As of October 4, 2025, I have completed my 11,800 mile bicycle ride of the circumference of the United States of America.

“Leadership is going first, adventure is going beyond”

Why ride a bike across the country? There are a hundred reasons that sound like cliches. Cliches aren’t wrong, but you’ve probably heard them before, and no doubt, as the pavement unfolded, you heard a few from me too. But I share some experiences that are original, too.

As an Explorer in Residence with the Center for Adventure Leadership, I put this experience in the context of the questions—”what exactly is adventure, and what do we really mean by leadership?” Maybe you’ve heard the phrase “building the bicycle while riding it” to describe a process of creating something useful while simultaneously using it. My ride has been just that: discussions of adventure while on an adventure, observations on leadership while applying leadership. And balancing life along the way.

You can follow the whole ride by starting on the first blog…Day One of the West Coast ride.

Overall Insights

The ride is over and we’ll all be moving on to new things. If I don’t get this to you now, I may never write it and you would likely not look back to read it if I posted it later. So, what are my overall insights? I’ll keep it brief. 

The hills win

The US West Coast is two tectonic plates having a very loud conversation. And the result—it is mountainous. Road builders must deal with that reality and road users must use what is built. As a fairly fit cyclist, I probably produce about 200 watts of power, maybe a 1/4 of one horsepower.

But, a big but, persistence pays off. My strongest day was my last full day, San Clemente to Imperial Beach. I was crushed by hilly terrain early in the ride, but we humans rise when we try. This 1,884 mile ride was long enough that I experienced a self-evolution, a return to a former strength of body, but with a mind that has become more experienced and capable with age and maturity. 

 America is a cycling country

The League of American Wheelmen, now the League of American Bicyclists, was founded in 1880, It’s been advocating for cyclists for 145 years and is still at it. The dedication of thousands of organizations and millions of riders has created a cycling infrastructure that works well, particularly in the far West, and in cities across the country. The vast majority of auto and truck drivers show great courtesy to cyclists. We are a cycling nation, and if you are not riding now, I encourage you to get a bike, find a quiet road or trail, and just start pedaling. 

 Experiencing the world from a bike saddle compliments the other ways we connect with place. At the speed of the ride, the world glides by at a comprehensible rate, not so fast that everything is a blur, and not so slow that the mind wanders to imaginary places.

The West Coast is alive with vitality, creativity and drive

Stop whining about California. Spend some time here and you see much to admire. Just under the bravado, bling and glam, it’s an infinitely complex and nuanced place. People are curious and kind. There’s always something to be learned. For instance, today I found that I can get around most of the LA basin with just a bike and public transportation. The light rail, heavy rail, bus system and bikeway systems are all completely integrated. Who knew? Ten of thousands of LA people know. 

I come off the road as an unapologetic optimist

Most people seem to understand that we only get where we want to go, as a community—working together to get there. The society we have built is flawed with issues and weaknesses. But millions of people plan to get up tomorrow and do something about fixing what they can. And the next day and the day after that. Including you. My good news, fresh from the road, is you aren’t alone and help is there for you if you ask for it and are willing to give some help back in return. 

Wicked problems

Discomfort is essential for learning. Suffering is pain with a purpose. Knowing when to push and when let up can only be learned by pushing. Good judgement comes from experience. Experience comes from bad judgement. Wicked problems are those we cannot see until after we have committed to solving them, when it’s too late to turn back. 

We are overly age-segregated

Getting out and doing stuff is a lifelong pursuit, and I met so many fit, active, curious older people, but I also see lots of unfit and inactive young people. The benefits of experience and wisdom appear to not be extended to young people, and this is not the fault of the young people. People who have successfully aged enjoy each other’s company perhaps a little too much. 

The Threshold Effect

Last year’s ride across the Southern Tier was a demonstration of the skills, methods and mindsets that we teach at the Center for Adventure Leadership.

This year’s ride was a stress test of my new hypothesis of adventure leadership, the Threshold Effect. We apply different registers of leadership to meet different types of personal and organizational challenges. The Threshold Effect is the feedback we get that tells us the leadership register we are using is misaligned with the nature of the challenge we are facing. Understanding what a Threshold Effect is telling us improves our ability to correct this misalignment.

Adventure leaders need to make all kinds of decisions, each with real consequences. Excellent decision making processes flow through the registers of leadership with skill and assurance. Past preparation, present problem solving, and future visioning work together in congruent action.

Riding a bike in traffic, reading and running a whitewater river, resolving a challenging argument, nailing an interview, making good decisions to sustain relationships, building a career, gracefully aging, are all adventures that require skilled personal leadership. Each kind of adventure informs our ability to excel in all other kinds of adventure. When we learn to ride our Threshold Effects, rather than avoid or ignore them, we can sustain safe and effective action for days, weeks, months, indefinitely, without fatigue. 

Okay, I’ve either piqued your curiosity or driven you away

The point is, this bike ride promised to be more than a sight seeing trip, and the promise has been fulfilled. I hope you’ll join me next time.

Best, Mark

Up early, breakfast, and on the road at 7:44 AM. Today’s ride is short but there are a lot of logistics to attend to when I am finally out of the saddle.

I saw parts of Imperial Beach twice

Imperial Beach has an east-west strip of all the typical chain stores and restaurants, and modest, low rise housing to the south of the main drag, Palm Avenue. It’s a town of working people, chain link fences, and not a lot of thought to residential landscaping. But the streets are clean and there’s very little litter. Not much money here, but it looks like people care.

I pedal east through town and turned south on Hollister Street.

Tijuana River

In both 2024 and 2025, American Rivers named the Tijuana as one of America’s most endangered rivers.

It comes down to will, money and cooperation, which as we know has declined rather than grown in this area in recent years. The river’s discharge makes swimming in the ocean at it’s mouth too poisonous, and these beaches are closed for health as well as political reasons. 

Still, this southwest edge of California is a quiet, pretty place. There is a nice campground along the banks of the estuary, away from the stinky main river channels. The place has promise. 

I reach the end of my road sooner than I had hoped…

View fullsize

View fullsize

…Friendship Park resides within the Border Field State Park. It was once a small circular space with the Boundary Monument #258 sharing half its base with Mexico and half with the U.S. However, the Monument is now only on the Mexico side and the U.S. side is blocked by a fence.

Had I been on the Mexican side, I could have cycled right to border beach—close enough to throw sand into the United States. But for Americans in America, accessing this park is illegal. The contrast between the U.S. - Canada border and U.S. - Mexico border is stark. Take another look at the first post of the West Coast Trip.

This was the terminus of what was to be a 11,600 mile bicycle ride around the edge of the USA, but turned out to be 11, 558. But before we get too bent out shape, consider that I am still young and it’s taken me 44 years to get this much of the ride done. Maybe sometime in the next 40 years, things will change and I can ride the final 2 miles. 

 We also talked about me just riding past the sign and seeing how far I got, but I pointed out the surveillance camera, and soon after, a U.S. Border Patrol truck moseyed by. I considered asking for a lift but missed my chance as the truck drove away.  

I started pedaling east, then north, towards my life after the ride

First, I have to get myself and the bike home.

I retrieved my bike box from the UPS Store in Imperial Beach box, dis-origami-ed the box and disassembled the bike enough to fit in, along with my cycling-specific gear. I paid for up to 55 pounds of contents plus box, and kept stuffing it until I reached 54 pounds. Leaving the well packaged bike box with UPS to be shipped home, I walked out with just one pannier bag, all I would need on my multi-modal trip home.

My trip home starts on today with a bus from Imperial Beach to San Diego, the Amtrak Pacific Surfliner from San Diego to Los Angeles Union Station, an airport shuttle to LAX airport, and a 15 minute walk to my hotel.

On Sunday I fly to Seattle, ride light rail into the city, hitch a ride with my brother, reclaim my car at Shilshole Bay Marina, and after a celebratory party with family, drive to Missoula. I should be home for dinner on Monday. 

The rider becomes the landscape

Different ways of travel provide different looks into the world, each way being its own lens of sorts, showing some things while concealing others. The immediacy of cycling, and it’s every present physical risks and hardships, folds and kneads the rider into the landscape, not simply observing it, but for just a few moments, being part of that landscape.

Other ways of travel bring different looks into a place, but I will always maintain that finding a way to be part of the scene—rather than merely a passive observer—creates an opportunity for authentic connection that the mere observer can never experience. Earned experience, adventure travel, first-person interaction—these promises the risk of changing the traveler in significant ways that cannot be predicted before the trip begins. 

So how have I been affected? What parts of me have been reconfirmed, what have been debunked, and what has the heat and pressure of daily suffering annealed me into? I will have to re-engage my “normal” life, and see what I do differently, how I show up differently, before I can answer these questions. More to come, later. Thanks for following my ride. 

This was my last full day of riding, having ended close enough to Mexico to enjoy dinner on a restaurant  patio in the glow of the city lights of Tijuana. Today’s ride had distinct parts, each very different from the others. 

