Some more pictures from the ride today to Florence, OR

On the road again: Newport to Florence, Oregon

We waited at the bike shop for the UPS truck to arrive with my new wheel. It arrived around 11:30 am and it was installed by noon. Mailed the old wheel back to the manufacturer and we were on the road by 12:30 pm. Despite the late start the riding was easy due to a tailwind at least 90% of the way and only a few moderate climbs. We ended up doing 55 miles to a beautiful state park campground which is very close to the ocean and a few miles south of Florence, OR. We are staying in the hiker/biker area with at least 8 other bikers. One is from Quebec and one is from Germany. We are starting to see a few of the same people as we leapfrog each other every few days. We didn't get into camp until almost 8 pm so we didn't get to see the sunset over the Pacific. The riding was beautiful today - we were mostly on the coast where it varied from wide Sandy beaches to places where the forest went almost to the edge of the ocean.

Spending time in Newport, OR

Arrived at the bike shop at 10 am. They disassembled my rear wheel hub and made an attempt to fix it. However, the teeth on the rachet ring are sufficiently damaged that the ring must be replaced for the hub to work properly. Unfortunately, the hub has to be returned to the manufacturer in San Jose, CA for repair. I spoke to the manufacturer - Phil Wood - by phone and they offered to build me a loaner wheel they would mail to me so I could finish my trip. Then I could mail in my damaged wheel and at a future date I would swap the loaner wheel for my repaired wheel. I decided to buy a new wheel at the bike shop and mail my damaged wheel to Phil Wood for repair. The entire internal mechanism in the hub will be replaced with a newer design (the freehub and pawl/rachet system now use 5 pawls instead of 4) and the wheel will be mailed to my house. The new wheel won't arrive at the bike store until tomorrow so we will spend another day and night in Newport. The local bike shop (Bike Newport) is a great shop. They are located on the Adventure Cycling Pacific Coast trail which I think coincides with the Adventure Cycling Trans-Am trail in Newport. The shop is extremely bike tourist friendly. They have showers and laundry facilities that touring cyclists passing through can use. The only requirement is that you buy something in the shop. We ended up spending a few hours at the shop and while we were there at least 5 touring cyclists stopped in for a repair or bike part. Several ended up doing their laundry. Once the new wheel arrives tomorrow it should take about an hour to set it up and install it so hopefully we can be on the road by late morning or early afternoon.