Most regular readers of this site know that I have a major crush on eastern Oregon. If you love to ride bicycles, it’s sort of a paradise. It has wide open roads, big skies, forests, lakes, rivers, and wonderful rural towns full of nice people.
Over the weekend the small town of Echo hosted its annual cross-country mountain bike race and poker run. The Echo-Red-to-Red is sanctioned by the Oregon Bicycle Racing Association. That group’s Executive Director Kenji Sugahara was on hand for the festivities and he launched his drone to capture some beautiful footage of the action. If his short video doesn’t inspire you to ride and explore this part of the our state than I’m afraid nothing will.
I have yet to do the Echo race, but I just put it on my calendar for 2017.
On a related note, this weekend is the annual Dalles Mountain 60 ride. This ride is one of the original gravel adventures that skyrocketed to popularity here in the Portland region. It was first dreamed up and hosted by the folks at VeloDirt and now it’s flying high with its own wings. Check out the route on Ride With GPS and make a weekend out of it with an overnight in The Dalles. If you do, make sure you tell Mayor Lawrence (a self-described “bike freak”) I said “hi”.
— Jonathan Maus, (503) 706-8804 – jonathan@bikeportland.org
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