Author Archives: Timothy Allen

Here’s teaser #2!

If you have never visited Hell’s Canyon Dam, you are in for a treat! If you have been there before, you probably won’t mind going again

This location will take you as far into Hell’s Canyon on paved roads as you can go. A little past the dam, this visitor’s center is the end of the line. It doesn’t matter which direction you travel from, you will enjoy lots of scenery and curvy roads.

Warning – if you save this one until late July into August, you will be very, very hot.

If you are sniffing flowers, take the time to ride up to the Hell’s Canyon Overlook for a bonus view of the canyon. It is a paved NF road all the way up, the last couple of miles is still paved but not a full 2 lanes. You will go from about 1,500 feet at river level to roughly 5,500 feet at the overlook. Saying that the view is spectacular feels like I am cheating you of a proper description.

Location – N45.25363, W116.69724

Here’s your first teaser of the season…

I wanted to drive up to this location to make sure the roads were in good shape and paved all the way up. Success! Lots of snow, many fallen trees and mud slides, but paved and in good repair. Once winter has run its course this road will be a very enjoyable ride.

Wynoochee Dam is located in the southern region of Olympic National Forest. There are multiple forest service roads leading up there, and most of them are dirt and gravel, so you dual-sport riders will have a great time! There is one paved road that runs from Montesano (along US-12) all the way up to the dam and Wynoochee Lake (Wynoochee Valley Road). As a bonus, the dam overlook area has rest rooms, and a little further up the paved road you will find the lake day use area with more bathrooms, picnic areas and a nice beach.

Located at N47.38490, W123.60682.

The numbers so far:

• 167 riders registered and paid.
• 44 of these riders are new for 2022!
• $1317 raised for the YMCA so far this year 😮 – thank you!

Coming soon, a teaser location to keep you interested during these cold winter months. I don’t know about you guys, but the snow at my house has been amazing this season. All mountain passes across the Cascades have been closed for several days now and I-5 was closed due to flooding between Portland and Olympia for a brief time. Here’s to April 1st 🙂

Registration has been open for a couple of weeks now and the response has been encouraging. We have roughly 150 riders signed up so far, and many of them are new this year (which I think is very cool). Thank you to all who have signed up already. It is going to be a fun year!

I want to take a few moments to say thank you to a few people who have helped me with this rally the last 2 years. Tim Seawel, Brady Mullins, Justin Long, Wayne Horner – you guys have been extremely helpful in many different areas, including scoring the many pictures that come in, answering questions on Facebook and giving me feedback on my ideas. Several of you have given me suggestions of future locations, and I greatly appreciate it. Riders will find several locations this coming year that were suggested by other riders. I have a long list of places that are fun to visit in the PNW, but I haven’t been everywhere and it is fun to see locations that others find enjoyable. In particular, Dale Wilson gave me a very entertaining group of locations for this year and I liberally used them! Finally, Suze had a big hand in how the rally logo looked last year and the more I look at it, the happier I am with it. Her son put in some time for us early last year – I am eternally grateful because I am just not that creative when it comes to artistic stuff 🙁

Alright, the award show is over. I have the 30 locations for this year picked. I do have a couple I want to scout out before committing to make sure the location is available to all of us without having to ride a Ural. As we did last year, no dirt (without an alternative paved location). In fact, this year there is no dirt and I didn’t need alternatives. There will be some forestry service roads involved, but they will be paved. Perhaps not clearly marked, but paved nonetheless.

Do you want to visit just a few that are nearby, or maybe you want to finish, or maybe you want all 30? Any way you decide to attack it is just fine with us. I have it set up so that the average weekend rider can finish pretty easily. Do you want to visit all 30? You are going to have to put in some work! I intentionally select locations that require some riding. You will not be disappointed, but you will use up some tires!

More to come, including a couple of teasers….maybe!

I managed to get my files set up early, so I decided to open registration earlier than I expected. The registration process is different for 2022 – I am using Ride Master to handle the records this time. Navigate over to the Rules & Registration page (link at top of website) and review the rules. If you are interested in participating, click the Register button at the bottom of the page and you will be directed to the correct page on Ride Master.

Cost for 2022 is $22. I am again asking for a totally optional donation tot he YMCA – it will show up as one of the fees in the registration process, and if you desire to donate, just select the amount and add it to your total. We raised over $1,750 last year through these donations and my local YMCA was very appreciative of our efforts!

If you are a returning rider from 2021 and register before February 28th, I will assign you the same number. If you are a new rider, your number won’t be assigned until early March.

Questions? Reach out to me using the Contact page on the website or e-mail me at pnwgrandtour@gmail.com.