The weather was perfect all day, sunny, 60s-70s, with a quartering tailwind off the ocean. A tailwind directly astern provides no cooling breeze, a still-air bubble that can get very hot. A quartering tailwind gives a nice push, but coming from the side a bit, also cools. 

Part One: San Clemente through Camp Pendleton US Marine Corps base

I straddled the bike at 7:48 AM, rode 2 blocks and found the dedicated bike path leading south out of town.

I cycled south along the Avenida Del Presidente, named to honor the road to Nixon’s “Western White House”, and then on to the San Clemente Bike Trail.

3 miles later, a sign directed me to the onramp onto I-5, which had a clean, wide, smooth shoulder. At 50 mph, car noise is mostly tires. At 70+ mph, car noise is mostly air whooshing. Faster moving trucks, however, have louder tire noise at high speeds, more of a hum. This makes it easier to know what kind of vehicle is approaching from behind without having to look back.

Part Two: North County Coast

 The 20 miles from Oceanside to Torrey Pine is a bike-heaven stretch of riding trails, clear, clean bike lanes, and picturesque towns.

Today more cyclists pulled up next to me and started conversations than have over the previous 32 riding days this entire trip—only four but still!

Another rider, Bill, explained that we were on historic US 101, which was the main highway between LA and San Diego before I-5 was built in the 1960s. When the freeway came in, these North County Coast towns died, and for years they were known only as surfer-hippy dives.

The towns we see here today have the historical names—Oceanside, Carlsbad, Encinitas, Solana Beach, Del Mar, La Jolla—but are in fact new towns, with roads, infrastructure and commercial centers all modern and up-to-date. And, of course, pricey. These surfer hippies went back to school, started tech companies, made fortunes, and came back with BANK. They are still surfing.

The towns are all served by both the COASTER Commuter Rail Service and the Pacific Surfliner Train. To get around here, all you really need is a rail fare card and one of Joe’s surfer E-bikes.

It’s a retirement haven, but different from any other retirement haven I have ever seen. Demographically retirement communities lean towards the “slowly decomposing”. But here, older people are fit. FIT. Balding, graying, lean, muscled, smiley, chatty, cyclists and surfers. 

Part Three: San Diego

A notable thing about San Diego is that the airport is right next to downtown.

Airports are built on principles of large scale efficiency. San Diego seems to be a city built on these same principles. I only had a short time to form this opinion, but from a bike, the whole city has a feel of planned urbanity, not organic, quite…”industrial designed-civic”. I’m making up words here, and I don’t mean this as a criticism, but I just imagine that the city was designed by a team of urban planners with masters degrees, clean sheets and huge budgets.

Part Four: Coronado to Imperial Beach

Coronado has a golf course, a huge grassy park, nice bike lanes, and the famous Hotel de Coronado.

And of course, a massive naval air station. Looking around from this western shoreline of San Diego Bay, again, the navy is everywhere. Aircraft carriers, amphibious assault ships, destroyers. There is always some combination of ships, helicopters, jets, and navy personnel in motion. This isn’t a sleepy navy, it’s an energetic, always striving navy.

At the south end of Silver Strand, facing the ocean, is the Naval Base Coronado Silver Strand Training Complex. As I ended my long, 75-mile day of riding, I saw a squad of navy personnel, in formation on a training run.

I’m trying to understand why today’s ride was such an easy 75 miles. Partly, I’m stronger and better adjusted to my daily routine of cycling. But I have to say, San Diego County feels so on top of it, so well organized, that the riding just flowed. People here have taken it down a notch from the more frenetic pace of greater LA. San Diego County people, at least the civilian side of the population, are not as driven and ambitious as the folks up in La-La-Land are.  They seem more open to each other and to me, and just happier. 

I am now just a few miles from “The End”…a 11,600 mile ride I started in 1981.

I’ll ride to the border early tomorrow morning, hover for a few minutes there, try to get someone to take my picture, and begin the process of getting my bike and me home to Montana.

I planned a couple of extra days in case something went awry, but it’s been a smooth, catastrophe-free ride. I now have those  days to write an epilogue for the ride. I think I can say it now: I have not had a single flat tire down the entire coast! 

I left at 8 AM from the Grandview Inn in Hermosa Beach, just a block off The Strand, that I bicycled yesterday from Santa Monica. My “grand view” was of a neighboring roof—I booked an economy room.

Torrance Beach is the southernmost of the oceanside communities of Santa Monica Bay. I turned east and inland to Torrance (birth place of the American Youth Soccer Organization), towards Long Beach. What an amazing difference a few miles make. The coastal towns are little villages packed together liked canned fish, with all the homes and businesses inside each of them packed together like canned fish. Colorful, fit, tastefully dressed canned fish. Oh, the money here. 

Port of Long Beach

The Port of Long Beach is industrialized, gritty, hardworking, and massive. Oil refineries, railroads, warehouses, trucks, battered pavement, ships and container cranes. This felt like the beating heart of LA, where the “business of looking great” along The Strand is supplied. No one drives Porsches, Audis or Mercedes Benz—but instead, Peterbilts, Freightliners and Isuzus.

California Coast Trail

In the middle of all of this industrial might there is, of course, being LA, a dedicated bike trail. Cycling is such an embedded part of the culture here. This culture extends across California with the grassroots effort to create a walking/cycling trail along all of California’s coast…the California Coast Trail.

Seal Beach, Huntington Beach and Newport Beach, rolled past, all looking to my eye not much different from the oceanside communities north of Long Beach—Venice Beach, Hermosa Beach and Redondo Beach. But LA is a megalopolis made up of distinct cities and neighborhoods. To an outsider like me, LA is LA. But I’m sure local people could go on about how each “Beach” has its own unique flavor, and which is best. Certainly the pelicans have opinions….

Hills again

The rule is: haul ass or get out of the way

Bike lanes disappear in favor of “Share the Road” signs. Roads are narrower and there is just less to share, though the traffic in the afternoon was both more voluminous and more frenetic. Cars whiz by, on my left shoulder, RIGHT THERE. Nobody slows down, they just drive with more determination. The LA driver’s motto seems to be, “if there is a gap ahead of you, speed up and fill it”. Still, as I’m sure I have mentioned, LA drivers pay attention. Bikes are tolerated. I felt like I was a factor but never a nuisance. I just deal with them, and they deal with me, and everyone gets along.

66 miles today, or 88?

Even though my moving speed has been good, today has been a lot of stop and go, with traffic lights, lots of cars and frequent map reading.

Camp Pendleton

I find a hotel in San Clemente and while finishing the leftovers from lunch, mull how to get across Camp Pendleton.

The Camp Pendleton traverse has been a mystery to me since I began planning this ride. I know people do it regularly, but the information how exactly is spotty and inconsistent. Bikes cannot use California freeways—except when they can. Bike trails are everywhere—except where they haven’t been completed yet. Cyclists can cross Camp Pendleton—except only authorized persons may enter the base—and to become authorized, one must first get a pass from the visitor’s center…in Oceanside.

Tonight, I finally figured out a solution. I will ride the first 12 miles on side roads of I-5, until I get to the Camp Pendleton entrance. Then I’ll find a freeway onramp (without a “Bicycles Prohibited” sign) and then ride for 8 miles to the first exit past Camp Pendleton, where I must exit I-5 and find a side road.

Here in San Clemente, I am about 81 miles from my final destination at the “Binational Foreign Interaction Zone” (ICE-speak) at the corner of Pacific Ocean and Mexican Border. An early start tomorrow, and a smooth, strong ride, will give me the option to finish tomorrow, tired and sweaty. Or I can hold up in Imperial Beach, get cleaned up, fed and rested, and pedal the final 8 miles (and back) on Friday morning. Bang it out tomorrow? Or slow down for a moment and savor it? I’m not sure. I’ll just get to Imperial Beach, and decide then.

Today is one of those days where I have to strain my brain to remember how it began. I started in Ventura, which seems so long ago. This may be because I felt so thoroughly “in the moment” for most of the day. The bike worked fine, the body is holding up—even getting stronger as the day wears on—and the surroundings were always stimulating. 

Ventura is a town with a deep history, for a town in the West, anyway. But the thing is the beach. The beach is the thing for all of today’s 78 miles. Every wave hitting the shore has drama. I can see how people can just stop everything and watch the waves crash. This morning, Venturians were not just watching, they were surfing. Hundreds of surfers, of all ages. I’m impressed with how many old dudes surf. And these gray beards are lean and FIT. 

The road paralleled the beach for some miles, then kicked inland through farmlands and the greater Oxnard area. I read earlier that Oxnard is the third of California’s strawberry growing areas, after Salinas and Santa Maria, but the road didn’t take me through many strawberry fields.

I did pass some military installations, and I stopped at the museum for the US Navy’s Seabees, their combat engineers, at the Naval Construction Battalion Center, then the Point Mugo Missile Park at Naval Air Station Point Mugo. Then it was just miles of clean, smooth beachfront road for miles and miles. 

