Steens Mountain, May 31 - June 3

For the first destination trip specifically dedicated to rolling, we went way, way out there to the promised land of Steens Mountain and remote SE Oregon. This is the edge of Basin and Range country. It's huge and there's no one there. Good place to get and stay lost.

Dave and I stayed at the Malheur Field Station for four days and explored roads from Burns to East Steens Road. What a place.

As with any first exploratory trip, much time went to R&D, though we also did some darn good rolling and had tons of fun in the land of Peter French.

Photos from the trip here. Yes, I know there are some spots in pics. Turns out my digital piece in camera body has had flecks on it for the last few years. Agh!!

Saturday, May 31

Got an early start from Portland, stopped by Webskis in Bend along the way for a backup pair of roller skis, and were in Burns by early afternoon. Another 30 miles south (30 miles in Harney County is like a block in Manhattan - you think nothing of going another 50, 100 miles) and we hit the field station.

Settled in to our very own mobile home named "Stilt". It's a two bedroom with a full bathroom and kitchen. Everything you need in the absolute middle of nowhere. Great base camp. And at $60 a night, it's reasonable. We were two, but you could fit four.

In the evening we tried our wheels on the beautiful and very smooth 5.5 mile section of road that goes east from the Burns - Frenchglen road (Route 205) to the field station and Malheur Refuge. Google doesn't show this road, but it would be along the bottom of Malheur Lake in this map.

We rolled up and down this road in some brief rain showers and rainbows. Beautiful weather. We were psyched to roll. And no bugs yet! I had my cow suit on. Figured that might be a good way to meet local ranchers. Dave was dressed all in black, as was appropriate on our top secret undercover mission. Shhhh! Don't tell anyone about Steens. And definitely don't tell them it's a good place for adventure roller skiing.

Sunday, June 1

First day, so why wait? We rolled 76 miles.

In the same map referenced above, we went from Princeton at the SE end of Malheur Lake up to Crane and on to Burns, and then back, a distance of 38 miles each way. We were both tired at the end of the day, but it wasn't too bad. No camera, no pics unfortunately.

What we got, aside from sore legs, was an immediate immersion in the intricacies of what will no doubt become the single most important subject to obsess about in this sport. There are connoisseurs of wines, cheeses, breads, birds. XC skiers are manic about snow. What we, as rollers, are about to become is OCD connoisseurs of road surfaces.

It's all about the road surface. I mean it's ALL about the road surface. Everything else (hills, traffic, mad dogs [well, maybe...]) matters a whole lot less. You want a nice smooth road, and when you don't have that, it's not as fun.

Dave and I both had small, hard wheels, so smooth surfaces allowed us to go rocket fast, especially downhill. On smooth pavement I was able to easily double pole along (no legs) indefinitely at sub 5:00 minute / mile pace. Could do that all day long.

But as soon as you hit the dreaded chip seal (a cheaper, rougher surface favored on remote western roads) you slow way down and the vibrations increase a lot. After a few hours of that it gets painful.

This is a picture of some pretty chunky chip seal (with which, incidentally, my partner's knee, elbows and chest were to have a close encounter on Monday - more on that later). See how rough the texture is? Rolling on that will rattle your teeth out. Unless you're going down that hill at 40 MPH wondering if a truck is coming around the corner. Then you have other things to worry about.

In comparison, this is baby bottom smooth pavement. Oooooooh, baby! World of difference. They say old time rollers can just listen to the road while driving and know what kind of roll it's gonna be. Smooth, ragged, or what.

Speaking of that, we are already talking about the need for a road surface rating system, akin to climbing grades, so rollers can obsess and curl each other's hair with tall tales. "So we started out on 10 miles of premium 2A+, and we were laughing. Then BAM - right into 20 miles of the ugliest 5D you can imagine. It vibrated the bolts out of my wheels." "Hey, I hear there's a new 100 mile section of grade 1 freshly laid in Death Valley. You goin' out?"

Like any other human activity, we have different uses and designs on things. We have plans. A roller sees a road and instantly starts to size it up. Will it roll? A graffiti artist sees a blank wall. Oh the potential!

Our trip to Burns and back featured a number of grades, from utopian smooth (sounds like a Ben & Jerry's flavor) to junkyard dog rough. Grrr. After a few hours on that I had a permanent scowl welded on my face. Not only is rough pavement uncomfortable and slow, it eats your wheels. Poor Dave's wheels were eaten alive by the piranha surface, and he had to rotate them regularly as they dwindled down to the plastic centers.

Going out, somewhere in the one house town of Lawen (well, actually it was in front of that one house) a pack of about 20 semi civilized dogs appeared on the roadway ahead of us and made themselves known. This is a road where you might go a long time before a car passes. It looked extremely ugly, and I found a rock. Dave went right ahead and they parted, Red Sea like, just enough to let us through. Another 20 dogs (maybe these were the real hardened criminal types, with a taste for well-conditioned, endurance athlete flesh) bayed maniacally from their pens behind the house. Thank god they couldn't get out. No humans in evidence. If they didn't film "Texas Chainsaw Massacre" at this house, they ought to have.

It was good for our pace, though. You didn't want to linger. Coming back several hours later, somehow we got by the dogs before they noticed us, and boy were they unhappy when they realized their mistake. By that time they were so many specks in the rear view mirror. I was prepared to V2 like Thomas Alsgaard to outrun the beasts.

All in all, a super day. Just being "out there" for hours on end is part of the fun. It took us about four hours travel time each way - and an hour in Ye Olde Castle (real name) in Burns for some pancakes at the halfway point.