Wednesday, September 16, 2009

Cycle Oregon



I went down to the lake for my nightly run with the dogs and came upon this site. Apparently, Lake Selmac was now a designated tent city...

A little investigation later I learned that Cycle Oregon was using Lake Selmac as one of its stops on this year's ride.


Cycle Oregon... Claimed by many to be the best organized group ride in the Americas...


After watching how the whole process went, I think I believe it.

My dogs started barking and chasing bicycles around eleven thirty in the morning. There were so many bicycles going by they quit chasing and just said "fuck it" to themselves and sat down to watch the parade.


I was busy in the front yard working on a project so I managed only a few quick shots of the gangs of bikes going by.


Our house is on a curve, and right after there is a small hill just before you get to the days finish line. Seems like in every group of bikes that passed the house, there was one poor soul who said "Shit! Another hill!" as they passed our gate and turned for the home stretch, (which was indeed this little hill past the cemetery). Cell phone reception pretty much begins at our gate too, so several riders pulled over to check their voice mail or call their wives...


There were roughly two thousand riders in all, and they all streamed passed our gate in their colorful biker gear...


I took Mum up to the party after early on, and she found a group of locals hanging out and playing what she called "mountain music", and what I called "hillbilly music". Fiddles and banjos and guitars and mandolins and a bunch of percussion contraptions that all looked like they doubled as fish-cleaning tools or kitchen utensils or shoe shining gear...


I couldn't tear her away from those guys.


I also had the three dogs on leash and so I left Mum and went off collecting babes-who-pet dogs-in- their-lycra-shorts...


I must have reeled in thirty of them which is a record here in Selma.


If you like healthy, skinny, and somewhat yuppified women with muscly legs, this event was for you. I do happen to like those types of women (if they love dogs) so I had a good time wandering around letting Wenzel and the two other girls draw in the kisses and the smooches and the hugs and the girly squeals of affection...


I just gotta figure out how to divert some of that energy in a more productive direction...


The organizers thought of everything. They had ice cream, massages, portable showers, bike mechanics, ambulances, live entertainment (that night was a great reggae band called "The State Of Jefferson"...


They had beer vendors with pretty girls serving pints to old biker dudes. They had food vendors and clothing vendors and way more porta potties than they needed.


By ten am, all the bikers had left the park, and by one pm, the whole park was cleaned up and you could hardly tell they were there.


Cycle Oregon... If you're into group things, it really looked well done and alot of fun.










4 comments:

Jeannie said...

That's a colourful crowd. Are the tents provided for the bikers?

Interesting phenomena to have occur just down the road.

Anonymous said...

The Great Victorian Bike Ride is the biggest in OZ and very well organised too. This year it's mainly along the Great Ocean Rd and comes through Ocean Grove too. Business' along the way love it for some reason. Got up to over 10,000 riders once but now limited to 5000.

Takes some organising these events.

secret agent woman said...

Those tents are uncomfortably close to each other.

Sweeti said...

you should join them next year. Maybe some of the attention would go to you without the dogs around. You'll be in good shape by then.