“We build, we fight”

US Navy Seabees Museum, Port Hueneme

The Bu

I got to Malibu much sooner than I expected.

The amazing beauty of this coastline has been jealously guarded by a small circle of private interests for more than a century. The Rindge family built their own railroad—”a railroad to nowhere” to keep the Southern Pacific Railway from building a line. They knew that if a railroad already existed, the Interstate Commerce Commission would not require land to be ceded to build a second line next to it.

The family, lead by the matriarch May K. Rindge, so-called “Queen of Malibu” fought to stop construction of the Pacific Coast Highway; in 1923 the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that Los Angeles county could appropriate land and in 1925, the county paid $107,289 for a right-of-way.

In 1991, the area was incorporated as a city to stop the county from building a regional sewer. Fighting over sewage continued until 2016 when the Malibu City Council created the assessment district to pay for a wastewater treatment plant.

Just east of Malibu town center, the effects of the Palisades wildfire earlier this year became apparent. Hundreds of homes and businesses burned.

The Strand

Just east of the Palisades I started riding on the Marvin Braude Bike Trail that runs for 22 miles along the beach, through Santa Monica, Venice Beach, Marina Del Ray, past LAX and El Segundo, Manhattan Beach, and right to my hotel in Hermosa Beach.

I noticed though, that as darkness descends, everyone goes home. By 9 PM, the sidewalks of Hermosa Beach seemed to be rolled up, with virtually nobody out and about. Los Angelenos know how to have fun, but they work hard too, maybe too hard. Tomorrow is a work day, and everyone has someplace to be early. Fun time is over. Off to bed. 

Today I rode strong. Switching back to my cycle cross bike has added speed and miles to my days. I finish tired but not wiped out, and I am perfectly confident that I’ll wake up a little stiff but otherwise, ready to hit it again.

Tomorrow, I will get back on The Strand and it will take me to Redondo Beach. Then it’s back to negotiating with car traffic on surface streets. 

My goal for tomorrow is San Clemente (roughly half way between LA and San Diego), but I may push on to Oceanside, 85-miles down range from Hermosa Beach. If I can do that, then Thursday is a 55-mile day to Imperial Beach, and the border is just 8 miles beyond that.

Right now, I am planning to finish those last 8 miles early on Friday, if for now other reason than the morning light will be better for my end-of-ride pictures than late afternoon light. But that seems a bit vain, so maybe I’ll just grind it all out Thursday. It really depends on how far I go tomorrow. So like the rest of LA, it’s time for me to be off to bed. Tomorrow comes early. 

Today would be a stretch day, mileage wise. I stuffed down lots of motel breakfast, including two bowls of Lucky Charms cereal, a guilty pleasure.

Right out of town Highway 1 started up into these hills, and for the next 20 miles it was good road, light traffic and ups and downs like everywhere else I’ve ridden in California. It was a quiet, peaceful ride. No more huffing and puffing, bitching and moaning from this rider. My legs are finally up to the work.

The coastal area between Gaviota and Ventura

The law here says that cyclist may use freeways when no other reasonable route exists. This includes about 1,000 of the gazillions miles of California freeways.  But if there is a frontage road or path, they kick bikes off the freeway. It’s not that the freeway suddenly becomes dangerous, I think they are just reading the law as it is written: “reasonable alternative”.  Even if the freeway is, from an engineering perspective, fine for bikes, if there is a reasonable alternative, cyclists are off the freeway. Happily, this jumping off and on US 101 is well marked and the surface streets and bike paths are in fact excellent for cycling. 

There is a lot of money here and a very clear urban design aesthetic is in play. It seems a little fake, an affectation. So this evening I did some digging.

Santa Barbara’s architecture is not “fake-fake”. It’s “real-fake”, perhaps to be understood as a modern take on traditional architectural forms—an effort is to stay consistent with Spanish Colonial architectural.

In the 18th century the Spanish established presidios and mission churches at San Diego, Monterey, San Francisco, and Santa Barbara.

In 1925, an 6.8 magnitude earthquake devastated downtown. The rebuild was intentionally planned and well financed. Over the years, new construction worked to compliment rather than replace or one-up the existing design feel, whether by choice or law, I don’t know. The result is that the cities and towns towns here feel cohesive, not the usual mis-mash of just-up-throw-it-up-and-get-the-doors-open we see in so many American cities.

I’m observing this as a person not completely opposed to “fake-fake”. After all, I like the Bavarian Village of Leavenworth in the Cascade Mountains. The towns along this coast, however, have deeper roots, thicker wallets and they have done a tremendous amount with both their cultural and financial resources.

Bob’s bike is nicely dialed in for his mission. You’ll recall my meeting Jerne at Umpqua Lighthouse State Park, the retired German policeman cycling from the Arctic to Patagonia? Jerne’s bike was set up for the long haul, but very crisply, with no frills, just what was needed. The German engineering mindset at its best.

Bob’s bike was set up like a well appointed living room, not heavy, but with lots of custom details like aerobars, several different compfie handgrips, a mirror, lights all over, a Bluetooth speaker, and probably 6 water bottles stationed here and there. He has moved into his bike and is there to stay for awhile. At 4:30 PM, Bob was calling it a day and heading for a nearby hiker/biker campsite. I still had 22 miles to lay down. 

Santa Barbara: Hollywood of the North

Santa Barbara: Environmental Protection Catalyst

The California oil industry pumped tremendous quantities of oil and brought in tremendous quantities of dollars. The wells started, on land, near natural seeps, then began moving off shore, but not far, because divers could only go down about 150 feet before decompression sickness became a limiting factor. In 1962, abalone diver, Dan Wilson, used oxy-helium mixed gas (Heliox) as his breathing gas and dove 400 feet.

In1969 the Union Oil Company well number 21 under Platform A, located 5.5 miles southeast of Santa Barbara, California, in the Dos Cuadras field, experienced a blowout while drill bits were being changed. The resulting oil spill of 3 million gallons—nearly the size of Chicago—shocked and dismayed people both locally and nationally.

The oil spill was a catalyst for environmental ethics being written into law, including the environment protection acts to protect habitats, resources, and marine life. The first Earth Day was in April, 1970 and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) was establihed in December, 1970. The US president overseeing the birth of environmental protection as a federal mandate was the former US senator from California, Richard Nixon.

The book that most influenced my own life course is “Wilderness and the American Mind”, written by Roderick Nash, a professor at UC Santa Barbara, and the founder of one of the nation’s first college environmental studies programs. Nash was one of many local scholars, leaders and activists whose collective efforts brought much of the world into a much greater state of awareness of the need for environmental stewardship and the legal and governmental teeth to make it happen.

 Can I finally say that my roller coaster ride through California mountains is done? I think so. The next 63 miles of today’s ride was flat—I no longer call little 200 foot rises “hills” anymore. From where I dropped out of the mountains at Gaviota this morning, to the beach park at the Mexican border, is about 275 miles of flat. 

To sum up, today I cycled through one of the most interesting, and to my mind one of the most positively influential, places on the planet. And the weather was nice, as it apparently almost always is. 

I rolled into the Clocktower Inn in Ventura at about 6:30 PM, having covered 85.4 miles, my greatest daily distance of this ride. My habit has become to eat big during the day and light in the evening, which tonight took the form of a spinach, avocado and chicken salad swished down with a locally brewed Mexican-style lager. There have been evenings when “light” meant three hard shell tacos from Taco Bell. This was much better.

Tomorrow it’s on through Malibu and into the LA metropolis proper. Fitness-wise, I am now fully recovering with one night’s sleep, even from even long days like today. Tomorrow, I’ll just push as far south as I can, and see where I end up. The “275 miles of flat” I mentioned above was from when I first hit the beach this morning. From Ventura I have just over 200 miles to go, depending on twists and turns through the LA basin. Three more days! It’s Monday. I should look over the border into Mexico on Thursday, Friday at the latest. 

It’s harvest season here. So weekend hotel rates are cranked. A room at Hotel Siri Downtown Paso Robles that I can get tonight (a Sunday) is quoted for $120, but next Saturday it will cost $453. I was looking for a room last night (a Saturday night) in the area, and “weekend rate crank” was in full effect.  The best I could do was $300. So I resolved to get the most of it by eating two breakfasts this morning and packing a lunch from the hotel breakfast buffet as well. I had to spread my breakfasts out to stuff the most food in, so I hit the road pretty late, at about 10:30 AM. 

My route included a long downhill coast into San Luis Obispo, yet another town to come back to and visit more patiently. A college town—home to Cal Poly and Cuesta College. Just outside of San Luis Obispo, the countryside is all about wine and vineyards. It felt different than Napa, with rolling hills and dozens of smaller vineyards and producers. It truly feels more like family than corporate operations.

