Day 21

The Final Day!!!  Huntington Beach CA to Tijuana Mexico.

We left Keevin's house under the escort of Keevin and Slater for the first hour.
The ride was really nice through all the scenic Orange County beach towns, Laguna, Del Mar, etc. Good bike trail the whole way. We entered San Diego and rode into downtown and the water front before catching the ferry over to Coronado. From there is was a fast 20 miles to the US / Mexico boarder.  The closer we got to the border the worse the riding got and the less bike friendly the drivers were.

On arrival at the border we had a few problems crossing - they had shut off the bike lane and we weren't allowed to walk our bikes through the pedestrian lane.  Eventually we found a way though. 

On advice from pretty much everyone we were told to get in and get out of Mexico quickly.  Currently the area is very dangerous and not a good place to be after dark. There were military patrol men walking the streets with M16's.

We met up with Mum and Dad on the streets of Tijuana and went straight for the food stands. I downed 2 huge burritos, Anne had Tacos while Mum and Dad guarded the bikes.  We were quite a spectacle over there in our colorful lycra riding gear, and deffinatly got a few looks.

After the food and a look around we made our way back into the US before it got dark. We got into the car and drove back to Huntington Beach.
Total mileage today: 118. Total for the trip: 1804 miles.

7 am start with Slater and Keevin

San Deigo Ciry from the ferry and Mid Way air craft carrier.

Burrittos in Te Juana!!!

Made it!! the streets of Mexico.

Mum and Dad guarding the bikes while we order food.

Total miles 1803.7

Mexico, Te Juana

21 days, 1804 miles.

Day 20

Malibu to Huntington Beach.

Cool ride today, past all the famous sights and beaches of LA: Santa Monica, Venice, Marina Del Rey, Long Beach and then on down to Huntington. The ride was not short of amuzement especially watching the crazies hanging out in Venice beach. We rode past my old town of Redondo Beach where I lived for 6 months in 06. It was good to see my old hang-outs again.

Tonight we are staying at our friend Keevin's house, and he and roommate Slater will start the ride with us in the morning. Off to Mexico first thing tomorrow!  Total 86 miles.

Venice Beach, full of weirdos!

On the right is the famous Venice Beach Gym

Santa Monica Pier

Off to Huntington Beach down the sand trail.

Day 19

Santa Barbara to Malibu.

Today we left Santa Barbara under the escort of Chuck, out host for the night, who rode with us for the first hour.

Riding past the PT. Mugu Military Base

Leaving Santa Barbara was really nice, we rode past some amazing neighborhoods on the beach, including Nicholas Cage's house. Soon the scenery changed to crop fields, and then back to beach again as we neared Malibu. We camped the night just north of Malibu in Sycamore Canyon, which was a nice spot for the night. Camping is quite scarce this close to LA so our distances are subject to where our friends live and where we want to spend the night.  It looks like our last day to Mexico will be the longest yet, around 130 miles! Total today: 52 miles.

Maritime Museum in Oxnard, a worthwhile stop.

Day 18

Solvang

bull at the mission

Pismo Beach to Santa Barbara. We headed inland today for a flat first half of the ride through rural farmland before climbing up and over a big hill to Lompoc, where we had lunch and visited the La Purisma Mission built by the Spanish in 1787. Following that we headed inland further, and up the 8 mile climb over to Santa Barbara. The climb was HOT! We arrived at our friends Chuck’s house for the night and made calzones for dinner. Looking forward to 5 cups of coffee from the Santa Barbara Roasting Company in the morning! 95 miles total.

the mission

Day 17

Limekiln State Park to Pismo Beach. We started our morning in fog, as we do every day, still heading down the rocky cliffs on Highway 1. We had to stop about a half an hour into our ride to help some fellow touring cyclists with a broken chain. Since we didn’t have a chain tool with us either, Jeremy had to fix their bike with a big rock and a rusty bent nail he found on the highway. They were so happy when he got it all back together he gave us both a big hug!

