Days: 9 - 6 days of riding
Level: Moderate
Mileage: 52 ave - 258 total
Start/Finish: Portland, OR
Price: $1250

 

Meals: All included except 2 dinners.
Restaurants: independant dinners in Burns
Motels: 2 nights at motel in Burns
Events & Activities: none


The remoteness of the Steen’s Mountain area is both an allure and a challenge for the serious bicyclist. But the allure of riding the state highest public roadway (9700 ft.) is dampened a bit when you find out that it is a gravel roadway. If you are going to ride up to the summit then you will want a fat tire bike, but the rest of the week you will long for more of a skinny tired road bike. We will choose to ride skinny tired bikes and then ride the bus up to the Steen's Mountain summit on our layover day.

On Saturday we depart Portland and head east into Central Oregon. We will camp near Prineville Reservoir to stage for our ride the next morning.

Our first days ride is a long gentle climb up the Crooked River drainage. Over 45 miles we will climb about 2300 vertical feet as we work our way up into the Ochoco National Forest. Once we come to the summit we have a few more miles to ride before we come to our campground at Delintment Lake.

The prior days hard work climbing up into the mountains is rewarded with a beautiful ride through the pine forests as we gradually drop down into Burns. In Burns we check into a motel for the night because there are no good campsites around for miles. Guests are free to wander the town and to pick a restaurant of their choice.

 

The next morning we head south to Frenchglen, the gateway to Steens Mountain. For our morning break we will stop at the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge where you should see a good number of the 320 species of birds that have been observed in the Refuge. Continuing south along the Donner and Blitzen River we ride on in to Frenchglen were we will spend a couple of nights.

For our layover day we will take a day trip in the bus up to the top of Steens Mountain. At the top we will take time to hike around a bit and have lunch.

For those who have not gotten enough riding in yet the SAG wagon will accompany you to Fields and back - a nice even 100 miles if you like to ride centuries.

The next day we head north back the way that we came. After about 18 miles we turn towards Diamond as we explore new territory. After a morning break in Diamond we continue on to the Peter French Round Barn where we will stop for lunch so that you can walk the short way in to the barn to take a look. In the afternoon we continue our ride north through Princeton and on into Crane for the night.

The next morning we have sort 30 mile ride in to Burns where we finish our ride. We will check into the motel again in Burns so that we can get cleaned up before our ride back into Portland the next day.

 

Tour details may change without notice. Although you'll have an up-to-date itinerary prior to departure,
changes due to unforeseen circumstances may occur at any time.