With another quick descent, I entered the Santa Maria Valley, which, like the Salinas-Watsonville area I rode through a few days ago, is all about strawberries. California grows about 90% of the country’s strawberries. Most of them are grown in the Salinas-Watsonville, Oxnard, and Santa Maria areas, thanks to the climate, soils, available water and available labor. Santa Maria is now the biggest strawberry producing area. As I was looking this up, I learned that Cal Poly is the leading strawberry research institution, in the same way that UC Davis, up near Napa, is the leading winemaking research institution. 

I’ll mention again how good the roads were today, which allowed me to start late and still get 79 miles under my wheels, though it was basically dark when I rolled into Lompoc.

Two things of note today

Rocket launch

I have been wondering if I would luck into seeing a launch as I rolled by Vandenberg Space Force Base. And at 7:04 this evening, I was in exactly the right place to watch a Falcon 9 rocket race skyward with a payload of Starlink satellites. Had I been on time today, I would have been off the road by 7:00 and would have missed seeing the launch.

The rocket’s fiery glow created a corona in the clouds it was flying through. 

Tomorrow I follow Highway 1 down another descent to the coast proper, then ride along the beaches for at least a day and a half, all the way through Santa Barbara, Ventura, Malibu and Santa Monica, where I started last year’s ride from coast to coast. I now have fewer than 300 miles to reach the Mexican border. I want to both jam it hard and finish the ride, and hold back a little and savor it. I am actually a bit ahead of my planned distance, and I am feeling strong, so I am not sweating a deadline. Great road ahead and plenty of time to cover it. 

Awake early, very sore from yesterday’s increased mileage and climbing. But no sense hanging around the Motel 6 in King City, so I headed out the door for probably my earliest start yet. Five miles in I reached the Wildhorse Cafe at Welby. I asked if I could bring my bike inside and the woman in charge said “if it makes you feel better”, in such a warm, matronly, dry tone that I knew breakfast would be good. And it was, but more fun was her targeted, pleasant, mildly caustic commentary on guests, her crew and humanity in general.

The World’s Salad Bowl

I’ve been puzzling a bit about what I am riding through. My original ride plan was to be on Highway 1 along the Big Sur coast, from Carmel to Morro Rock. With Highway 1 impassable after the massive Regents landslide snipped the highway in two, I have only been thinking of my current route as an alternate, merely a contingency, and I have to admit I haven’t been paying as much attention to the place I’m in, except with a mind to get past it. Mistake. 

The Salinas River runs south to north for about 175 miles, emptying into Monterey Bay. Except it doesn’t really empty into the bay. Most of the time now, only a trickle of a rive—if any—reaches the bay. Most of the water is impounded and used for Salinas Valley agriculture. If I’m eating salad, there’s a good chance that I eating Salinas River watershed water— farmers have senior water rights.

I saw a sign yesterday that said “Groundwater is OUR Water!” It turns out, world salad consumption not only takes all the surface water out of the river, it is also drinking from a massive underwater river and aquifer. Local pushback on this depletion has begun.

That sign was not next to a lettuce field.The sign was in the hills near Lake Nacimiento, up where people keep those second and third homes, and they want the water in the lake so they can play on their powerboats. What struck me is the disconnect between two very different populations in the Salinas Valley that seem to have nothing to do with each other.

On the one hand is the agriculture economy, which produces all it can and pushes it out into the world. Most of the money made in agriculture in this valley leaves the valley. Community investment in and between ag towns is absolutely minimal. The towns and roads are worn out.

Obviously the big operators—land ownership, machinery manufacturing, transportation logistics, etc. are taking their money elsewhere. And the farm workers, mostly Mexican labor, sends much of their earnings out of the community as well. Remittences to Mexico from the US, money sent from here to families back home, now tops $60 billion annually. Our Mexican farmers working here are also supporting the economies of their communities back in Mexico. They live frugally so their families can live at all.

So just like the river and aquifer here, dollars produced here are packaged and sent elsewhere, leaving little for local community development. There are efforts to get local Salinas Valley people to value and care for the Salinas Valley. One is a nonprofit called Ecologistics. Their motto is “Convene, Collaborate, Act”. They are starting where they are—to get people here to simply notice and talk to one another. Their headwind is all of the history and inertia of people only coming here to take something away, rather than build the local social soil.

Rutted roads

I started the day on Cattlemen Road, which was easily the worst road I have been on in hundreds or thousands of miles. Just a rutted washboard. And the wind picked up, right on the nose. The worst road, and the worst wind, at once, when my legs are creaking and complaining.

Escape Hatch

On Google Maps, a designated bike lane is indicated by a solid green line, and a road that is considered a bike route is indicated by green dots. In San Ardo, I missed my turn as Cattlemen Road veered to the west. Then I noticed on the map that there were green dots on the road I was mistakenly on, and they continued right onto US 101, which, when a limited access freeway, is closed to bikes. But this time, it seemed to be open to bikes, probably because the route that is not on US 101, the route I was reluctantly committed to, heads way east into steep hills before turning south towards my destination. I reached the onramp and looked for the sign reading “Pedestrians, Bicycles and Motor Powered Cycles Prohibited”. There wasn’t one. So I pulled on the US 101 happy to avoid a 5 mile detour through nowhere. 

As soon as I cleared the on ramp, the shoulder pavement deteriorated into the worst shoulder pavement I have ever seen, even worse than Cattlemen Road. After about 12 miles of this, I gave up and exited the freeway.

Going west and up, up, up

Instead of the direct route south on terrible road, I choose the hilly, windy but better pavement up to Lake Nacimiento. But leaving the bad road, I don’t know, somehow my body was tricked into thinking it was feeling better. The next few hours of riding where just this side of idyllic, through rolling open country interspersed with copses of oak trees. The wind abated, the hot sun was dimmed by a thin cloud cover, and while not exactly comfortable, it was good riding. 

After hours of riding through not much civilization, it was, like the Summit community along the ridge line between San Jose and Santa Cruz, unexpected to find a whole town high and in the middle of, what seemed to me, nowhere. But Lake Nacimiento had a remote but full time population, with a nice grocery store, restaurants, post office. The guy who told me about the lake said he works year around at the grocery store, and lives in a neighborhood by the lake, but rarely sees his neighbors, as these are the second or third homes for many “residents”. I commented that in the store I stopped into in Carmel Valley, the number one sales item was liquor. He said it’s the same in Lake Nacimiento. He’s the store butcher. His meat department typically comes in third in sales, after #1 booze and #2 ice. They like their booze cold, apparently, and the third priority is steak. 

Most people get to Lake Nacimiento from the south, from the cities and I got there from the north, from ag land. The road noticeably improved as I rode south, traffic increased, and I was passed several times by pickup trucks pulling the biggest power boats you could imagine sticking on a trailer and towing down the road. Still, as usual, I stuck to my part of the road, and drivers were quite courteous. I continue to feel quite safe with the notorious “California drivers”. Yeah, they are fast, but they pay attention.

Passing along the west edge of Paso Robles, I find another green dotted line on the map, right onto US 101. Google Maps had me on a 9+ mile loop around, and this US 101 shortcut takes 6  miles off that.

The road is super smooth, and the wind has stopped blowing in my face. I get in earlier than planned, wrapping up at 70 miles for the day rather than 76, and further down the road than I planned. Not bad.

Expensive weekends in wine country

Yesterday, I was in the King City Motel 6 for about $90, taxes included. In Paso Robles rates were between $300 and $3,500 per night! I get that it’s fall harvest/wine tasting season, but really? $3,500 for a night? I decide that if I am going to pay so much for a room, it should be further along the road than Paso Robles.

The next small city is Atascadero and I pay $300 for a room there. I have to admit, it’s a good hotel, and very comfy. I’m further along the road than I planned and the hotel serves breakfast.

With the Big Sur Highway still closed, it was back over the hump to the Salinas Valley today. I spent last night with Seaberry and Chris, and for breakfast this morning, I enjoyed eggs from their chickens and bread that Chris baked with jam that Seaberry made. Pretty great.

Google Maps said “heavy traffic” on my route. Not what I expected, because my road climbs up through nowhere and comes out the other side in a place nobody wants to go to, at least this way. By car, it’s faster to go north around these mountains, and catch the 101 freeway to the Salinas Valley. On a bike, it’s up and over.

Traffic thins out east of Carmel Valley, to the point where I was passed by only one car in over an hour. I climb, climb, climb.

A long stretch of no traffic is interrupted the familiar sound of a Harley Davidson motorcycle coming up from behind. Harleys have a distinct roar.  And another and…17 in total. These are new, gleaming bikes with bright and shiny paint and lots of chrome. And lots of leather, of course. These dudes are tricked out. A typical new Harley runs $25,000+. I pass my time doing mental arithmetic. Just going with $25k each, $425,000 of motorcycles just growled by. I could bicycle forever on that amount—with my friends, too. 

I reach the Salinas Valley floor and the full force of the onshore winds from the coast up the valleys becomes apparent. It’s a big wind, and as I turn right and south, it’s behind me! For nearly 15 miles into King City, I have the best tailwind of the trip so far. I am able to sustain 20+ miles an hour for miles and miles.

