(September 17 – written by Dave)

We are back from the 2023 Cycle Oregon Classic – wow, what a week. We worked hard, rode hard (almost 400 miles in total), made new friends, caught up with old friends and slept very little. Last night, our first night back, we slept 10 hours and by mid-afternoon today, are thinking about taking a nap.

I took brief notes on most days but really hadn’t thought about how to stitch a post together until I looked at the week’s photos this morning. It was sort of old-time-retro fun having a whole week’s worth of photos to look at – just like the old days when you got your film roll pictures back from the developer (I know, showing my age). The photos show just a snippet of the beauty of Oregon, as seen from the back of a bicycle with 1200 friends.

Cycle Oregon finds great back roads

The Cycle Oregon organization finds some amazing back roads to send us down. I’ll bet we cycled roads that even locals are not familiar with. Some of these road surfaces are not a smooth as you’d normally like and you have to be careful of bumps but overall, getting lost in your own backyard is fun. Here are some fun photos and random thoughts on these great back roads.

Nossa coffee crew work is hard

The week starts bright and sparkly. It rolls through various stages of fog and confusion, with moments of awe to watching the team manage the lines of coffee-seeking riders out front of the coffee tent with a smile. It ends with everyone tired but also very satisfied. Along the way you make friends with new teammates and talk to lots of interesting and grateful repeat customers. I particularly enjoyed working on the brew team with super humble Kyle – he is THE roaster at Nossa. He knows more about coffee than I could ever imagine and personally roasted every single bean in the van. And, to top it off, he rode the whole last day, 70 miles, his longest ride ever, in jeans!  Some coffee crew highlights follow.

“Rest days” are fun

We had two layover days on this COC. These days we get an extra hour sleep and can choose to ride all, none or part of the route. We took the partial ride option on the first layover day, riding only 20 miles out and back to the Pelican Brewery in Pacific City. We were nearly first in the queue when they opened, got a great ocean front table and had a fantastic meal (best meal of the trip). On the second layover day we didn’t ride at all. A full free day meant that we could see all the sites in Toledo, Oregon (pop. ~3500). The locals we met were super glad to have us visit. We hit the railroad and town museums, plus had berry pie in a local diner. The point of all this of course is to remember that it’s not all about getting in every mile and smashing every climb – sometimes smelling the flowers and getting off the bike is the best thing to do, even on a bike ride. Photo highlights follow.

Sign fun

In keeping with the theme of “it’s not all about the bike”, I snapped the photos below when they tickled my funny bone during the week. On the first day, I was too heads down riding to stop for a “mobile game slaughtering“ sign (no, I’m not making that up). Within minutes, I regretted the choice of not stopping and promised myself I’d slow down. By the end of the week I had switched from “racer-pacer” mode to bike tourist mode. This gave me some cool, remember that moments we used to have when we had our film developed. It should also get me in the right mood for our trip to Japan starting this week. The “attitude is everything” photos follow.

Cycle Oregon Classic is done but…

This may be the last COC but maybe not. The CO organization has some new rides up their sleeves – a 5 day ride next year and who knows what else? They were coy with future plans but clearly are not going away. We hope to be back on a future CO and of course, part of another Nossa crew. Thanks again to Augusto and the Nossa crew for a great week.

That’s it for COC 2023 – check back the end of this week for our first post from Japan. Click the Follow button on our home page if you’d like to receive regular updates from that trip.