Today we finished the tour with a fantastic ride across the car free McKenzie Pass and back down to Rainbow.

When we woke up this morning, we checked the weather again. It still looked much more favorable for our final ride than tomorrow. No rest day for us.

We already paid for the room for the second night. Instead of trying to cancel, we decided to keep it in case we decided to bail. The room has a code on the door, so there would be nothing to physically check out. Anne told the innkeep our plan, and arranged to text later to check out.

As we were getting ready, we spied a deer and a tiny fawn next to the parking lot. We see a group of deer last night on the way home from the grocery store. We haven’t seen a lot of large animals on the trip. I guess they’re all hanging out within the Sisters city limits.

Our route for today would take us over McKenzie Pass on highway 242. The road is still not technically open from the winter, but it’s something of an open secret that there’s a few week window between when it’s cleared of snow and when they open the gates. Bikes can take advantage of the window. It’s unclear to me if it’s legal to be there, or just weakly enforced.

But first we had a nine mile climb through the forest to get to the gate. We saw a steady stream of cyclists headed up along with us, giving us more confidence the closed road would be passable. Some paused to ask us about our adventure. Nobody else had children or a touring load.

There was also a slower stream of gravel trucks and pickups with construction company logos. Word was that there are sometimes crews working on the road past the gate. We originally scheduled today’s rest day to hopefully avoid construction. But then we saw a gravel truck turn off on a side road, and didn’t see any after that. Evidently they were working on a different project.

The temperature was cool, but highly manageable. The grade picked up, so my legs kept plenty warm. As we got higher the wind, mostly a headwind, got stronger.

We came to the gate. “Road closed,” “authorized personnel only,” and for a real kicker, “extreme danger.” But you could see the bike tire tracks going around the gate. As we were finagling our bikes past, a fellow cyclists came by and rolled around the gate without stopping. I guess we were in the right place.

The rest of the climb was fantastic. A little cool, a headwind, but no cars. We heard a report from another climbing cyclist that it was snowing at the top, but we were still a long way away.

We decided on an early lunch, to avoid eating at the summit where it would at least be the coldest. I found an indent in the hill to the left that acted as a windbreak. In the sun, out of the wind, it was quite pleasant. Ruth sat and ate. Max tromped around and played with sticks.

The last few miles before the summit the terrain changes from forest to lava fields – a vast expanse of black rocks with very little vegetation. At first it’s just on one side, with forest (much scarred by a recent fire) on the other. At the end the road snakes through the rocks. It’s like an alien landscape.

And then, the summit, the Dee Wright observatory, built out of the same black rock. But with no cars it’s a bike party. People resting after the long climb (or the longer climb from the other side). People having lunch. People regrouping, or just hanging out.

The kids ran off to climb around the observatory. Anne and I eventually caught up and enjoyed the 360° view of the surrounding mountains. There was no snow falling, though plenty of it in big clumps scattered across the landscape. It was cool, maybe in the 40s, but clear skies, sunny, and great visibility.

Eventually it was time to get dressed for the descent and mount back up. The descent started slowly, still through the lava fields. There were some short uphills, making me rethink my clothing choices.

Then it dropped. The road quickly descended back into forest, with ever-thinning snow at the sides. There were a few bits that needed further clearing for cars – a fallen tree blocking half a lane here, a two-foot rock there. The descent featured many more winding turns and switchbacks than the climb.

We passed a few cyclists climbing. While we were stopped for a picture, one stopped to chat. He had seen us while driving near Mt Bachelor two days ago.

Unusually I say descents are all too short. Not this one. We only climbed about 2000 feet to the summit. By the time we crossed the west gate (this one with just a simple “road closed” sign) we had dropped most of that. But we still had tons of elevation banked from earlier in the tour and were only halfway done. This descent delivers, and keeps delivering.

The temperature warmed considerably as we got lower. We removed some cool weather gear, and put away the green torpedo that had been keeping Max warm for much of the last three days. And he was ready for it.

Everybody goes a little loopy on bike trips. Ruth was in the rain yesterday. Now, free of his green cocooned prison, it was Max’s turn. He pedaled furiously on the downhill.

Anne, pulling both kids at this point, called for help on an uphill by telling the kids to pedal “like a breakfast burrito” (I don’t know what that means either; she and I had both long since gone loopy). Max took offense to this and shouted out “breakfast burritos are tiny. I’m humongous!” It sounds like we finally found Max’s biking name, Humongous Breakfast Burrito.