Quick answer to the most common question – yes, we plan to do this again in 2022! I am already planning locations in out of the way places and hope to provide an enjoyable group of options to get you out and about next year.

Some updates planned for 2022:

• I am planning to have the registration page active at the end of December. Stay tuned!
• Returning riders who register early (date TBD) will be able to request their 2021 rider number. I need to cut it off at some point to make sure flag orders can be sent and received in time for mailing.
• Entry fee will remain affordable. I am still looking at planned prices, and believe the entry fee will stay close to $20.
• I am choosing to not accept mail in registrations and payments this year. You will have to register online, and pay via PayPal (you do not have to have an active PayPal account to do this).
• I am setting up a discussion board on the web site for riders to use to ask questions, share stories and just interact. This is a first step in my plan to make Facebook less of a part of the tour. I am testing it now with a few people and hope to make it active at the end of the year.
• I am thinking about providing the option to purchase a tee shirt with the rally logo on it. Just need to sort out prices and delivery timelines. I should have an answer about the same time registration goes live.
• Finally, I am hoping that health guidelines allow us to have a mid-season get-together to meet and greet and share stories. If we are able to pull it together, there will be a small price (in addition to registration) to help defray food and beverage costs.

As always, I am always open to suggestions – send me a message using the contact page on this web site.

I hope your holiday season is blessed!

Well, the year has passed us all by and the inaugural season of PNW Grand Tour is in the books! Based on the majority of the feedback I received, you all enjoyed the destinations as much as I did. This tour would not be successful without riders who enjoy seeing our beautiful roads in the PNW, so I thank you!

Just a little bit of housekeeping to finish up to completely close out this first year. Sitting on my kitchen table are finisher certificates for 81 riders waiting to have postage applied and get mailed out, hopefully Monday morning. I also have a little something extra for the riders who visited all 30 destinations – your packages will be mailed a few days later than everyone else’s.

I have plans moving ahead for next year’s rally. Basically the same format, maybe a few tweaks to reflect lessons learned and incorporate feedback from riders. This website is the place to get updates, so subscribe and get notified when I post new information. Some of the changes I plan for next year include:

• I have been playing with a discussion board for us to use to discuss locations, ride plans, weather guesses or whatever else we want to discuss. I should be able to get it up and running before the next rally starts.
• I want to provide the option to get a t-shirt with the tour logo on it next year. I am working on pricing and sourcing. It will be an additional charge and optional.
• Let’s assume things calm down next year…I would love to host a get-together sometime mid-season to meet some of you. More to follow. The format is up for discussion – pay a little and have me provide food and drink, no payment and do something akin to a potluck, no food at all – I’d be interested to hear your ideas and preferences.
• Some riders have asked about retaining their number for next year. I don’t think it will be an issue, just need to work out the minor complication.

And more minor improvements are planned. So, stay tuned, get your oil changed and new tires installed and join us for another fun-filled year of riding in 2022!

I suppose we all knew it was coming. It has been a pretty dry spring and early summer in the PNW, so fire season was shaping up to be pretty bad. It seems like all of the activity started in a very short period of time and now there are several areas affected by fires again this year. Take it easy and don’t worry too much about whether a location is accessible right now – it will very likely be available in a few weeks.

Some numbers: of the 357 registered riders, 195 of you have visited at least one locations and 28 of you have reached finisher status. The most number visited by any rider is currently 24 of the 30 locations. I’m sure we will have someone hit all 30 sometime this month. It is a pretty impressive accomplishment when you consider how spread out the locations are. Definitely not a weekend ride to capture all of them. Note – for those that do collect all 30 locations, I have a special recognition item planned.

I love the pictures we get with people having fun out on the road. One stood out this past week.

Rider 114 was out on the road and had visits in Washington, Oregon, Idaho and Montana.

And finally, riders 237 and 238 get an ‘A’ for effort on their visit to North Fork! The destination list allows a picture without your bike at this location, but they made the extra effort to get the bikes included and we appreciate the effort. When I visited the last time, I was on a Goldwing and didn’t try the path they took. You can see that their picture includes the required elements. Even though it isn’t an exact match to the sample image, it does include enough of the object to verify their visit.

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I am going to be headed out on my own road trip in mid-August to visit locations (and friends) in Idaho and Nevada. I hope our paths cross at some point.

Lots of great rides happening as we approach the longest “day” of the year and the official start of summer. I think a few riders who put in some miles last week would argue that summer already arrived, but officially we have to wait a little longer.