We descended out of the ocean cliffs and into the rolling hills along the beach, where we came across an enormous elephant seal colony and rode by Hearst Castle. We went through Morro Bay and saw famous volcanic Morro Bay Rock sticking out of the bay (actually the plug of a volcano), checked out the mission in downtown San Louis Obispo, and finally got to Pismo Beach in time to check out the town very crowded and touristy boardwalk area before catching up with kiwi Stephen. 97 miles total.

fixed his chain with a rock, nail and a new link.

elephant seals

the road ahead

Day 16:

Aptos to Limekiln State Park (South of Big Sur)
We thanked our host Kurt for his hospitality and headed south again towards Monterey, where we checked out the historic Fisherman’s Wharf and Cannery Row, and found some seals who had commandeered someone’s rowboat. We rode down into Carmel to check out the town, and then continued onward toward the redwoods in Big Sur. The climb out of Big Sur was a longish and hot one, and was followed by additional rollers before getting to our primitive campsite on the edge of a cliff overlooking the Pacific. 103 miles total.

Day 15

here is where we are now. as of 9-3-10

Montara to Aptos (below Santa Cruz)

Fast start, with a tail wind all the way down the beach. Met a few other bike tourers on the way who are always interesting to talk to.

We checked out Santa Cruz, then made our way to stay the night at Dave's friend's house in Aptos, just back from the coast. We left Dave here, and his girlfriend came to spend the weekend with him in Santa Cruz before heading home. His goal was to make it to San Fran and he did it, so from here on in its just myself and Anne.

A lighthouse at Piegeon Point, still functional and built in 1871.

Day 14

Marin County to Pacifica/Belmont.

Spent the morning exploring San Fran city, pretty cool!

Crossed the Golden Gate Bridge today, and now we are officially in San Francisco!! We started heading down the coast and the fog rolled in again. It was so thick this time that it was dangerous.  The temp dropped and the visibility went down to about 10m. We had to abort mission in Pacifica until the following day, where the parents had noted the non-visibility, rush hour traffic, and dropping temps and driven back up for the rescue mission. Went to Anne's friends Ester and Loren's in Half Moon Bay for the night and a good meal.

Me, half way along the bridge. Before the weather went bad.

Day 13

Fort Ross to Marin County

The ride started out just as beautifully as the previous day ended, but shortly we headed inland. Here the temp climbed fast, and soon it was 90 degrees and we were riding through dry valleys and hills. We started to feel the heat today and the legs weren't doing as well. The pavement got really rough on the back roads and we soon felt like we were mountain biking. Hitting the coast in Marin again was a welcome relief and to know that we were now only 10 miles from the Golden Gate  Bridge in San Francisco was good!
That evening we took the car over to Berkeley CA where Anne went to University and explored the area. Huge hippie town, weirdos everywhere on the street outside the school.  Had good Mexican food there too.

Total distance 85 miles.

Anne's bike, not mine.

Day 12

Fort Bragg to Fort Ross.
One of the best days riding!! Amazing scenery again on perfectly sealed roads. Most of the day we followed the coastline on winding roads up down up down all day, steep climbs to view points. There were so many picture opportunities it would have taken all day to stop at each one of them. Every 30 miles or so we would arrive in another small historic town which usually had a light house dating back to the 1800's
Total distance 84 miles.

starting the day in thick fog again.

camp for the night, out trailer is the small one at the back.

common rugged coastline, cold water unfortunatly.

Day 11

Here is our progress as of  8-30-10

Meyers Flat to Fort Bragg CA

Wanted an easier day today after the past 3 days of centuries. But it was not to be, today we ascended the biggest climb of the whole trip through awesome forest and followed that by one of the best and longest descents Ive ever ridden. The pavement was perfect once we hit the CA h.way 1 and not much traffic. After going up and then down all day we finally hit the coast again for the first time in a few days. It was a welcome sight but didn't bring us any flat ground. You can tell we are moving sth now, the foliage is getting more diverse and the land is becoming dryer.
Total mileage today: 86 miles.

taking a break after hitting the coast again.

Day 10

3rd day over 100 miles in a row!!
Excellent start around coastal roads then we headed inland up into the mountains and into the red woods again, a short time riding on dirt roads which was not too good on the tires and then cow manure farm roads.
Started to feel the pain today, too many hours in the legs but finished strong. We got to the Trailer after a 8 hours of riding and checked out the drive thru tree with mum and dad then broke open a bottle of Moet Champagne to celebrate passing the half way mark for the whole ride. Total distance: 109 miles.

Trinidad Lighthouse

it was a tight fit! the tree is 5000 yrs old.

Camp.

