The Klamath, Lake, Modoc, Siskiyou Outdoor Recreation Strategy Working Group made it's new website available today. Unlike rideoregonride.com, the site has traditional navigation and runs rapidly - there is no waiting. The site addresses the much broader concept of outdoor recreation across the huge expanse of Klamath and Lake counties in Oregon and Modoc and Siskiyou Counties in California. It does have a section devoted to bicycling. That section is split into two parts: "Bicycle Road Routes" and "Mountain Biking." I'll address each in turn.

Bicycle Road Routes: After a short introduction to bicycling in this area, the site offers nine maps that display the following routes : Klamath Falls Bicycle Routes, Lake of the Woods, Fort Klamath Loop and Westside Road, Clover Creek Road, Modoc Refuge, Dry Creek Basin, Fort Bidwell/Eagleville, Crystal Springs Park Loop, Fremont National Forest, Adel-Plush Loop, Crater Lake National Park, and Diamond Lake. Each map has a paragraph or two describing the routes and providing information contacts if you need more details. A "Bonus Points" section offers three, more advanced, opportunities: circumnavigating Upper Klamath Lake (the largest body of fresh water west of Kalispell, Montana), riding from Klamath Falls to Lava Beds National Monument and the OC&E Woods Line State Trail.

Mountain Biking: Similar to the Road Routes section, this section offers a lot of off-road opportunities including eight rides on the Fremont National Forest trail system, High Lakes Trail, Likely Mountain Challenge, Woodland Jurassic Ride, three base camps to a multitude of rides (Crescent Lake Junction, Corral Springs Campground and Scott Creek Campground), Devil's Garden Ride, and Mt. Bailey Trail. The Bonus Points again highlights the OC&E Trail as well as the ride to the top of Pelican Butte.

The beauty of this site is that it provides a wide array of recreation opportunities such as wildlife viewing, driving, fishing, history, scenery, hiking, camping and canoeing that you might like to combine with your bicycling adventures. There is also a map of the area that highlights many opportunities and will help you get to the rides of your choice.

Check it out at www.klms.net.

Today Travel Oregon announced its new "Ride Oregon Ride" website to the public. The site uses a modified blog format and has been under development for several months. While the site may make you wait for a large download on the home page and it uses an unusual, but clever, map-based navigation system, it offers a lot to those who would like to bicycle in Oregon.

If you can wait long enough for the home page to fully load, you'll be greeted with a slide show that starts with a shot of Crater Lake National Park. Each of the six slides in the series presents a link to more information about cycling in Oregon. For example, the Crater Lake slide offers a note extolling the virtues of bicycling in Oregon. A couple of the slides offer multiple topics. An urban cycling photo offers the following topics: "Portland: Biking on the Off-beat", "Clever Cycles" (a bike shop), "Tour de Lab" (a bike tour of three Lucky Lab brew pubs), and "Bike Gallery" (another bike shop). The slide show gives the tiniest of tastes of bicycling in Oregon.

A footnote to the site includes cycling resources for traveling, services and maps plus an opportunity to suggest a ride.

The main function of the site is to help you find a ride. There are four menu items to help you do that:

1. Trails: click this item and you'll find maps and links to information about 90 (as of today) off-road bicycle routes across the state. As you click through the five-at-a-time lists you'll see a map showing the locations and links to more information. Most of the trails are in the Portland, Columbia River and Bend areas, I'd have to guess that's a result of the people involved in developing the project.

2. Road Routes: This section operates like the "Trails" part of the site. It lists 8 featured routes and 78 total routes. The locations are more broadly distributed across the state than the "Trails." Crater Lake is included as a featured ride. Oddly, the Crater Lake route is shown as starting at Diamond Lake, when it's really about the 34 mile circumnavigation Crater Lake. The site offers opportunities to comment on the articles and the Crater Lake route has lots of rave reviews.

3. Events: This is a calendar of bicycling-related events in the state. You'll find exhibits, rides, bike shows, cyclocross events, races, business meetings of various groups, classes, races and so on.

4. Oregon by Bike: This section operates like the Trails and Road Routes sections, but starts with a map where you can select the part of the state of interest to you. Crater Lake is a featured ride in southern Oregon although the map marker points to Diamond Lake. By choosing a region, the site allows you to browse Trails, Road Routes and Events limited to that selected area.

Finally, the site includes a "Find A Ride" feature. Clicking on the link, located at the top of each page, opens a search bar that allows you to select the type of ride and location. We searched all rides and found, after a long wait . . . nothing. So, we tried again choosing a type at a time. We found 90 trails, 78 road routes, and 41 group rides.

Check out the site at rideoredgonride.com. It's a great resource!