Dave - From "Three Wheel Journey" - Missed
 

Dave is the one who got me into bike touring and it is a very poignant story. Dave was documenting his journeys around America. Giving great tips along the way. I would feel I was riding along with him by the way he would document his trips. His last entry is from Nov. 18, 2015. No one, including his family has heard from him since :(.

Check out his Youtube channel and meet Dave if you haven't yet!

Dave - Three Wheel Journey

He said he's 20 miles from Bly. When did somebody look for him?
If an animal got him, the bike would be there in the woods. Getting hit by a pickup truck or motorhome is possible, but how would the driver make everything disappear before a car came along? Maybe he found a better GF. LOL. Could be he just got mugged too I suppose. Don't see a reason for suicide.

Anyway, his videos are way boring with his head in the screen 80% and he's just standing. He could talk and show the ride for way better effect.

Are you sure he rides bike? I took a quick look at his videos and I never see him riding.
It's sad that he went missing, but I do not see any bike culture in his videos

I spent a night in Bly at the start of Cycle Oregon in 2012. Very little traffic in that part of the world. We rode north to Silver Lake through what's called the "Oregon Outback." We didn't pass one commercial /developed establishment until we reached Silver Lake. Our rest/lunch stops were wherever the ride organizers could find space along side the roads. Spent the last night in Klamath Falls and rode back to Bly the next morning, eventually ending up OR 140 to Bly. I believe OR 140 is where he said he was pulling off into the woods to camp. That area was also pretty desolate with little traffic other than event-related traffic. I could see someone being able to do harm and not be discovered.

I figure that he had to have gotten to at least Bly, if not Klamath Falls, to post his last video #57. Looks like an OK little village. So somebody there would have known something of him. The next one, Beatty is just a few rotten houses and a little store.
That's one of the few highways I haven't driven thru.
Would be interesting to see the Sheriff's file.

Bly really welcomed us. IIRC, there was one small store and one bar in town.

When we rode into Klamath Falls and we’re passing through one particular area I turned to my partner and said “I never thought I would ride into a town that makes Butte [MT] look nice.” (We had stayed in Butte the previous year. There were flyers on poles warning people to lock car doors and keep valuables with them due to drug-related breakins.) Five people had their bikes stolen from our camping area that evening.

For the record, I actually like Butte. I’ve spent three nights there. I know where to get a good steak in town. During one tour I told a Montana resident I was heading there. She called it “the armpit of Montana.”

Geeze, that's too bad about your experience.
It was 1980 I think when I drove thru Klamath Falls and stayed the night there. So likely much smaller and I guess it wasn't much then either. The volcano lake was awesome tho. Great view of the cow ranches too.
I still remember the great $6 turkey dinner I had at Mom's cafe on the north end highway.
I've been to Butte also. LOL.

Like many towns in OR, Klamath Falls got depressed when logging activity started to decline. I think what happened is that the camping area was across a road from where dinner and the nightly entertainment was being held. People left their bikes back at camp and they got stolen. We had a pretty big tent and put our bikes inside when we went to dinner.

When we took the shuttle into the center of town earlier in the day we saw a fenced off greenhouse in the middle of a rail yard. There were some sort of law enforcement cars close by. Turns out it was a medical marijuana growing facility.

We had two days in Ashland, OR before Klamath Falls. What a contrast. We went to a grocery store in Ashland that made Whole Foods seems relatively cheap.

By "volcano lake" do you mean Crater Lake, the deepest fresh water lake in the U.S. and one of the deepest in the world? We rode up to it from Ft. Klamath, around the Rim Road, and then down to Prospect. It was my second time riding the Rim Road. That thing ages you, but some spectacular views.

I skimmed thru 3 vids and never saw him riding. If I were riding along with him, he would have been dropped long ago.
Sucks that he hasnt been heard from. That has to be awful for family.

So did anyone know what happened to him? I really enjoyed his videos, well done and always gave a feel to the road and towns.

Been 9 years since his last video, he used to engage in conversations there all the time, and suddenly, no more videos.

Edit: Searched a little bit, found a few things about him including his military ID showing up at a Jack in the Box

This is heartbreaking! He was also my primary gateway into the realities of solo bike touring. His videos are so practical and informative. Very, very illustrative of the day to day, I pretty much watched all his videos before I headed out on my first tour which was 5 weeks/1,500 miles out west where he rode (I'm in New England) Him, and Darren Alff from Bicycle Touring Pro are all a person really needs to know to be well prepared.

Are you nuts? That would be like watching a concert documentary and seeing nothing of music culture. Every moment on he's screen is bike culture.

~

So, you can edit and upload while you are that far out?

Where do you see him actually traveling by bike? I must have missed those parts.

He did show his water bottles on the rear rack of his bike. He certainly travelled at a bike pace. My comment is still there at the bottom on #57.
His last comment was 9 years ago.
I saw a comment saying he supposedly got to the end of the trip by Port Angeles Nov. 18. So well into winter snows. But it got deleted I think.
I had the odd theory he got buried in the forest. But his tent surely would have been found sooner or later.
His videos did have nice scenery, but otherwise not much to hold interest. I did complain about his face time too.
I just did a street view of Lakeview dated 2024/5. Doesn't look like it's dying to me. Sawmill and prison town. LOL
Edit >> He does show his whole bike in motion in Colorado, video #39. Surly LHT. Disc brakes. His last few vids he didn't.
And he had full swept bars like mine. Smart guy. LOL

Everything he says and does is about living on a bicycle. How is that not culture?

There was a Facebook post on February 21, 2025 on the Lake Havasu Community Page saying his AF ID was left at a Jack in the Box.