Touring - Something Different: Off-Road Touring at Olallie Lake

Well, I continue to stretch (and wreck?) the definition of "touring." Admitedly, I find it to be more a state of mind than an itinery.

Latest adventure: off-road touring while "yurting" at Olallie Lake in Oregon (http://www.olallielake.com). We stayed five nights, and I got to ride every day. Our Trek 6700s seemed happy to have their knobbies back on.

Olallie Lake is about 90 minutes from Portland, Oregon, on the way to Detroit in central Oregon. There is about 11 miles of gravel road to get in, and it has a small "resort" that filters water from the lake for drinking, etc. There are many small lakes in the area and a beautiful view of Mt. Jefferson. My son loves to fish there.

Here's a pic of homebase, the yurt we stayed in:

The riding was mostly on unimproved forest service roads. Some areas were so rough (stream-bed-like rocks the size of one's head) that I had to walk. The grade wasn't too bad, but some areas were probably around 10 percent. The Forest Service truck climbing the road in the picture below was moving at a walking pace:

I climbed up one road about 800 feet above Olallie Lake to a rock ridge that looked back at the lakes. Here's the dirt turn-around where I parked before doing some rock scrambling in my SPD cleats.

Looks pretty cool but I guess I have to ask you why you consider this stretching or wrecking the definition of touring? That's pretty much the kind of touring I did when I was growing up. Every summer, my friends and I would plan these long excursions across the midwest where we would load up our MTBs with panniers and camping gear and chart our way using as many offroad trails as possible. Mind you, we're not talking singletrack here but neither did we limit ourselves to just pavement and/or hardpack light gravel. Perhaps we were ignorant (which means I am still ignorant) of the true definition of bicycle touring. Does it have to mean strictly road-riding? I remember many mountain biking magazines in the early 1990s with articles about offroad touring.

Here's a view of the lakes from the ridge. The nearest is Monon Lake, and the second is Olallie Lake. I could actually see our waterfront yurt from the ridge. The total elevation here is about 5500 feet.

Self-portrait head shot below. The dust was pretty bad throughout the area. Also, I chose the jersey specifically so that helicopters could find my carcass more easily. :)

Here's a pic of Horseshoe Lake, which is a pretty, crescent shaped higher altitude lake. It has a campground, but the road to it is pretty much 4x4 only (or mountain bike, of course).

The picture below was taken on the way back down from the ridge. In some ways, descending was more frightening at times than ascending, because it was easy to get going too fast for some of the road surface (says the devoted non-downhiller).

Below is a view of Olallie Butte from Lake Monon. There's a trail to its peak, which is at about 7215 feet. I climbed it once about 34 years ago, but nowadays it's considered tresspassing to climb it because it's part of an Indian reservation.

We've been to Olallie three years in a row. Now, I've been told it's okay to ride bikes on the trails around the lake, but I still don't do it much because I'd hate to disturb anyone's hiking. Below is some of the lakeside trail I single-tracked for awhile and had a great time. There was no one else on or around the lake, so I didn't feel bad riding aways around the trail.

For the record, I did crash twice on the first day of riding. Both were very slow speed tip overs (into brush or ditch) caused by front wheel hitting something too high to cross over. The other four days of riding I had no mishaps. My wife rode all but one day, but she preferred riding to Olallie Meadow, single-tracking a bit of trail, and then hiking into some other small lakes.

Fun, and we look forward to riding again next year.

... the true definition of bicycle touring. Does it have to mean strictly road-riding? I remember many mountain biking magazines in the early 1990s with articles about offroad touring.

I think the term "touring" has been reduced in meaning over time to mean something too specific. At the turn of the century, before the automobile was affordable, bicycle tourist crossed countinents before there were roads and literally lived off the land as they went. The original touring, then, was mostly off-road.

So far, I've belonged to two bicycle clubs, and I've greatly enjoyed both. One was the PPTC (the Potomac Pedalers Touring Club) and now the PWTC (the Portland Wheelmen Touring Club). Please note how both are "touring" clubs, and by far most of the rides are on-road, scenic rides. The cyclists mostly consider themselves "roadies" and not "tourists," yet the fun rides we do along the Gorge or along ridges or through the valley are "touring" rides. To be fair, both clubs had multi-day touring ride events (both supported and unsupported), and the PWTC in particular has good multi-day and weekend trips.

So, in this respect, if you aren't training for a team and you enjoy the scenery as you ride, aren't you a touring cyclist? Maybe, maybe not. I just find it amusing that "touring bikes" are such a niche, whereas most recreational riding could technically be called touring.