Still, I’m more than a little wiped out by the climb and the heat. I roll into King City baked and dehydrated. I chomp an ice cream sandwich and gulp down a Gatorade, pretty much the healthiest recovery food to be found in your typical gas station convenience store. There was not a single gas station or any commercial establishment of any kind between Carmel Valley and King City, a stretch of 50 miles. I can’t recall a highway stretch with this much of nothing on any ride I have taken, ever. On Montana’s desolate High Line, towns are 8-12 miles apart. Even North Dakota has more going on than the road I rode today. In my research of this ride, I found basically no information about this road, except that it exists. And that’s pretty much its whole story. I loved it. 

Last night, I reached my hotel, showered, ate, wrote my blog and collapsed into bed. At this point, I’m tired after a day on the bike, but not hating life. So it wasn’t agony that drove me to bed, I just couldn’t stay awake.

The cities around Monterey Bay deserve a much longer visit. This was obvious after riding just a half mile. This feels like a place that knows what it’s about.

Soon I was riding through ag-land, different from anywhere I’ve ever seen. These fields are for high-value produce, on a massive scale.

In the town of Marina, I picked up a bike trail that paralleled Highway 1and I rode the trail 10 miles into Monterrey. Then it was 6 miles to finish the day at the home of Chris and Seaberry, friends of my brother Bob. Of all things, they are planning a whitewater rafting trip on the Deschutes River, which happens to be the river I know best. So I’m trading river data for a shower, bed and home hospitality tonight. 

Gratefully, I’m tired tonight but not destroyed. I shook off yesterday’s fatigue with one-night’s rest, and I’m sure tomorrow I will feel the same. Each day this week, my daily miles will rise, and I am more and more confident that I will push through these last 600 miles in respectable form.

California and the people of California continue to impress. Happy days as a cyclist. 

Day 25! So good to be back on the road!  Today was a good reaffirmation of why I am doing this thing, this ride.

But first, why is Day 25 so late in September? I was going to be long done with it by now. This has become a ride that had to be squeezed into other unshakable obligations, that is, real life. Last year I rode the 3,200 mile Southern Tier in one swoop. This shorter ride is taking longer.

I decided to see how the logistics of yo-yoing between riding and being necessary to other people I care about can work together. The result so far is the good news is that I can do adventure AND pull my weight at home and in my profession.

First off, the cost is cost. It’s much more expensive to be bouncing all over the West, between legs of riding, and getting to where I need to be between legs. It’s expensive and it takes a lot of time in-between.

Second is getting into the groove of the work, whether it’s recalibrating to long days alone on the bike, or blowing into a social situation with more push and imperative than is helpful. It’s hard to dial back the drive and sense of imperative I need on the road, so I don’t over-amp social life. Not saying it can’t be done, and I might even say I’ve done it pretty well, but it takes a lot of conscious effort to appear like I am not making a conscious effort. There is an intensity, an always-on effect, that can be a bloody nuisance around other people. I get feral on the road.

Third, it hurts. Every time I get back on the bike after being off of it, no matter how active I have been, it’s like starting over. Enough said about that, except to say that when you try do something the way  I am doing this ride, expect it to cost more, be a bigger emotional and cognitive load, and challenge your conditioning over and over.

Is it worth it? Is wrenching at least some adventure into your already full life, given the tradeoffs? I think it’s worth the cost, worth the effort and worth the discomfort. The alternative is to put adventure off until you are dead or just don’t care anymore, which is a little late. The version of you or me who comes back to community, civilization, after driving yourself at something you could truly fail at if done badly, and then not failing, makes you a better dot release of your developing self. Adventure costs, and it give more back, if you don’t die. 

I made some changes. I have changed my shirt to adopt a more autumnal color way. The blue plaid shirt was starting to unseam, and it was a summer shirt. Browns and grays are more fitting to September/October, don’t you think?

Second, I switched bikes again. I’m not unhappy with the Priority 600 pinion geared bike, but it’s a 15-40 mile-a-day bike,  not a 60-90 mile-a-day bike. And it just wore me out. It will excel at knocking around town, gravel bike paths and casual riding. I will  put studded tires on it this winter and, with poggies on my handlebars to keep my hands from freezing, have a perfect Montana winter bike. 

Instead, I am back on my cycle cross bike, the one I abandoned after riding down Washington with that trailer. It couldn’t handle the big load and I was afraid of the shaky ride, and of wrecking a very good bike by using it wrongly. Now I have new wheels on it, and I’ve gone to tubeless tires. (To find out more why tubeless tires are a very good thing, look back at Day Eleven on the Southern Tier.)

I have left all of my camping gear at home and am going light for these last 8 days, with a credit card and plans to motel it. This is a big change for me because I have always carried everything I needed to camp and dive into the bushes for a night when necessary. I’ve ridden heavy. But future touring with be “grand touring”—credit card touring—to see the sights in Europe and such. It’s different way to ride, for different reasons, and I have never done it this way. 

When not overloaded, the cycle cross bike is way faster. During my time back in Missoula, I did a 10 mile ride on the Priority and again, exactly the same ride, on the Cannondale. The Cannondale was 2+ miles per hour faster. Over a full day, that’s 15-20 miles further for the same time in the saddle. I want to bang out the last 600 miles and get it done. Returning to light-and-fast(er) will cut 2-3 days off of this last leg of riding. Also, the cycle cross bike is much more fun, much snappier. 

To get back to San Jose and restart the ride exactly where I paused, I took the Coast Starlight Amtrak train down from Seattle. Cycling and Amtrak work great together, I will be doing more of tails and riding, and you should too. In the US, and in Europe too. Make plans because it’s a great way to go. 

I retrieved my bike from the baggage car, loaded up, and rode to REI because, of all things to forget (there is always something) I forgot to pack underwear. I also forgot Tenacious Tape for fabrics. I have a hole my spandex cycling shorts that reveal a bit more than anyone wants to see. I also picked up a spare inner tube, because I am not yet fully confident in these tubeless tires.

A bit about that. With properly matched rims and tires, there is now an icky goo that can be put into bike tires that remains fluid. As you ride, centrifugal force spreads it out all over the inside of the tire tread. When a burr or piece of glass or metal punctures the tire, this goo is pushed into the cut by tire pressure and seals it. No need for an inner tube to hold air that gets punctured and deflates, requiring the rider to remove the wheel, unseat the tire, patch the tube, and get it all reassembled and pumped back up to continue riding. A big gash is a different issue, but most tire punctures are tiny little holes and the goo just seals them up with no fuss, no muss. Tubeless tires are the new thing, and they seem to really work.

Okay, I’ll say it and possibly jinx it: I have not had a single flat on this trip so far. I may get all the way to Mexico with nada flats. The Priority 600 bike tires were fortress-like impenetrable. The only benefit of being so bloody heavy is that I have had zero flats and zero of any other kinds of mechanical issues. These tubeless supple-sidewall, low resistance tires might, MIGHT, be durable at less than half the weight.  

The weather system blew through and I just got a few raindrops. The rain cleared the air nicely but the humidity was up somewhat.

Recall all my laments about hills, hills, hills, when crossing from the coast to anywhere or anywhere to the coast? I can say that today I had the right bike, legs and attitude to get it done with a minimum of fuss. I climbed and descended 2,500 feet, but over great trails and road.

“Los Gatos”…not be confused with “El Gato”…

The descent to Santa Crus and the coast was heavenly. I had to be on the brakes to keep the Cannondale under 25 mph, and I hardly pedaled for nearly 10 miles of perfectly angled (down) road. It flattened out into town, where bike lanes appeared and ushered me right to my motel. Even though I was in rush hour traffic, it was very calm riding. 

So now I’m at the coast, and ready for some high mile days ahead. I won’t actually stay on the coast, though. The Big Sur Highway, every cyclist and motorcyclist’s dream ride, is stopped up with a land slide. At Carmel-by-the-Sea, just south of Monterey, I’ll need to turn inland to take the detour to San Luis Obispo. But south of that, I should feel ocean breezes all the way to Mexico.  miles

Enough for today. I’ll get to those lead-off questions on a future, shorter post.

Short ride today, at only 35 miles, but it was filled with wonder.

Cycling south out of Redwood City, I followed well marked bike routes through the shoulder to shoulder cities of the southwest part of the bay. Atherton, Menlo Park, Palo Alto and Stanford University, then to the bay shore wildlife areas of North Mountain View and Sunnyvale, and finally Santa Clara and San Jose. All pleasant, organized, obviously prosperous.

This may well be one of the wealthiest regions on the planet, but it all leans towards middle class values and norms. Nothing is ostentatious, just well organized, functional and of quality design and construction. Members of this tech society don’t seek dominance or a dependent underclass, they are just doing what they do. I think that’s their story, to themselves. That millions (billions?) feel displaced and confused by the new info-world these engineers have created is not something they seem prepared to notice or do anything about, except build bigger/faster/more robust systems. There’s no obvious smugness. Maybe just a self-imposed illusion that the next dot release will fix the bugs and make everything magically better for everyone. 

