The Candian Job - Day Un

As soon as I got out the door and got onto my bike I realized that I was going to have problems. The first issue I had was my panniers (saddle bags) immediately started to fold in on themselves and get caught in my spokes on the back of the rear wheel (not to mention the front of the bags were clipping my heels as I rode). I had told Matt that I would meet him for breakfast out highway 99, so I somehow hobbled all the way out there riding with basically the heels of my feet and stopping every few blocks to pull the panniers out of the spokes.

Once I finally got to where we were supposed to meet, he convinces me that we should go to this little bar for breakfast instead. But the bar is very blue collar and in an industrial part of town, so when I walk in wearing spandex cycling shorts of course I feel like a complete freak. But the breakfast was pretty good and provided a good amount of energy to start the day.

After breakfast I knew that I was going to have to do something about my bags so I had Matt take me over to Jerry's Hardware so I could buy some doweling, to try to reinforce the backs of the panniers. We spent quite a while doing that and it only seemed to help a little bit. Then I realized that I couldn't find my keys (which only consisted of the house key and the key to my bike lock). So we drove all the way back to the bar looking for them and he ended up spotting them lying in the middle of the street.

So by that point I was starting to think that all this early bad luck might be some kind of sign for me to just stay home but I'm too stubborn of a guy to give up that easily.

After we got done at Jerry's I finally got on my journey under way. Of course the bags were still catching in the spokes so I constantly had to stop and readjust them. It was a really hot day that day too, probably in the low 90's, but I powered through, all the way to Corvallis, before I had to stop for a while. I got a Gatorade at a 7-11 as soon as I got into town, then I found a nice little shady piece of lawn next to a storage unit place and laid down for a nap. I ended up staying there, sleeping, for almost an hour and a hour. Not really what I had in mind when I stopped, but I really needed it. That hot weather was draining me.

I ended up riding about 65 miles that first day. About 20 miles short of my goal, but still not back considering all the problems I had and the fact that I didn't leave Eugene until about 11 am.


I camped that night next to a big field off of the side of highway 99. I was a little worried that the landowner would find me but I wasn't really hurting anything and I was planning to be gone shortly after dawn anyway. That was the only night too that I left my panniers outside of the tent. Some little animals got into my food and ate of bunch of my bread.