Oregon and Washington BS thread

Hey guys! I'm an intruder from SoCal, I have a couple questions if you all might be able to help out.

My gf and I are planning a road trip that will go through both OR and WA, she's been and has a few places she wants to stop and see but I've never been and want to get a little advice from the locals.

First I'm 2wd ( ) but still want to cruise a trail or two while up there. Something mellow because we will be alone in just the one truck, hopefully somewhere that will lead to a nice spot with a good view to camp overnight. Any recommendations on trails to look at?

Second, we might be moving up there in the next few years so also want to tie into this trip scouting out some areas. Not interested in living IN a city, ideally just outside. Any opinions on locations to avoid and places we should be looking at?

Any advice you can throw our way would be greatly appreciated!

 

What kind of work are you looking for will be the deciding factor to where you live...

 

Racecar parts make racecar noises. Get the bushing for stock like feel, or heims for more precision.

 

I would agree with Username, at least 150mi. Once you get in there it can be aways from a gas station. My crf250x got to 90 miles before I refueled and I hadn't hit reserve yet. That got me from Sisters to Tod Lake with a number of detours along the way to explore stuff. I think my tank is 2 gallons and some change. I carry a 2 gallon rotopax with me. That gives me about 200 miles of range.

I would say the trails themselves would be beginner, more or less, except for the navigation and fuel logistics bump up the difficulty. If you are just going to run a short section as a day trip I wouldn't even worry about it and just do it. The Hoodoo parking lots or Big Lake are a great place to start from if you take the bike up in the back of a pickup or something. There isn't anything "technical" on the actual route. There can be some gnarly stuff if you want to go explore random roads or get to some of the cinder cone summits. The roads can be rutted out severely in spots. It ranges from nice gravel roads to sand, dirt, silt, and there are rocks scattered throughout the road on the less maintained spots. Nothing like a rock garden though.

We had a couple guys with us that had larger, touring style bikes. They definitely held us up, but it wasn't a big deal waiting for them to catch up at major intersections. It wasn't their riding skill that held us up though. That style of bike just can not keep up with dirtbikes on those roads. One guy had a BMW and this was the most advanced dirt stuff he had ever done and he did great. The other guy had some pig of a 900lb. Yamaha that he got through stuff, but it wore him out real fast. The soft sand and gravel gave them a lot more trouble than the rockier sections. This was just a test run for us to learn how to do this type of riding, so we weren't worried about covering distance. Camping off a dirtbike instead of in a truck is a whole different ball game haha.

 

Do you like freedom? Check out Christmas Valley. Very similar to Barstow offroad wise, you can get anywhere you want in a 2wd and can get unstuck with a shovel if you do something dumb. There is the lost forest, hole in the ground, crack in the ground, and various other sights to see as well as hundreds of miles of trail. Pretty hot though. Many parts of the OBDR are prerunner friendly too. Personally, I am partial to Eastern Oregon. The Blue mountains are amazing, and the Wallowa's are like the Oregon Alps. Like big bear but with no people. If you don't like freedom and like high taxes and banning things then Portland is the place for you. It's like California but with more hipsters and less frequent bathing. It's where young people go to retire. Lots of great doctors that will hook you up with disability for a sideways fart so you never have to work again. I like to call everything West of the Cascades "the dark side".

 

This is accurate. Portland, Salem, and Eugene are city states that suck donkey balls and are separate in every way from the rest of the state, especially East of the Cascades.

 

You should try Route 5 section 3. Lots of slipping of the clutch in first gear up a boulder strewn mountain for seven miles, two water crossings, etc. Pretty easy if you are a good rider, but n00bs struggle. Bike camping is harder for sure. Edit: We should go for a ride sometime. I think my KTM 990 will change your mind about big bikes. I ride with 250F guys all the time. You can tell which ones by the gravel marks in their helmets from my knobbie raining pain for 300' behind it.

 

Gf is in graphic design, I am in Sales, looking to get into something else but nothing set in stone yet.

Portland is going to be a big NO. Haha. I do have a tendency to fart sideways... could be a nice way to screw over everyone and not have to work again.
I like freedom so Christmas Valley sounds like my kinda place! I'll bring a shovel, familiar with sand and soft dirt so it'll probably be fine, not too dumb anymore.
Lake Forest and the Wallowa's will also need to be added to the list, thank you! Big fan of Big Bear and fewer people would only make it better.

We avoid donkey balls unless it's watching people are eating them on fear factor (too bad that show is long gone)


I really appreciate the advice! When this all comes into play I'll stop by your thread again and see if we can get together with some new faces to run a trail and have a few

 

Now that sounds like a fun time haha. The section we did was pretty tame. We had fun connecting random roads on our way back instead of following the route. Blows my mind how many open roads there are over there. I'm game! Just gotta find the time. This was my first time bike camping and definitely learned a lot. Weight and the size of stuff is so much more important. At least as important as backpacking. The bigger bikes with us did good for what they were, but we were quite a bit faster. I think I'm going to try to get my crf plated. Made me a bit nervous being on the highway with no plates.

