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QuickTake:
More than 450 people rode the annual Cycle Oregon Rally this year, tackling a route from Grants Pass to Ashland and back.
Andrew Dumitru recalled learning to ride a bike for the first time in Barstow, California. It was 1959, in the desert.
“I had a little red 14-inch single-speed bike,” he said. “It was the type of bike where you pedal backwards to stop.”
As he balanced for the first time, his brothers, who were telling him what to do, called out.
“And as I turned around to yell back, I immediately crashed into a parked car.”
That didn’t stop Dumitru’s from getting back in the saddle and enjoying the freedom of being a kid riding a bike around town. Little did he know that nearly 50 years later, he’d still be looking forward to riding his bike, and this time, for a vacation.
“I’ve got a touch of ADHD, and I enjoy the constant stimulation of the world rolling by,” Dumitru said. “It’s like if my brain was tangled, cycling combs it out.”
Dumitru moved to Eugene in the 1990s. He completed his 12th Cycle Oregon Rally, a multi-day ride, this year, which went from Grants Pass to Jacksonville and Ashland and back.
Cycle Oregon held its inaugural event nearly three decades ago, when Ashland innkeeper Jim Beaver had the idea of bringing people together to ride their bikes, see rural areas, and support local communities across the state.
Johnathan Nicholas, a reporter from The Oregonian, shared in Beaver’s vision and helped get the word out. What was expected to be a small turnout ended up bringing over 1,000 people from 20 states to ride from Salem to Brookings.
Dumitru was a pie maker at the Alphabit Cafe, near Deadwood on the Oregon Coast during the first event in 1988.
“I remember the ride had an overnight in Mapleton, and we were serving like crazy — 1,000 cyclists swarming the Alphabit Cafe eating all the pies, soups, sandwiches and lots of coffee,” Dumitru said.
Dawnetta Rios has ridden the Cycle Oregon Rally 10 times since getting into cycling more than 15 years ago.
“I started out running. Then a friend of mine started doing triathlons,” Rios said. “So I said,‘that seems really fun,’ and I started cycling, and it kind of took off from there.”
Rios, who is chief operating officer at Influents Innovations in Springfield, met Danielle Curran and Deven Smith at a running club around 2008, when the three started cycling together.
The Eugene friends, who often plan multiday rides and other outdoor excursions together, train with the Greater Eugene Area Riders group.
“Cycle Oregon is like summer camp for adults,” Rios said. “I just love that you can get away from your regular life and not have any responsibilities other than just riding your bike and eating.”
The five-day Rally is Cycle Oregon’s largest event with more than 470 riders this year, bringing people largely from the Portland metro area but also from various states across the country.
Volunteers are a big part of Cycle Oregon, and many have returned multiple times, including Eva Frazier of Portland, who rode Cycle Oregon in 2009, but now takes a week of vacation to volunteer.
“Cycle Oregon puts on incredible events, and volunteering is a way to get inside the machine to see the exceptional ecosystem of the people who make it all happen,” she said. “Where else can you volunteer where they feed you, give you live music, lifelong friends and let you sleep under the stars?”
Three decades brought change and challenges to Cycle Oregon, causing the organization to pivot. In 2023, after COVID and multiple seasonal wildfires, Cycle Oregon decided to sunset its Classic ride, which was a seven-day event and replace it with Rally, which requires less logistics.
Every year, the multiday ride changes its route, visiting various small towns to support rural areas throughout the state, which is part of the original vision
In 2020, Cycle Oregon launched Jumpstart, a program that gets kids on bikes for the first time in small communities throughout the state. The program has helped get more than 9,000 bikes and helmets to kids throughout the state.
In the latest iteration of the ride, things look different than they did in 1988: more women, different routes, more gravel options and more accessible bikes. But the mission remains the same: getting people to ride bikes and interact with small communities throughout Oregon.
“I love that cycling is a wonderful way to see the world,” Curran added. “You can see so much more from the seat of a bicycle than the seat of your car.”
