Last month I had the great pleasure to ride a pair of central Oregon’s Scenic Bikeway gems. A buddy planned the route and I wanted to share it, along with a few ideas ideas of my own for options to extend from a day ride into a full tour.

For our ride, we chained McKenzie Pass to a modified Sisters to Smith Rock route. Our modification for Sisters to Smith Rock was to take McKenzie Canyon Road instead of staying with Holmes Road. McKenzie Canyon is a washboard sand, dirt, and gravel grinder through a remote high desert environ. Being in the canyon makes it feel considerably more remote and isolated even though it’s more or less paralleling a main highway and the scenic bikeway route.

Logistics were we drove down from Portland, leaving a little after 6:00AM. I dropped off half the group at Belknap Hot Springs, then back-tracked OR126 north into Sisters. The pass itself was still closed to motor vehicles for the winter, which is what makes this ride spectacular. Myself and the reminder of the group parked the van in Sisters and began riding out in the westbound direction. We met at the look-out tower, amazingly within just 15 minutes of the eastbound group. After resting for a spell and enjoying a robust snack everyone rode together back to Sisters. At Sisters we had lunch then set out for Smith Rock.

In the interest of time, we cut out Camp Polk road and Cloverdale road, taking the McKenzie Hwy directly to Goodrich road. While Camp Polk is very nice, as I’ve ridden it previously, we unfortunately had to cut it out, since we let time get away from us at lunch. I drove the van to Smith Rock, while the rest of the group rode on to Terrebone. I parked the van then rode, myself, the few miles back to Terrebone where everyone regrouped for dinner.

We all camped at Smith Rock then rode the Crooked River canyon trail up and over Smith Rock itself. The canyon trail was the highlight for me. I visited there about 10 years ago with my wife on our tandem. Ostensibly it is a mountain bike tandem, but the long wheel base makes it unsuited to making the sharp turns that are required for switchbacks and also it is prone to getting high centered on rocky and bumpy trails. This visit I was able to ride the whole way around. By the way, my recommendation is to begin the ride following the river and descend Burma Road. We rode the trail starting around 8:00 or 9:00-ish, made plenty of site-seeing stops along the way, and were back on the road to Portland before noon. That’s a pretty nice morning cap before returning to home life if you ask me.

As for my thoughts on alternate ride ideas, I’m thinking one could take Amtrak from Portland to Eugene then ride from Eugene to McKenzie Pass, camping somewhere suitable along the way. The second day would have the actual summit and get into Sisters for lunch. After lunch, ride Sisters to Smith Rock and camp at Smith Rock. Day three would be the trail ride around Smith Rock SP and then on to Madras for the Mountain Views Scenic Bikeway and camping in Cove Palisades SP. Day four and five can be for the ride back to Portland, or if time doesn’t allow, schedule a shuttle for your return. Yet another idea is to connect from Smith Rock SP to the Oregon Outback route via Oneil Hwy and Prineville, then ride to The Dalles. From The Dalles, one can ride into Portland, or again, schedule a shuttle. Either option would make for a really grand bike tour.

I wouldn’t recommend that tour for high summer, but late spring when McKenzie pass is still open only to bikes, or in October when the tourist season is over and traffic is much lighter would be great choices.

If you are able to do it, please let me know. I’ve love to hear how it went.