The towns are truly beautiful. Stanford’s campus is four times the size of Versailles, and probably richer. But it carries its wealth with a self-assured casualness.

There is an algorithmic, science derived Matthew Effect here (the rich just get richer because the technologies at their command self-propagate wealth). I don’t feel like I’m being critical here, just noticing and wondering out loud. Who even notices? Nobody is mean and they work hard and try to do the right thing. Yesterday, after riding by Oracles’ headquarters, I rode past the uber modern offices of the Center for Excellence in Nonprofits. It crossed my mind that this center, here, is an earnest hobby for the winners of magnificent tech wealth, kind of like the hobby of model railroading, except the layouts are comprised of real communities with real people. 

I followed my bike route as suggested by these very people, the programmers of Google Maps. And wow, the route carried me out of the cities and onto the bike paths that crisscross the astounding natural areas and wildlife refuges of the South Bay. Thousands of acres, protected, with flourishing populations and healthy habitats.

I met Sheldon, who was standing on the path next to a Canada goose.  Sheldon has named the goose Louisa. She has a broken wing and cannot fly. Sheldon has been bringing food to Louisa for over a year. He walks the paths through the wetlands daily, an avid observer of wildlife and nature’s cycles. Once I struck up a conversation, he shared an encyclopedic understanding of the area and its rhythms. In addition to being a birder and conservationist, Sheldon is a retired laser physicist and an Episcopalian priest. He said I can find him out in the refuge most afternoons, after he drops his wife off at work. 

What a place of contrasts. Gleaming office complexes, many designed for zero net energy use and contained waste cycles, amid thriving wildlife habitat. And anybody who decides to can get around without a car. The tech money is pouring in and this is what they are doing with it. 

Yesterday I mentioned some of the various ways to see the world by bicycle. The West Bay and Southwest Bay areas are prime cyclist habitat. Bike trails, trains, rentable bike lockers all over the place, great food, natural areas, a rich and self-aware culture (people have moved here from everywhere), and fun and outgoing denizens who are happy to talk with you if you just notice them. It’s a perfect region to make a base camp in a town of your choosing, hop on a train with your bike, discover a new part of the Bay Area, be back before dark, and head out in a different direction the next morning. I lived in Oakland as a kid, in 1967, when car mania was just cranking up. And it got bad. It’s different and better now.  I’ve heard so much about why people wouldn’t want to live here. Envy, maybe? I’m coming back. California is great. 

I catch the northbound train in an hour or so. After a stint at home catching up on living,  I’ll be back in the saddle here in San Jose on September 23, and hope to bang out the final 600 miles by October 2nd. 

From a landscape perspective, today was easily the most diverse ride of the trip. I woke early in my tent in an otherwise empty campground in China Camp State Park. All of China Camp’s campsites are walk in, which nixes the RV rabble. And everyone else too, apparently. Except for me, and I didn’t walk, I rode in.

It’s a wildlife-rich park. Columbian black tail deer browsed along the camp side. A 3-point buck wandered by. Ravens, squirrels, and in the night, probably raccoons, all visited. It is ‘wild California’.

Marin County is trying to balance urbanity with wildness, with both hilly land preserves and coastal ponds and wetland preserves. I rode through several areas of both, on designated bike lanes and nice bike paths. The downtown districts of Santa Venetia, San Rafael and Sausalito all feature local shops and business, and a small-town pace. Lots of cyclists, including  kids going to school, some pretty ripped and fit seniors, your typical lycra-wearing speedy bike jocks, and quite a few tourists on rented e-bikes.

Dinner last night was light so I splurged with banana pancakes at the Garden Cafe (where a group of friends were having their monthly breakfast).

I picked my way through San Francisco’s known areas, including The Presidio, Marina District, Fisherman’s Terminal area, and the Embarcadero. Continuing south, I started into areas of San Francisco I have never visited. Astounding! The city just keeps going and going. It’s a patchwork of old school neighborhoods like Bayview, aging industrial infrastructure, and gleaming glass high rises, both commercial and residential. There was industry in San Francisco, and in pockets of the city there still is.

But most of the new construction in the south bay is for “knowledge workers”: finance, info tech, software, bio tech. These swanky corporate parks just kept coming as I rode south. Visa, Amgen, VW America, Meta, and huge buildings with corporate names I have never heard of. I took a photo of Oracle’s six blue-green glass towers, reflected in its lagoon, which features forested walking paths around its perimeter and the . The Oracle campus struck me as the epitome of the San Francisco regional economy rather than an exception to it. There is just so much wealth. I can see it plainly and I’m just a guy riding a bike through the place. Stupid rich. 

Bike trails, paths and lanes are everywhere in the Bay Area. The Bay Trail is the big one. It will eventually circumnavigate the entire bay. I hit it coming out of Napa into Richmond, again in Marin, and again here in South San Francisco. 350 of the planned 500 miles of bike/pedestrian paths are now installed. A rider could spend weeks here exploring all of the cities, towns and wild spaces of San Francisco Bay by bike. I think I’ll talk some friends and family into doing this. 

By the way, there is a whole variety of ways to explore by bike. I’m doing it the long-trip/self-supported/solo way. If I were a little harder core, I would also be camping every night instead of some camping and some motels. There’s also a hub and spoke way to cycle tour, where you stay in one place and launch out each day in a different direction. It’s perfectly fine to drive to particularly nice area to ride, and then drive to and ride the next, and the next…. There are circles, like Crater Lake Rim Road, or Iceland.

I like the ride-out-and-catch-a-lift-back to my start point, by bus, train, or drop a shuttle vehicle at the end point. You can go heavy, carrying everything you need to camp independently, or carry a few basics, a change of clothes, and a credit card. Cycling from hotel to hotel and foraging restaurants is a great way to glam and gourmand your way across a landscape.  It’s all legit. Just design your riding to challenge your fitness a little (or a lot), and fit your time available, goals and budget. Get out there and cycle around in places you’ve never seen. Seeing it by bike likely means seeing it better. 

Tomorrow is my last day of riding for this segment. I’m hopping the Amtrak in San Jose tomorrow evening and riding the rails to Whitefish, where Joan will pick me up. The idea is to do some home chores for a week, then come back for more interior California riding at the end of September when, theoretically at least, it will be cooler. I want to ride inland from San Jose to San Luis Obispo or thereabouts, then cut to the coast and ride Highway 1 to the border. I may also switch up my bikes again. Back home next week, I’ll do some test riding of my two bikes. If my old body gets more speed from my Cannondale cycle cross bike than this Priority 600 tank, I’ll switch to light and fast. If the bike doesn’t make much difference, I’ll stick with the Priority 600 because it is super stable and 100% dependable. They are both excellent but very different bikes. My method with be to strap on a heart monitor and see how far I get on each bike at the same heart rate. In the mean time, tomorrow I ride 27 miles to the San Jose Amtrak Station. I will have ridden 1,245 miles from Blaine to San Jose.  I’m about 2/3 of the way to the end, with just over 600 miles to go. 

Today promised to be a straight forward ride of about 60 miles. Temperatures have moderated in the inland valleys and I am heading towards San Francisco Bay, where temperatures are cooler still. Hill climbs are short—no mountains, just gentle ups and downs. Most of today’s route is on dedicated bike paths. 

North of Napa is agricultural land and the town itself is mostly neighborhoods of single family homes. South of town is where the industry is.

As I rode south into the communities of the Bay Area proper, traffic management changed. Up the valley, I had the feeling that the bike paths were there to let cyclists slow down and enjoy themselves out of traffic. South of the dump, bike paths seemed to be tasked with keeping bikes off the roads so the sheer volume of cars and trucks could move unimpeded. This is about keeping bikes out of the way so cars can zoom. I felt as a rider that my experience was being channeled and curated, by careful planning, to keep me out of the way of the real business at hand, the safe and efficient management of massive quantities of motorized traffic. 

Still, I have to say that having bike paths lowers the cognitive load of the cyclist as well. I was a more relaxed rider today than on any day of the trip so far. It’s easier riding, mentally, when there are fewer potential menaces to pay attention to.

The Wine Trail bikeways were soon replaced with the Bay Trail bikeways. I crossed the first of three bay bridges of my ride, the Zampa/I-80 bridge over Carquinez Strait, which has a well-maintained separate bike/pedestrian path. The only community with lousy bikeways is North Richmond. While the designation of bikeway is present, the roads are shot, with bad pavement and faded road markings. In Richmond I maneuvered around more broken glass than on the entire ride so far. You can tell something about a place when people throw glass in the street, and the city doesn’t clean it up. 

