SF

San Francisco

San Francisco was planned as our first major stop in the tour. It is
a city that I have long planned to visit; I had heard from many
friends that it is the one American city worth living in. Sure enough
the city by the bay did not disappoint. The was great food to be
found, the architecture was fabulous with so many old buildings, the
days warm, and the happy hours as advertised!

We spent two nights in a horrible hostel but this was thankfully
forgotten by three nights in a nice hostel and an even nicer private
room. After a month of tenting it was a real pleasure to sleep in a
comfortable bed with luxurious linens again. We stayed very close to
the civic centre, a great location with plenty of inexpensive and
super tasty foods from around the world. As noted Happy Hours are
allowed in SF (as of course they should be in Canada), bars all
around the city offered sweet deals such as pints for $2-3. And good
beers too, not just the watery junk made by Bud and Coors. Actually I
have been very impressed with many of the beers we have sampled so far
during the tour. There are a number of really good small breweries in
the Western US, I was surprised.

We went to Golden Gate Park on Sunday afternoon for a huge free hippie
concert. Strange...

San Francisco is a cycling city on par with Vancouver (although their
bicycle lanes need some serious paving and painting work). There are
so many people on bikes and not surprisingly then plenty of bike shops
around. And with my bike pleading for some TLC it was time. I went
in with Rill to one of their community bike shops and ended up
spending a number of hours cleaning, lubing, wheel truing, rebuilding
the rear hub, and replacing my worn tires with some new rubber meant
to be "flat proof" – we'll see in Mexico!

Sunny San Francisco

Torill and I arrived in the Bay Area on Wednesday, exactly one month
after leaving Vancouver. We spent the first two nights in the Marin
Headlands National Park area camping on a hillside campground with
nearby views of the Golden Gate Bridge and the city. It was a pretty
spectacular spot and it was, surprisingly, free!

From there we moved into the city on Friday and have spent the last
two nights in a pretty sketch hostel currently undergoing renovations;
pain in the ass! Today we are moving to another hostel (hopefully
less downtown eastside-esque) for a few more nights of city life.

The ride through Northern California has been alternately spectacular
and frustrating. As usual, the bad was brought on by periods of poor
weather and we had our fair share of rough patches over the last
couple weeks. We were drenched by record rains in the Redwoods
National Park and then treated to further rains and smothering fog
much of the rest of the way into San Fran. However, the riding over
this stretch was amazing as the road often snaked right alongside the
wild Pacific Coast. Vehicle traffic has been light and the little
traffic we encountered was very courteous towards cyclists.

We've traveled over 1,200 miles (just shy of 2,000 kilometers) with
only three days off hunkered down through rains approaching biblical
proportions. We'll spend a few more days relaxing and checking out
San Francisco before hitting the road again. We had intended to
arrive in San Francisco relatively quickly and then slow down a little
bit in order to escape the northern latitudes before winter's
approach. Mission one accomplished; the temperatures have increased
significantly over the past two weeks of southern travel and it is now
quite pleasant day and night.

Here are some photos; many more to follow.

Bodega Bay

Hello!

We're almost to San Fransisco! I had been thinking that maybe I wasn't much of a city girl, but wow, am I ever looking forward to arriving in the big city! We plan to take a few days off there - the first two camping at Marin Headlands, and then hopefully a few days in a hostel. I could use a few days out of the rain and in a real bed!

The coast is spectacular. I love the cows and sheep on the flattish bluffs overlooking the ocean. It is hilly though! Our last few days have been short on mileage, but the steep hills are tiring.

We're in Bodega Bay this morning, waiting for the dense fog to clear. The last few days have been mostly rainy or foggy, but it tends to clear up for a few hours in the afternoon. Just enough time to dry us out a bit and to enjoy the scenery. Brydone was just reading in the paper that it has been unusually rainy so far this fall on the coast. Soon we will be south of that though!

It's starting to clear!

