A Side of Nevada

PRE-RUN
@pdxjbird: “Hey Bro, I have an extra ticket to the Orygun Run, wanna go”?
@pdxwood: “Hell yes, but it’s my fiance’s birthday this weekend.....”

DAY 1
We are the first to arrive at 2 Stroke… coffee’d up and ready to roll. Adam gives us a map, a bandana, and we hit the road.

The Highlights: Stopped for hydration in Shaniko. The one employee said we couldn’t drink outside the store... but we could go across the street. She said, “...just watch for rattlers." Rolling through the twisties on Hwy 218 with a bunch of choppers and a flatbed chase vehicle at our heals. We rolled into the hacienda of our radical host, @steve_dewey/aka@athandleather, in the early afternoon with our pick of spots to choose from. (It’s worth noting, we landed pre-beer!)

DAY 2
Sweet spread of coffee and food for the morning - also 2 Stroke Coffee Co. - set us up right for the long journey ahead. The night before our host filled our head with thoughts of riding the salt flats on the other side of the Steens...

The Highlights + A Side of Nevada: As we headed down Hwy 395 we saw a sign for Paulina. We both thought: ”Man, I haven’t fished Paulina since I was a kid." We were quite disappointed when we landed in the town Paulina... not the lake. Luckily, there was gas. We asked the quickest way to get back on track. The route included a mostly gravel road from Izee, OR to Burns. We saw real cowboys - herding cattle - and there may have been banjos…. We rolled into Burns. We had a beer and lunch just as the main pack of Gunrunners rode in. But we were off to find the salt flats. As we rolled down Hwy 205 we got plastered with grasshoppers north of Fields, OR. We stopped for what was supposed to be the best milkshake ever. I can neither confirm nor deny. The town teacher/milkshake maker may not have been having her best day. We were told it would be many many miles of gravel to get to the flats, so we opted for a no helmet session through Nevada instead. We dropped into Denio and shredded the new road on Hwy 140. It was time to make the miles: through Adel, Lakeview, Valley Falls, Summerlake. At this point, we were low on gas, but figured we had to be close enough to Fort Rock. We rolled into Fort Rock on fumes… but no gas. No cell coverage and total darkness. Somehow, we rolled into camp with nothing in our tanks, but we were greeted with smiles, beverages, and food. This campsite was amazing - and plenty of trees for hammocks.

DAY 3
Last but not least... the best of shred.

The Highlights: We rolled into Sisters and stopped for gas. @vanbriezzy caught us on camera and we were off. Shredding up that hill passing cars in perfect harmony...

IN CLOSING
I look forward to year two... but this birthday thing... well, she may not forgive 2 years in a row. 

-JBird, @pdxjbird (and @pdxwood)

On Riding + Superlatives

Orygun Run 2016 - A Trip of Superlatives:

The most strangers I’ve ever ridden with.
The best curves [Shaniko to Fossil].
The oldest rocks.
The clearest and brightest blue waters of Crater Lake.
The most hail.
The most bad luck to the most people on 395 in a single mile
[...and I’ve ridden all 1,305 miles of it].

The most potent Baklava [Thanks Rockhorse Park Sisters!]
The most raffle prizes I’ve ever won [Thanks @zombieperformance!]
The most free weed ever [Thanks, Swell Provisions!]
The most bad dad jokes by Leonard Sez [Thanks tiny bar near Fort Rock!]

The most kind and generous man who also has a sign in his window saying:
"No Trespassing: I own firearms and a backhoe.”

and...
The best organized (but not annoyingly overly organized) ride I’ve ever been on.
Oh, and Samsquanch is real.

Who's ready for more this year?

-Martha, @marthvader
(Photo by @rambleonphoto)

Ricky Bobby Says...

The Orygun Run exceeded my expectations, by far, and stands as one of the best times I've ever had…and I wasn’t even riding a motorcycle!

My Dyna was in the shop getting a transmission rebuild, which was finished just in time for Adam and I to take on the Ride1k Challenge the very next weekend. I accepted the fact that I'd have to ride a cage, and had never been a support vehicle for a run, so I made the best of it with my good friend Rufio. 

Rufio was still recovering from a very serious motorcycle accident and was unable to ride anyway, so I drove his truck while he rode shotgun. We loaded the truck with any supplies we could help transport and were on our way. Rufio and I had nothin but good times being our own mobile party, stopping to swim in rivers, and slowing anytime we saw bikes on the side of the road. 9 out 10 times they waved us on. They were simply taking in the views of this beautiful state.