The Northeast Bay is peppered with smaller cities of neat neighborhoods, among massive industrial complexes, especially oil storage and refining. Half of California runs on fuels refined here. Riding through this area required careful map reading, as the bikeways would turn or end suddenly. I did some backtracking when the path just ended, and I realized I missed a turn on the map. 45 miles into the day, I reached the east end of the impressive and long I-580 bridge, linking the NE Bay communities with Marin County to the west, across San Pablo Bay.  Again, excellent cycling infrastructure, especially across the bridges, made for a stress free ride into Marin. 

Once across the I-580 bridge, I was on the final pitch of the day’s ride. Dinner. Today’s food so far was a breakfast sandwich and three street tacos. Should I stop at a restaurant, stop at a grocery store, or just eat whatever is on my bike? I opt to dig through my panniers and eat whatever I already have. So dinner was a recovery drink, left over crackers, a chicken salad and crackers snack, and a cup of hot cocoa. This was all enjoyed after I found and made camp at China Camp State Park, just north of San Rafael, on the west shore of San Pablo Bay. With a 50-cent hot shower, I was cleaned up and ready for bed. Its September and the sun is setting much earlier now. Except for a middle school group in the group camp, the campground is empty. This contrasts amazingly with the packed campgrounds just a week ago, before the Labor Day Weekend. Kids are all back in school now, and working American is back at the salt mine. The countryside is once again nearly empty. 

Tomorrow I’ll have my instant coffee in camp, then pack up and get some miles down before breakfast, which is now a daily habit. 19 miles down the road I will cross the Golden Gate into San Francisco, and continue down the west shoreline of the bay towards Palo Alto. I plan to take my time through San Francisco. With today’s ride so flat, I may even charge a few of the city’s famous hills, just for the fun of it. 

Today’s blog should have been short because today was supposed to be simple. Yet here we are with me having something more to say.

I already forget if I waxed on about how nice Calistoga is. A big part of it is the hotel I stayed in, the Mount View Hotel and Spa. The hotel is 100+ years old, fully restored to it’s 1920’s art deco glory. I thought the best part was the price (low) but in addition to the high-line design, the complementary continental breakfast was brought to my room promptly at 7:00 AM. There are two conclusions about this: 1) go to Napa—specifically Calistoga—the day after Labor Day, when price gouging has ceased, and all the people are back at their respective salt mines after their end of summer fling. 2) Stay at the Mount View Hotel. 

Calistoga has about 5,000 people, as does St. Helena, about 9 miles south. Both are high design without being pretentious or kitschy. Napa itself sits at about 77,000 and feels much more like a working town, with a bougie downtown that seems out of step with the actual spirit of the larger city, like it was troweled on over the top. If you are familiar with Seattle, it would be like University Village was dropped into the middle of White Center. A clash of contrasts. 

The ride, short as it was, was almost all on dedicated bike trails and very pleasant. Napa Valley has a problem in that it has one primary traffic artery—for industry, through traffic, local people and scads of tourists. Getting bikes out of this mix is good for everyone. There are quite a few cyclists, but it’s not the Netherlands. Bikes won’t be taking a lot of cars off the road here, but as a cyclist it is very nice to not be in traffic. 

The harvest will be soon. Grapes hang on vines in fat clumps. I mentioned in yesterday’s blog that grape vines are at the peak of their production between 25-50 years. There are a lot of bare fields with huge piles of yanked out grape plants on the far end. This makes sense, since we are about 50 years past when Napa began to take off in the 1970s. 

An easy day today, including pedaling about 3 miles past tonight’s hotel because it is on the north side of Napa and Napa is bigger than I thought it was. I was downtown, looking for a place to settle in and write today’s (supposedly) short blog post. The bike has four panniers. My iPad was not in any of them. I checked twice more and no, I hadn’t missed it.

Remember my experience with the junkies in my room at that super shabby motel in Fortuna? After that motel manager had given me the wrong room, I realized I had no idea to whom a manager may have mistakenly given a passkey to my room. I continue to hide my valuables when I leave my motel room. If there is no safe, I stick them between the box spring and mattress at the foot end of the bed. That’s where my iPad was, back in my room at the Mount View in Calistoga. 

As I discovered on the Southern Oregon Coast, these small communities all have inter-town bus service. Poking around, I found the Number 10 bus makes the trip up and down the valley every hour. The bus ran right past my Napa hotel, and I had time to ride 3 miles, check in, shower and wash riding clothes before the next one came. The bus was a brand new electric vehicle, so new that the payment pedestal by the driver wasn’t working. Instead of $4, my ride back to Calistoga was free.

I had called the hotel manager to say where I had hidden my iPad. When I got to the front desk, Dylan from last night was there, and so was my iPad. Meanwhile, the bus was waiting 20 minutes at the Calistoga Park and Ride before returning to Napa. I had time to down a locally brewed lager before catching the same bus on its return trip south, the same bus that couldn’t take money, so my whole trip was free, except for the beer. 

The Napa Valley is a foodie paradise, because people like to eat great food with great wine. Getting off the bus, I walked just 20 steps into an excellent Italian Restaurant, and was offered a seat at the bar, since it was just me, no reservation required.  I ordered a nice Cabernet Sauvignon to pair with my rigatoni and meatballs, but the main course, as has happened so frequently on this trip, turned out to be the conversation with the person sitting next to me, in this case Michael.

Michael is a self-trained polymath who has done everything from construction to commercial fishing to his current profession—audio-visual production for conferences and events in and around Napa. His kids are grown with professions of their own, with one daughter following in his footsteps as an AV producer.

His father had recently died and he needed to get a job to help the family. Dad’s car was just sitting there so he would drive it to work. This kid behind the wheel was always getting pulled over. Since he was driving without a license, the penalty was to suspend his license. But he was too young to get a license to suspend, so was he really driving with a suspended license? He kept driving to work. When he went to take the driver’s test at 16, he was told he couldn’t get a license because his license was suspended. This went on for years, until he was 30, when enough time had passed since the most recent suspension of the license he didn’t have, that he was allowed to take the tests and finally get his driver’s license.

Michael and a buddy bought an old Boston Whaler boat because fishing permits follow the boat. They’d head out under the Golden Gate to fish because they liked being on the ocean, presumably keeping some and selling the rest. He said fishing has been declining, but recently, Chinook salmon are finding their way up the Napa River again. Big fish! Some may be strays but many definitely hatched here and are returning home. Steady efforts to restore riparian areas are paying off.

 This speaks to how cooperative efforts to preserve open space and land husbandry make a difference. In the 1960s, Napa County was the first county in the country to designate agriculture, in this case vineyards and wine making, as the highest use of land, rather than industry and sprawling subdivisions. Farmers are not taxed on the value of their property as if they would chop it up and sell it to developers. Towns are pinned in by law and sprawl is limited. I’m sure this has an impact on housing prices, which creates its own set of problems, but the result is that the Napa Valley is not San Jose. This dovetails with other efforts here—dedicated bike trails,  restoring fish habitat, the “Napa Wine Train” that gets more visitors out of their cars, and the emphasis on organic farming. All these speak to an intentionality for community-in-place that shows what can be done anywhere when people decide it’s important work together. 

I have finalized my route over the next few days to land me in San Jose on Saturday. My plan to do one more Missoula shuttle before completing my ride down California. There’s a lot to do back home to complete our move to our new home, and Joan shouldn’t have to do it alone. [Editors note: much appreciated! ❤️]

For some nefarious reason, airfares are through the roof right now, and connections between the Bay Area and Missoula are crazy complicated. I discovered that I can take Amtrak to Seattle and then to Whitefish, Montana, in a sleeper cabin, for about the same price as flying, and trains are so much more fun. So here’s what I’ll do: tomorrow night I’ll camp at China Camp State Park in Marin. On Friday I’ll ride over the Golden Gate Bridge into San Francisco, and work my way down the west side of the bay towards Burlingame or Palo Alto. On Saturday evening I’ll hop on the Coast Starlight heading north, and on Sunday I’ll grab the Empire Builder out of Seattle on it’s eastward journey through Montana.

After a week in Missoula, I’ll figure out how to return to San Jose to finish the final 10 days of riding to the California/Mexico border, to complete my bicycle circumnavigation of the contiguous USA. Another benefit of this last pause of the ride is that California’s interior remains very, very hot. South of Monterey, the coastal route, California Highway 1, is still closed for repairs following a massive landslide a couple of years back. The coast weather is cool but just inland,  like up here in Northern California, temperatures soar. By late September, temperatures are at least theoretically supposed to be lower. Today’s extended forecast suggests that in Paso Robles, for instance, daytime highs will be in the low to mid ‘80s, rather than over 100 like it was last weekend. I’m stretching the trip out once again because that’s just how this year’s adventure is shoehorned in among other life priorities. Sometimes it’s easy to organize, and other times, it takes a bit more craft and patience. 

Patio dining in Calistoga, with a live Spanish guitarist doing contemporary flamingo, surrounded by a well scrubbed and groomed clientele makes me not want to camp tomorrow night. I’m really in Napa County now. Is this really the same planet, much less the same state, that has Eureka?

