Traveling to Portland this summer to visit the wife's family. Going to fly, but was considering renting a bike and taking a few days down 101. maybe even get a wild hair and take the bike all the way to SF and fly out of there instead.

Trip's going to be from June 19-30.

Anyone out in that area? Looking for the usual. "must do" places. not familiar with the area myself.
Know of a good shop that rents bikes?

 

I live in SE Washington. I visited the Lincoln City OR area last fall for three days with my wife. Lincoln City is SW of Portland on the Coast. Its nice scenery with the oceanbut also a lot of traffic, stop/go through the small towns with tourists, and lots of side entrances on to the highway. I was glad to be in car just cause of the hassle.

As an alternative consider heading NE out of Portland into Washington and make a loop around Mt Rainer. You'll have heavy traffic on the west side through Seattle but it backs off once your up in the mountains. Its a beautiful ride through the mountains around Mt Rainer, then loop back through the Columbia Gorge along the river on the WA side. Or cross over the river at Hood River OR and loop around MT Hood getting a 'twofer'.

dont get me wrong

 

I live in Northwest Washington and have ridden both the Mt Rainier loop and the PCH several times. If you are limited to only one of those, I would recommend the Pacific Coast Highway. Highway 101 to Leggett and then Highway 1 to San Francisco. The whole ride is great but the section of Highway 1 is awesome. If you wanted to take a few pictures and stop at some scenic spots I would think you should plan at least 3 days (300 miles per day). You can rent from Eagle Rider in Portland and return the bike in San Francisco. Here a link to some pictures I took the first time I did the PCH (the first 2 pages are PCH) if you are interested. http://s237.photobucket.com/user/ric...?sort=2&page=1

 

Second Highway 1 if your heading south.
It'll be slower than barreling down 5 but very scenic.
Too bad your not a few weeks earlier..
The Redwood Run in N Cali is on the 9th.
Good times.

 

Lived in Oregon until I left for the service.
Spent most of my teen time at the coast, had my honeymoon in Lincoln City...
Fly into PDX, look into bike rental. http://www.eaglerider.com/portland
Ride to Astoria http://visittheoregoncoast.com/cities/astoria/
Ride down 101-
Seaside, Lincoln City, Newport, Coos Bay, Florence (Stop and dune buggy the dunes) http://www.sanddunesfrontier.com/
http://www.oregoncoasttravel.net/
Cross Northern Cali border toward Crescent City.
http://www.roadsideamerica.com/map/ca-north
http://avenueofthegiants.net/
If you can't go to SF, in southern Oregon, take the cross highway East to Eugene, then take I-5 North to PDX for a nice round robin.

 

If i remember right, you pick that up in the Reedsport area and that highway splits to Eugene and Sutherlin further south if you want a longer ride.

 

Thanks for the info! had always heard that Coast 101 was one of the "must do's" for traveling. Originally wanting to be a civil engineer - had always heard the bridge architecture along that road was as fantastic as the scenery.

Still in the early stages of the itinerary, so lot's of room to play with what to do.