Fifty Plus (50+) - Oregon Coast ride-Yaquina River

After a cloudy, overcast, and sometimes rainy weekend, the weather improved Monday.

I took Monday off from riding for some "work", but today (Tuesday) was very nice, so 3 of us decided to head up the Yaquina Bay Road along the Yaquina River to Toledo.

This is about a 12-13 mile ride (one way), all along the river except for a short, steep up & down hill just before Toledo.

This first picture is the two other riders I was with, "posing" on the way up the river, about 5 miles inland.

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After passing me, looking up the river:

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We met up w/another of our riders out for his morning ride. He was heading down river, but turned around and rode back up with the 3 of us for 2-3 miles.

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This is the remains of a very old (1880’s) railroad line that ran along the river. The road we are riding on is essentially the old railroad bed along the river.

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Another of us “JRA” (just riding along). This one and several others were taken “on the fly” while I was riding.

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This is a boat repair shop and dock. Smaller commercial salmon fishing boats use this dock to spend the winter somewhat sheltered from the big winter storms down at the ocean, 6-8 miles west. Then they make repairs, paint, and get ready for the fishing season.

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JRA again along the river.

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Start of “the hill” going into Toledo, OR (about 1 mile further along). This hill is about .6 mile long. The other 2 riders turned around here. One had already been over it. The other one had to return to town for business reasons. We went into Toledo for a rest stop and then headed back down river.

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Up the hill he goes...

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Fellow rider coming back down the hill on the way back to Newport. With a little pedaling from the top, we regularly hit 40mph here.

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View of the Yaquina River heading back down stream. The old pilings are from way back when they were used to tie up rafts of logs for a big lumber mill that was in Toledo until the 1960-1970’s.

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Another view of the old railroad trestle and the river.

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Mostly flat, but we are now riding into the wind (10-15mph) for about 8+ miles back to Newport.

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Another river view. The floats and the building on the right are an oyster farm. If you are into oysters, you can get raw oyster shooters here (YUCK) or buy some to take home, either in the shell or shucked.

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About 4.5 miles up the river still. Just about here, the river becomes the bay…it gets wider. Newport is just around the bend to the far left. The road goes straight (next picture)….

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...then around a bend out past the bright colored buildings, and then makes a big right turn almost back inland for awhile before heading west back towards the ocean.

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In the big bend area, we can see the Yaquina Bay Bridge and the lower bay for about 3.5 miles before getting back to town. The low dark buildings “under” the bridge are the Oregon State University Mark Hatfield Marine Science Center, somewhat famous for oceanography research. Also in this area is the Newport Aquarium, where Keiko the whale (“Free Willy”) was located for a number of years after being rescued from Mexico and before he was flown to Iceland in 1998.

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That is all for today...

Outstanding ride report with great photos!
Thanks

That last photo tells me that it was time to dig for clams, yummmm, chowder!

Nice photos, it was a beautiful day in the valley too.