Touring in Portland / Oregon
 

I've booked to go to Portland next summer for 2 weeks with bikes with my wife. We'd like a few hills / mountains, but also to do a bit of distance and explore.

I was looking for some advice - will it be better to do a big loop south of Portland towards Bend / Eugene then back up the coast OR to ride north up to Seattle and back?

I'm from London so any help / advice of nice areas to visit would be much appreciated.

I may be biased, but I would recommend the Oregon loop(s) - Willamette Valley, Bend/Central Oregon, Coast, Columbia Gorge.

You may want to read through this thread: https://forums.thepaceline.net/showthread.php?t=147092

that's great, thank you very much

From my trip, and I did not get to ride in either and if one is only possible, I would tour up into the Columbia Gorge over Willamette.

The scenery was amazing as were the wineries in Washington State.

We drove a portion of the Historic Columbia Hwy east of Hood River that made me wish I had my bike, also the roads around Mt Hood looked incredible for riding, even if the traffic might be a bit unnerving.

If you do end up going towards Mt Hood, there's plenty of lakes to check out up there.

I have not ridden in Oregon (well, I rode across the southeast corner of Oregon almost 40 years ago, but that won't help you much), but I have driven a fair amount of the historic two lane highway above the southern shore of the Columbia River - yeah, I wished I had my bike, too. Based on what I saw, I would suggest riding that highway as early in the day as possible if you are there in the summer. It is a narrow - and I do mean narrow - two lane road and everything from Multnomah Falls to the west has lots of tourist traffic during the day. Try to go when the traffic is at a minimum, because road width is truly not your friend, especially when you are climbing (and you will do some climbing). But lordy, it is absolutely beautiful.

Also, if you are doing a loop that involves the coast, try to go down the coast (southbound) rather than up the coast (northbound). The prevailing winds and the shoulders are much more likely to be your friends going south than they are going north.

Have a great time. It will be hard to go wrong.