We currently have 356 riders registered with flags. 169 of them have made at least 1 stop, and the group has now visited 656 destinations! We still have 2 locations without a visit (Dee Observatory in Oregon – still closed, and MT2 in Montana). We are up to 11 finishers as of this morning. Remember, you don’t have to collect all 30 to be a finisher in this rally. But you can keep going to get all 30! I am looking at the possibility of giving riders who finish all 30 destinations a little something extra for their effort. More to follow.

Congratulations to the following finishers:

• 001 Tim Allen
• 003 Tim Seawel
• 007 Rod Barnes
• 037 Kerri Miller
• 081 Burl Smith
• 128 Ken Tracy
• 143 George Barnes
• 144 Dave Sims
• 145 Ellie Sims
• 244 Glen Geiss
• 271 Murray Langille

A couple of our riders had some unfortunate luck – one was involved in a hit and run in western Washington (he is recovering and should be fine) and another broke a rim in the middle of nowhere. We are glad that the rider who was hit will be OK, and I think this serves as an important reminder to all of us to stay safe and be prepared for anything out there. A couple of rider notes for all of us:

• The road to WA-3 (Boggan’s Oasis) is a fun stretch of pavement with a few hazards we should be aware of. There are tar snakes most of the way down, so be careful in warmer weather. And the rugged terrain is prone to rock fall, so be aware of what lies in wait as you enter a corner. Also of note, the Oasis is open until 5pm, so if a meal or shake is on your mind, plan your rider accordingly.
• The dirt road out to the alternate WA-8 location (Palouse Falls sign at the park entrance) is still in rough shape with plenty of washboard sections. The road crews typically grade it at some point soon, but please be careful. And remember, you don’t have to ride all the way out there. I gave you an alternate location at the highway intersection.
• My experience riding throughout Western Montana is that there is a LOT of wildlife. Be especially careful when headed to MT-2 (Earthquake Lake). The last time I was in that area there were bison on or near the roadway.
• The forestry service road that leads to ID-2 (North Fork) is paved, but the last time I was out there the markings were not in good shape (the surface was fine, the painted lines were in bad shape). Also, the area is prone to small rock fall on the road, so just take it easy and enjoy the scenery along the Salmon River! Note – read the destination guide for this one – your bike DOES NOT have to be in this picture. Also, whichever way your trip plans take you, make sure you include the ride over US-93 north of North Fork. It is a great stretch of road to even out the wear pattern on your tires 🙂

And finally, a few ideas for meals on your rides…

• I am told by one of our riders that the burgers at CA-1 are pretty good.
• In the Leavenworth, WA area? Try Heidleburger on the west side of town for great burgers, fries and milk shakes. It is a small building right on US-2.
• The food at MT-1 (Tamarack Brewing) is very good.
• In the Palouse region of eastern Washington? My favorite breakfast place in the entire world is located in Moscow, Idaho – The Breakfast Club. With a name like that, how could I be wrong?
• Bend, Oregon? Make a stop by the Deschutes Brewery Public House for a good meal and beer (assuming your riding is done for the day).
• Also in the Palouse region in Lewiston, Idaho – Season’s Bites and Burgers. More of a sit down place with very good food. They have a lot more than burgers. And the Lewiston/Clarkston area has a much better assortment of lodging choices than Moscow/Pullman.
• Do you have any more places you really try to visit when out on the road? Send them my way! If I get enough, I might try to create a page to consolidate a list 🙂

Well, we are up to 6 finishers at this point. Congratulations to the following riders:

• 003 Tim Seawel
• 007 Rod Barnes
• 081 Burl Smith
• 143 George Barnes
• 144 Dave Sims
• 145 Ellie Sims

Take a look at the rules to figure out what finisher means…it doesn’t mean they have visited all 30 locations – that would be impossible at this point since one of them still isn’t accessible due to snow closures. There are several riders who are close to finisher status. Don’t stop! Get all 30! So far, 152 riders have visited 530 destinations. Pretty cool!

We still have 3 destinations that haven’t enjoyed a visit, yet. As mentioned, 1 of them isn’t accessible at this time, but the other 2 are and I guess I am a little surprised no one has ventured out to Western Montana or eastern Idaho to grab them. I am sure their lonely status won’t last very much longer.

We all need a friend on the road, but the Zarings have it figured out perfectly with Yogi, their traveling companion. Cracks me up every time I see a picture of their fur baby on the back of the bike!

I made what I hope is an enhancement to the website. Take a look at the rally stats page and you can now click a destination code that will send you to the Google Drive folder where all the images submitted for that location are available to view. I usually go through the recent submissions every day or so and move them over, so don’t get too worried if yours doesn’t show up immediately. Maybe next year I will figure out how to automate the process.

Get out there and ride!