Although painful at times, I did very much enjoy driving chase truck. I'd drive behind a pack of bikes while Rufio and I would throw our hands up as if we were holding bars and riding with them. So when Adam invited me to ride passenger for the ride to/from Crater Lake, needless to say I jumped at the opportunity!

Our hosts and sponsors were so welcoming and generous. We were well fed and provided with more beers and pre-rolled joints than we could consume. If that sounds like a challenge then it is! You get more than what you pay for to attend this event.

Even during last year's ride I was already looking forward to the next! I'll be on a bike this time, one way or another, and will be happy to see familiar faces from the first run, and meeting new ones as well.

-Curtis Morgan, @rambleonphoto
(View more work at www.rambleonphoto.com)

A Ride Less Traveled

It comes down to this…Adam and I share an aesthetic, a vision where riding and camping and seeing and doing merge into one long, luscious stream of tarmac, and while circumstances don’t allow me to do this every day, I would if I could. So The Orygun Run is, to me, the epitome of the riding and storytelling and camping and connecting I know.

I’ve done some brand and model-specific meet-ups and wasn’t happy with the contrived bullshit. “Yay, us! We all bought the same thing!” The Orygun Run is different.

If you’d told me that my most aggressive riding partner rode a Harley, I would’ve been surprised. I’d never expected a cruiser rider to suggest a more curvy and interesting route than the main route last year. Never would I have predicted that there was a cruiser rider who enjoyed aggressiveness. All the cruiser riders I’ve ridden with were complaining at maintaining speed limit rather than taking it down to advisory speeds in the corners. I was sometimes lovingly called a menace for my enjoyment of a more sporting approach than my cruiser friends. So, I was very, very wrong. And she kicked some cornering ass.

I would never have expected that my preference for other kinds of whisky than Canadian would cause me a conflict with someone on a ride. Or that he was riding a Triumph Scrambler, iirc. So, there was my beloved FJR1300, a Triumph Scrambler, an R6 and Daytona couple, lots of cruisers, but plenty of standards, a few dualies, etc. In short, there were different nationalities on different machines and we all shared each other’s stories in meaningless and sometimes meaningful ways. I learned that the Yamaha R6 Raven with gold accents I’d admired at my butcher was the same guy who was a butcher and riding a different R6 on The Orygun Run. I wasn’t even nearly the oldest guy on the ride, so there were even a wide variety of ages, too.

Oh, and this year I won’t party on the first night. Or the second. Possibly the third, but that’s subject to my vanity and my lethargy and what kind of food is tempting me. You can, and should, if you want, though. There’s plenty of sponsored and free-lance beverages as well as quality trees in joint form, since this whole thing is sponsored by a Montana beer company and an Oregon boutique cannabis company. I want to be up early and hit the long runs that Adam’s formulating for us mileage hogs. I’m hoping to hit around 500 miles per day, depending on where and what else might happen. Or I might hit something lower, but curvier, like, Hwy 20 between Philomath and Waldport on the way to the Yachats camp on night two.

Last year was inaugural and fantastic, and I anticipate an even better version this year as the team evolves from a great launch. Oh, and I’ll have the patches proudly displayed. I was there at the start.

-David, Saoirse Touring

The Orygin Story

My ride on the Orygun Run started almost a year before the first ride actually took place. I managed to rope Max into putting on the first one by simply saying, "We could probably do an event." I knew that local riders were eager for another event - even if it was only loosely organized - as long as it was fun. I was just eager for something that was about riding your damn motorcycle. . . a lot.

And so a half-baked and somewhat hair-brained summer moto-camping trip was born. The Orygun Run is, really, just an excuse to ride all over Oregon and have a party to land at each night. But the point of the run has always been about the ride. Because it's sharing miles together that makes strangers friends and makes friends family. It's not about what you ride or how fast you ride or about looking cool while doing it. In case you missed the point: it's just about the ride.

While I knew that other riders could get behind this philosophy, even I had no idea how much our community needed an event like the Orygun Run. Hearing people talk for months after that first event about the roads they discovered that weekend, the rad people they met and partied with each night, and how good it felt to put down some serious miles has made the Orygun Run something even more meaningful for me. I couldn't wait to do it again.

I am blown away time and again at the amount of support there is for this run. And I truly can't thank the riders, donors, and sponsors enough for getting behind the whole idea. Go figure, you guys really like riding motorcycles, partying hard, and waking up to do it all again.

-Adam A, @thiswildlife_thisfreedom
(Photo by @rambleonphoto)