Love,

Rill

Rainy Californian Redwoods

Torill and I have been hunkered down for the last two days in Northern
California at Standish-Hickey State Park in the midst of torrential
rains and high winds which have dolled out quite the beating up and
down the coast. The campground is deserted save for the 10 or so
unfortunate souls in the hiker biker sites.

A Brit, who we have been running into since Westport Washington, had a
massive tree branch fall on his bike last night; destroying his rear
wheel. A call to a bike shop in Eureka and an Amtrak bus delivered
package later though and he already has a new wheel in place. One of
the benefits of choosing a frequently traveled cycle route!

I think we'll head on tomorrow regardless of the weather. It's pretty
depressing here and the forecast doesn't look overly promising for a
while. Time to continue south. We're about 4-5 days of riding away
from San Francisco. The next days' ride starts with the biggest climb
yet; 2000 feet and then right down to sea level and back up to 700
feet. The climbs have been manageable so far; the roads are well
graded and most of the time there is a comfortable shoulder to ride
on. The drivers continue to be very courteous; except that is for
the horrible RV drivers. Wow, they are terrible.

11 October 2009

California! is different from Oregon. More small farms visible from highways and people like to drive on the right side of their lane. We have been on the coast, in the middle of the Redwoods at Elk Prairie State Park (elk and a small prairie clearing), back on the coast past lagoons, and now we are at Humboldt something Park back in the beautiful Redwoods along the Avenue of the Giants. We have been on and off the freeway and up and down some of the biggest hills of the trip (1300' was our highest so far I think).

The freeway is loud and the vehicles large, but the shoulders are generally wide and the roads newly paved. "Shovel Ready" - it's nice cycling through a recession.

The miles go by fast on the freeway, but it's way nicer when we can get off of it. Yesterday we found a long section of bike path along an old railway corridor that met up with small country roads through pretty farms, between a county park not far from Trinidad and Arcata. Our guidebook had recommended that we take the freeway for this stretch, but a few times we looked over to our right and saw what looked like a bike path, so Brydone got directions and off we were on the alternate route, which turned out to be part of the old Pacific Coast Bike Route (a forgotten part apparently).

The Oregon Coast Bike Route was clearly signed, with a marker at every significant turn, but in California it appears that many of the old Pacific Coast Bike Route signs have been removed or roads have changed since the signs were posted decades ago. It's strange to me that no map of the old route seems to exist.

We often encounter the same people every few days. Many going from Vancouver to San Diego, but many on shorter or longer trips too. This is a popular route! I'm surprised that each day we come across at least five or so and often way more people with similar travel plans to ours. I think an even mix of Canadians, Americans, and Europeans. Everyone has been great and I look forward to seeing who will arrive at the campsite each night. Must be very busy in the summer as this is probably near the end of the touring season in this area.

My knee is feeling about 80% better. I switched out of the cycling shoes and have mostly been wearing sandals. I suspect that my knee didn't like being locked into the same (probably slightly off) position all the time. I'm going to get some better insoles and adjust the cleats and try them again in a few days.

Just before the campground this afternoon, we passed a signing saying 224 miles to San Fransisco. Not that far from warm, sunny beaches! Weather looks kinda bad for the next few days, but it's just supposed to be wet and not much colder than it has been.

It gets dark so early now. It's only 8 pm, but I'm ready for bed.

Love and miss all you at home,

Rill

More pictures

The Last of Oregon

We have decided to take a day off and rest today after about a week of
travel days. We are in Brookings Oregon, about 6 miles from the
California border. It is a gorgeous spot although today the fog
rolled in early in the mornings and has remained steadfastly in place
through the afternoon, significantly cooling the air down.

Torill's knee has been bothering her for a while and yesterday she was
experiencing searing pain hence the off day today. We checked out the
fog shrouded beach this morning and Torill was certain she was
spotting Sea Otters all over the place (they looked like seals to me).
She was a bit downtrodden upon showing the Park Ranger a photo of the
"otter" and being told it was likely not...