Even after the gate, traffic stayed very light until turning into 126 for the last few miles before the hotel. Even with a wide shoulder and a slight downhill, it was a reminder of just how wonderful it was to get McKenzie Pass car free.

We took a quick detour at the end to check out a covered bridge. This bridge formed the very start of the last time we did this tour, so it made a nice bookend.

Our hotel reservation isn’t until tomorrow night, but we were hoping we could pull it forward. As we arrived, the no vacancy sign was lit. As I resigned myself to loading up the car and driving into Eugene to find a room, Anne went inside and managed to secure “the apartment”, a suite bigger than the apartment Anne and I first shared, for only a modest upcharge on our original basic room reservation. So no driving tonight, except to get dinner.

Today’s ride made an excellent end to the tour. The weather was fantastic. The road was fantastic. While Anne was getting the room, Ruth was talking to me about how we should do this tour a third time in another eight years.

The kids made me proud throughout the trip. We asked a lot of them – long hours on the bike, bad weather, limited entertainment. They put up with it all. It wasn’t always with a smile, but they found the fun in it with us grown ups. I’m looking forward to the next trip. Though maybe without snow.

We tried to outrun the rain today. But the rain won.

We had two route options prepared for today. One was essentially the ride we did last time, relatively short and to the point. The other was a longer way around, hitting some new (to us) roads. We decided to go for the longer ride.

The morning had us weaving through many roundabouts through Bend. One intersection was closed for construction, so we had to find a detour. Cities always take longer to navigate.

Finally we made it out of the city, and descended down into a valley. It was a mix of farms and ranches, fancy pants houses, and gravel quarries.

We were riding around one of Oregon’s scenic bikeways. But this one at least was only signed in one direction of the loop, making it clear transportation/touring isn’t a goal of the bikeway.

We paused for lunch just after passing highway 126. This was one of our bail out options. 126 would lead directly to Sisters, shaving some 20 miles from the route. The morning had already been long. The weather was nice, if a bit chilly, but we knew there was a chance of rain in the mid-afternoon. We decided to take the direct, if less scenic and busier, option.

126 was much like 58, but straighter and with a consistent shoulder. It was a shallow climb much of the way, with a few dips along the way to keep it interesting. Since this was off our prepared route, we had no cuesheet (just keep going) or elevation profile to watch. Anne’s bike computer kept trying to reroute us back to the prepared route. We had to navigate Daddy style, by watching mile markers.

We could see grey clouds ahead. It grew cooler and darker. The mountains disappeared in the clouds. More of the oncoming traffic had their headlights on.

On the climb out of the last dip, with seven miles to go, it started to rain. Just a few drops, at first. We decided to finish the climb then gear up.

By the time we got there, it was properly raining. As we raced to get the kids in rain mode it got even more intense. My pile of gloves and booties blew off my bike, but Ruth rescued me. Max was quickly safe in the green torpedo, but Ruth had a harder time. She’s exposed on the tandem, and no amount of gear really keeps you totally dry. I ended up giving her my arm warmers to use as bonus gloves.

By the time we were good to go, the rain had died down. But we weren’t about to stop again. Until we heard a scraping coming from the rear of the tandem, that is.

After a brief investigation, we determined it was a wire that had become embedded in the tire, scraping against the fender. Anne pulled it out, didn’t see any bubbles suggesting a leak, and we continued on. I watched the tire for the rest of the ride, and it’s still good. Score another for Schwalbe Marathon Plus.

As we rode the last few miles, the rain intensified again. I could hear Ruth cackling ahead of me, so I knew she was in good spirits, or at least the right kind of crazy. Passing cards occasionally splashed us, but we managed to avoid any walls of water.

As we rolled through downtown Sisters, the rain slowed again. By the time we stopped at the motel, it had stopped. The bikes had mostly dried by the time we were checked in, though I still wiped them down with the rags packed for that purpose.

Fortunately, the room has a lot of hooks we can hang the rain gear on. We picked up pizza from down the street with no jackets, even though it was really too cold for that, since the jackets were still too wet to be useful.

Our plan had been to take tomorrow as a rest day, before concluding the tour over McKenzie Pass. The road is technically still closed, but cyclists can ride it. Rumor has it construction crews operate Monday through Thursday, so we were going to wait until Friday. Plus a day of rest would do everybody good.

But, the weather looks much better tomorrow than Friday. It’ll be warmer and much less likely to rain. So we’re probably going to skip the rest day. Hopefully we can get the rain gear dry enough so it can keep us warm again.