45 miles a day on, for about 8 days.  I am keeping the daily mileage somewhat low, both because I don't want to push Kaden and Dante too hard and turn them off to the whole endeavor, and because riding on dirt is just a bit harder.  Me getting older probably has something to do with it too.