Fact and Fiction
Pole Pedal Murder strives to represent the Pole Pedal Paddle Race as accurately as possible. But it was written in 2020 and 2021 when the race wasn't held. Some things were different in 2022.
In the book, the weather was mostly fair, as it usually is for the race. But in 2022 the top of the ski run was cold, misty, rainy, and sometimes windy.
The book imagines a gaggle of volunteers directing cars (with some exceptions) off the bicycle course and toward Sunriver. In 2022 there was only one lonely deputy sheriff aided by a multitude of traffic cones.
Sheriff's Detective Carl Breuninger finds the Kapka Butte Sno-Park virtually empty during the Pole Pedal Paddle race. But in 2022 the lot was almost full of cars parked for an entirely different race - a leg of the Cascade Gravel Grinder off-road bike race, a 44.3-mile race of which 63 percent was on gravel with a 3,357-foot elevation gain.
The convenience store where Roger fatefully stops to buy cigarettes in the book has steps leading up to the door and there is no mention of the Basecamp Grill in the same building. In reality it's the grill that has the steps.