Day 9

Massive day again, this will be our 2nd day of 100 miles. Finally hit the California Boarder!!
Today we headed to the Red woods. Its started out really nice along the CA coast and cliffs, but the pavement deteriorated to about the worst road and cycling conditions we've had so far. We had to ride on part of the 101 highway which was not fun. As we go nearer to our destination we got off the highway and the cycling was awesome along the famous 'Avenue of the Giants'. Through the red wood Forest, massive giants towering above the road for miles and miles.
Arrived at the camp, nice spot in state park. Total distance: 98 miles.

Day 8

Anne writes...
Foggy Oregon weather finally gave way to sun! We went from Umpqua Lighthouse State Park to Nesika Bay, for a solid 98 mile ride. Our ride began promptly at 8am this morning, and we immediately ascended a hill out of the campground, which took us to another hill, followed by some rolling hills. Luckily, we made 10 sandwiches for the day, including a new flavor – peanut butter-marshmallows-marmite (much to mum’s horror!)
We had lunch on the boardwalk at Bandon, and spent the afternoon riding the coastal hills a couple hundred feet above the ocean. We met a couple on a tandem that were 3 weeks into a year-long circumnavigation of the continental U.S. Wow! Most of the other cyclists we’ve come across are bogged down with multiple panniers worth of gear for their trip; in any case, Jeremy puts the hammer down on all of them.
We did meet one older rancher in the afternoon, while having a snack break in his driveway, who was very nice but didn’t hesitate to share his opinion of all these touring cyclists he comes across: Apparently he finds a lot of male cyclists riding from Vancouver to San Francisco, who talk “all nice and everything”, and whom he expects might be gay, not that there’s anything wrong with that. I didn’t really feel that I could counter his statement, given that Dave’s spandex outfit was topped off with a very cheery bright red jersey and Jeremy was down to his bibs and an open flouro vest, so I just agreed that Dave was heading straight to San Francisco and was quite excited to see it.
At mile 69, mum and dad drove past and restocked our dwindling food supply (I guess we need more than 10 sandwiches), and we were happy to see both them and the additional snacks! We finished up with about a 20+ mile per hour tail and/or side wind, and after having some huge raw oysters, made a big cook-up on the fire for dinner, followed by dark chocolate and giant marshmallow smores. An excellent Friday night.

Bandon OR

bad short cut

Here is a map of our progress, updated daily.

Day -6-


Cape Lookout State Park to Carl Washburn State Park OR.
Early start in the fog, thick fog!! Like the kind you see in horror movies. We cleared it fast as we climbed straight out of the campground up the first of many hills to come.

The first part of the route today took us slightly inland through low land swamps and lakes, ascents up endless peaks, climbs easily 3 miles long or more. At the summit the road would wind around cliff faces cut into the rock giving us expansive views of the ocean and white sandy beaches to the south.

The roads narrowed and the traffic relented toward the last half of the day, the hills became rolling through scenic artsie towns. cafes, surf shops, art galleries and bus loads of tourists.

Breaking out of the tourist trap the road became more wild, rugged, weird prehistoric Forest and hundreds of bridges crossing streams and rivers. At this point we were counting on the food supply lasting the distance of the ride but as the donkey (the carrier of everything) I could tell my load was light. We ran out of food with about 20 miles to go and it all went down hill. Dave fell off the back and I had half a peanut butter sandwich which got me another 1 mile. Anne was the only one who kept it together, but she can do 100 miles on a spoon of oat meal.

Amongst the last of out gear I managed to fine one last GU which gave me the power to pull through to the campground.

We camped in the bush tonight across from the beach. To top if off Anne and I did a 3 mile hike with visiting friends and groupies, Brad and Caroline.
Total mileage today: 106

view from the road, long way down...

Anne and Dave riding over one of the many arch bridges.

starting the day, fogged in!!

Day -7-

REST DAY!!!!!
Kind of... We ended up riding south 45 miles. Carl Washburn State Park OR to Umpqua Lighthouse State Park.

The day started with some serious bike maintenance and about 4 cups of coffee. We decided we had a few miles we had to make up so we took an easy spin down to the next camp. Stopped along the way to look at a 100 and something old lighthouse, through a tunnel and around winding cliff roads.

We arrived at the camp, awesome spot near the river and just over the sand dunes from the surf. Brad rented a 4 person dune buggy and we took that for a burn but got it stuck twice!!

So far the day time temps have been really good for riding although the evenings are freezing and the mornings are cold especially in the fog, beats Vegas anyway!!

sand dunes were spilling onto the road!

Coffee shack, cos we needed it.

Haseta Lighthouse