Hopefully Torill's knee will be healed overnight so we can tackle the
two thousand foot plus climbs in store for us tomorrow. We're
probably about 10 days out of San Francisco now.

Enjoy some photos from the past few days of Oregon's beautiful coast.

Torill and Brydone

PS - They were otters (Torill)

Almost to California

Yesterday Torill went the entire day without eating any chocolate or
candy. I didn't think it could be done. Today, however, she is more
than making up for yesterday's self induced show of restraint and is
now in a blood sugar coma lying in the warm sun like a lizard.

We are now a day and a half's ride away from California but as this is
the first day of good weather since entering Oregon we opted to stop
after only 20 miles and spend the remainder of the day at the beach in
the sun. We will be staying in one of the park's heated Yurts
tonight! At each of the campgrounds so far the yurts have all been
booked and each night we have been very cold and damp in our tent.
Yurts are cabin/tent structures with a sofa, bed, and electricity.
They are a pretty solid deal at only $27 a night but as a result are
virtually always booked 9 months in advance.

The ride through Oregon has been spectacular and the rains have
lessened the past few days allowing us to fully take in the views.
We've ridden about 50 miles (80 kms) each day, stopping each night at
one of the many excellent state parks. Bike campers have a designated
section in each of the parks, are never turned away, and are only
charged $4 per person per night. There are more touring cyclists in
Oregon than we met in Washington, most are cycling to San Francisco or
San Diego. Only one we've met so far is planning on venturing on into
Mexico and he's going all the way to Argentina from Alaska.

So we've ridden over 1,000 kilometers and have had no flat tyres; the
bikes are performing well although they are in need of a thorough
cleaning this afternoon.

Attached are some of our photos from the past few days in Oregon.
Each photo's filename indicates the location.

Cheers,
Torill and Brydone

Finally we post!

Hello everyone,

Torill and I departed Vancouver on September 21st on our cycle trip to
somewhere in Mexico, or perhaps beyond. Our plans for the trip remain
quite lose; essentially we have at least until the end of the year to
travel around and are starting out by cycling the Pacific Coast Cycle
Route from Canada down to Mexico. We will probably continue on down
the Baja Peninsula in Mexico and then over to Mazatlan and beyond. It
will probably take us less than two months to reach Mexico, I guess...

The first couple days we spent more time in cars (thanks so much
cousin Laura!) and on ferries than biking and had a nice stopover on
Salt Spring with Torill's parents, thanks! From Salt Spring on
Tuesday we ferried to Swartz Bay then rode to Sidney with Torill's mom
who saw us off on the ferry to Anacortes Washington. We had great
weather for most of the first week and generally decent winds blowing
us along. Washington went by fairly quickly. We saw salmon spawning
right by our campsite at Dosewallips State Park, dined on delicious
fresh Tuna for about $2 a pound off the docks at Westport, and mostly
just got into the swing of things on the heavily laden bikes as the
miles melted away. The route we took through Washington was less
scenic than I had anticipated but at least the roads and the drivers
(apart from those driving RVs) were very good.

On Sunday afternoon we crossed into Oregon; the entry point being a
horrendous 5 mile long narrow two lane bridge with heavy traffic
spanning the Columbia River. This was the only bad stretch of road so
far on the trip but it was really bad! We did manage to get across
with all limbs intact though, an accomplishment in itself. That night
the weather finally turned and our warm sunny days were swapped out
for rain, cold temperatures, and headwinds. We took our first day off
from cycling on Tuesday as the forecast called for heavy rain (and did
not disappoint!). Today we rode about 50 miles through nasty
conditions and found out first indoor accommodation in the town of
Pacific City. The weather looks poor until at least Sunday so I might
have to do some sort of anti-rain dance tonight. The Oregon coast is
truly spectacular but we are missing out on many of the great views
because of the heavy rain, clouds, and fog.

Thats all for now but I will surely start posting a bit more regularly
from here on out. I hope everyone is well!

Brydone