 

No worries, I ride my 4wheeler everywhere and nobody cares. Most small towns out here even have ATV ordnance that allows offroad stuff in town. Nothing like taking the UTV to the bar. There are also a lot of dedicated offroad trails out here too. http://www.morrowcountyparks.org/ohv-park/home (Even some rocks for the tacos) and Ukiah has hundreds of miles of atv/dirtbike trails through the woods, all with no plate required. http://www.riderplanet-usa.com/atv/trails/info/oregon_02752/map_4e8b.htm

http://www.riderplanet-usa.com/atv/trails/info/oregon_01680/ride_3ff1.htm More riding than you could do in a lifetime out here.

 

Check out Prineville (FB has server farms there) or Pendleton (Cayuse Technologies, UAV mfg, etc). Hood river has a lot of tech jobs as well. Most of the decent jobs on the free side of the state are in agriculture or logging, but it would be tough to go from a sales job into that line of work. The hippies seem to be doing well growing dope too. I hate to consider that as a legit job, but these days it is and there is a lot of money to be made if you can stay legal. Lots of government jobs as well, and contract firefighters etc. https://www.usajobs.gov/ https://www.governmentjobs.com/careers/oregon

 

Will do! This is a huge help, thank you! Time to finish school and get moving in the right direction.
I'll be planting seeds soon and start making contacts (not weed seeds )

 

What's up guys

Whose around the metro area? I'm back modding my taco again and wanna do some meet ups and trails soon. or just kick it.

 

so in other words, waste of money for parts that wear quicker and have more potential for alignment tech to narf up. Got it.

I did 4 days of camping off the bike. Granted it was at a state park, but I did bring enough food to get me through most of those days, which is more food than most anyone else would carry. I have a Giant Loop Coyote, and despite everyone else fawning over them, I'm not a huge fan. You can get the sides stuffed but the top is a fight because you are trying to load it and get the zipper closed at the same time. You just lose space. I have some racks backordered (coming up on week 4) and it seems there's some Nelson-Rigg bags that work great. Only worry is they probably don't like skidding as much.

 

I don't know man, my heimed uppers have outlasted the bushing version by quite a lot, they are just noisier. My local tire shop had no problem with the alignment, he said he'd done several like that on rice grinder cars. I like the wolfman expo bags myself, keeps everything clean and dry, roll up tops so if you overfill it's no problem. http://wolfmanluggage.com/collections/expedition-bags

 

OK some other guy was claiming heimed go out faster. Firestone didn't even blink when I asked - "we don't care, we will do 'em both."
Noise isn't too much of a problem, I have the sound deadener in the doors and it kills a lot of noise.
Do heims require any maintenance, like lubing?

I'm finding that a DS bike means a DS lifestyle, and no one told me that means you are the most over-accessorized mofo in the group. Street stuff for the street, dirt stuff for the dirt, and maybe even ADV gear on top. Sometimes wish I had been told to pick one or the other. As it stands I'm doing my best to find whatever can serve as double/triple-duty gear. The wolfman expo bags aren't as ridiculous as the giant loop in town, but I'm on the road with the bike more than anything and it would be nice to be slightly dressier with a bit better stiffness for a grocery run. I know that makes me sound kinda image-conscious, but I'm just thinking about how I don't want 80-90% of my riding experience to deal with something that will be a PITA for all but 10-20% of the time.

 

If you want to stay in sales, I can get you in to the company I work for right away. ADT Security. There is base plus commission with training. Not sure I will still be with them by the time you move up here.

I am one of the oddballs in this group as I live in E.WA north of Spokane. I grew up north of Seattle though, and my older brother just moved about a year ago from San Diego back to WA. Housing is far more expensive in Seattle area than Spokane, but there is a metric fuckton more going on there too. Graphic Arts should be easy enough for her to find a place near Seattle area (Tacoma through Everett). Traffic sucks in Seattle though. It's kinda like driving in LA except you can see where you are going instead of smog. Rush hour starts by 5:30am and doesn't let up until almost 7pm, sometimes later. Don't let weekends fool you either. Traffic sucks then too. Spokane and Coeur d'Alene (Cor-duh-lain) have a bit going on but are so much more conservative. In deer park, where I live, I think there are 7 different churches in town; population maybe 3000 if you include those who live outside city limits. Pay scale is lower, but so is housing cost. Cost of living otherwise is only slightly lower than Seattle area.

As far as trails, look into OrBDR and WaBDR.

 

Wow the traffic is that bad? And I thought San Diego was rough. Good to know about the Seattle area. I'll bring it up to her so she can start scanning at what's available around there and check it out. Seattle is on our trip so we'll be driving through the area (apparently very slowly haha).

That would be incredible! If it works out it works out, if not I really appreciate the offer. Thank you!

 

I know some folks who ride up by Hart Mountain east of Christmas Valley. But I haven't been up there, so I don't know what all is there. There is a spring up there with a few pools (some hot, some not), but last I heard it was overrun with hippies.

 

If you want slow, you are coming to the right places. Portland posted MPH can get down to 50 on I-5. Most of the time it's slower with a lot of ragers, though. I miss Olympia where everyone felt like they were on a Sunday drive, yet still paying attention.