Morning started before bright and early, in Redding, still a three hours drive from my ride re-start at Ukiah.

Recall that I had rented a car in Ukiah, stuffed the bike in the back and beelined it to my niece’s wedding at Cascade Locks, Oregon, on the Columbia River. It was an all-weekend affair and was a splendid gathering of family and friends.

Pertinent to my cycling trip, I had to take the bike because the newlyweds, Emily and John, are committed cyclists. With about 40 of their best Portlandia cycling friends, we cycled to wedding site from Portland. I picked up with the group in Troutdale, and my ride with them was 32 miles. After last week’s 400 mile dash from Coos Bay, it was a harder 32 miles than I want to say, but it was fun to ride with a group for a change. 

A 40-foot staircase equipped with bike wheel grooves is at the Eagle Creek Trailhead

So today started at 4:30 AM in Redding. I had breakfast at the Fork Cafe in The Forks, a one stop light village just outside of Ukiah. It was your typical local diner, except for the amazingly warm feel that emanated from the server. I didn’t catch her name, but she seemed to know everyone who came through the door, mostly older retired guys whom she treated like favorite uncles, putting a hand on their shoulder as they ordered, bringing them up to speed on her daughter’s first week at school, asking about them and theirs. It was just so cozy. 

I returned the car, clipped  the bags onto the bike and was off by 9:15. Not a bad start considering where the morning really started, but it was already 80 degrees and climbing fast. Eventually it hit 93, with a heat index of 95. Today’s ride: 66 miles, about 8 hours out there. 

The key to this is staying aware of what’s going on internally as well as externally. Hydration is key, but there are other things to watch for. For instance, how far am I down the fatigue well? Too far and I won’t be able to climb out today.  When it’s super hot and I feel chilled, that’s a marker to find some shade, stop moving, drink and eat some fast-acting energy, and focus on breathing. I did, and it worked out fine. I’m feeling pretty fresh tonight. After 1,000 miles of riding, my conditioning had better have—and has—improved. That helps not to just go faster and longer, but also to recover more quickly. This all has a bearing on goal setting and adjusting. With my legs of yore coming back, I can be more strategic and take some more informed risks, like riding all day during a heat index warning. 

Police cars don’t use their horns, they startle you with a kind of shrieking feedback in their loud speaker. I don’t even know what to call it. Getting brapped?

Oh no! I realized I was recharging my blinky back light. Was I being pulled over for a broken tail light? Nope. Apparently, the highway I have been riding for hundreds of miles, US 101, had become a “No pedestrians or bicycles permitted” freeway. Officer Zwetsloot was open and pleasant. So was I. This was a completely different scenario than my altercation last year with the deputy sheriff in Kinney County, Texas. [Editor’s note: I’d thought that Kinney County was the one hit by the flooding on the Guadalupe River but that is Kerr County.]

Officer Zwetsloot said bikes can’t be here, so he would give me and my bike a lift to the next exit. He noted that there are No Bikes signs at the onramps. I said I didn’t take an onramp, I was just riding the highway out of Hopland and did not see a sign saying I needed to exit.

When I asked, Officer Zwetsloot said he has been an officer for less than a year, and the job was “fun”. I’m sure he meant Type 2 fun. I sensed he became a cop for the reasons we hope people become cops, to help people out of messes we get ourselves into. Once the bike was in the car, he motioned for me to sit up front, then asked, “are you carrying any weapons?” I said “no”. Then he asked if he could frisk me. Sure. Pleasant and cheerful, but never not about the business. I was impressed with his ease and balance.

It had become a furnace. I had to slow down. It wasn’t a decision; I just couldn’t put much power to the pedals. The effort to stay focused on the road made it harder to enjoy this vineyard landscape while riding. Though I was off the ‘dangerous’ freeway, I was no longer riding a shoulder wide enough to park a semi. On these county roads, there was effectively no shoulder. Cars and trucks whizzed by at nearly freeway speed right at my left shoulder, as I rode on the left side, not the right side, of the white fog line. I held my line, stayed predictable, and sometimes just pulled off and let traffic de-complexify.

Still, I noticed enough to see just how big this grape business is here. Every grape vine (bush?) has it’s individually unique habit. By my reading, a grape vine is most productive through its 25th to 50th year, and can continue to live for centuries. Each individual vine has its own way, and there are millions of them here. Is grape production more like herding than farming? Funny where the mind goes on a bicycle. 

Less than five miles into Napa County is my destination, Calistoga. In the whole ride of 1000+ miles, I have not seen a town like this. To me, it feels boujee, not bougie (there’s a difference). Sure, it’s an upscale place, but not tacky, not elitist. Maybe it’s because they actually make something that is uniquely fine here. Quality permeates the place. There is design and purpose to the wine, and to the town.

My hotel is an example. I find a deal on the Hotel Tonight app. It’s a good deal. And the art deco restoration of the hotel is truly excellent. Dylan runs the front desk. Like Officer Zwetsloot, he’s friendly, professional and firm about the fact that the bike is not going upstairs to my room. He has a room near the front desk that will be perfect and secure for the bike. There’s not really a conversation to be had. He simply stated the way it is and had an excellent solution already at hand. 

Dinner was a Southwest chicken salad, with the above mentioned live music and well dressed,  friendly and relaxed people all around. (Me too, by the way. I have some decent around-town clothes with me).

The hotel has a complimentary continental breakfast, which will be delivered to my room at 7 AM. I’m not sure I want to leave early, but I should. It will be slightly cooler tomorrow, but not significantly cooler until I get close to the Bay Area. I’ve got to keep moving, but I’m definitely coming back to Calistoga. 

Up and out early this morning. I didn’t see Johnson, as he said I wouldn’t. He pulls the to-midnight shift and isn’t up at dawn. Johnson is an Americanized version of his name in Chinese, which he never shared. But the Villas has very much an East-West fusion to it. The branding on the instant coffee and little chocolates in the room was in Chinese. The decor had a definite Mainland Asia sensibility to it. Learning how a guy like Johnson ended up running a motel in a hamlet in the Redwoods is a big reason why I want to come back to stay here longer. 

Leggett has enough coastal influence to keep temperatures cool. It was a brisk 54 degrees out—a nice way to start a day that was to turn out to be a scorcher. Just 3 miles from the Villa, the road left the S. Fork of the Eel River proper and started up a tributary, Rattlesnake Creek.

Sure enough, the road began to climb to a road cut called “Rattlesnake Gap”, at about 15 miles into the ride, then descended into the valley of Tenmile Creek. [Editor’s note: that is the actual spelling of the creek’s name.] Tenmile Creek runs towards the south fork of the Eel River, which drains into the Pacific. The northwest part of the town of Laytonville is in the headwaters of of Tenmile Creek.

Laytonville is in a level area maybe 10 miles long called Long Valley. I had a big breakfast at the 101 BBQ & Grill at about mile 21. The southeast part of Long Valley seems to drain into Long Valley Creek. It looks like Long Valley Creek flows into the Eel River, not the South Fork of the Eel River, like Tenmile Creek does.

This landscape is very confusing. What I do know as a cyclist is that the highway follows any one creek for only so long before climbing over a ridgeline and down into another creek’s valley. Over and over again. Laytonville and the Long Valley may be at the height of this area but the love keeps coming as I ride south and west. Hills after hills.

The biggest change at Laytonville is the climate. In just a few short miles I have pedaled out of the Redwood forest, which requires lots of moisture from the sea, to the more open grassland and oak tree stands that require plenty of dry. Even on a bike this transition is startlingly rapid. If feels like I am in an entirely different California from where I started just a few miles ago this morning. 

There’s a fair amount of road repaving on 101. I am making a good pace down a gentle slope on fresh asphalt and BAM! I’m on the ground hard. “Share the Road” signs, with a pictogram of a bicycle are a regular sight here. Usually they are on posts.

I hit a temporary Share the Road sign on a heavy springed base, placed right on the shoulder where I ride. I was just tooling along, not looking far enough ahead. Smackdown! Of course, the first thing I did was spring up and look around to see if anybody saw. Not a car in sight. This was really dumb. No torn fabrics of blood leaking out. The bike handled it like a tank. I’ll have a sore left shoulder and chest for a few days, but nothing felt broken and I can breathe alright. Reminder: look ahead. 

I reach Willits and the temperature has climbed into the 80s. There’s another hard, long climb out of the south end of Willits, in the heat and then—Hurray!—a sign warning trucks of a 6% down grade for FIVE MILES! In addition to the ups and downs, I have climbed enough net elevation since Fortuna to get over the Coast Range to earn back five miles of 22 mph without pedaling. 

Approaching the outskirts of Ukiah, the temperature is now in the mid 90s and still climbing. After the coast cool, this heat just drains my energy. I limp into today’s destination, the Ukiah Enterprise car rental agency. It’s time for another adventure inside of this cycling adventure. 

Today is a Thursday. I’ll be back on the bike next Tuesday afternoon to pedal to the Bay Area, probably a 3 day ride from Ukiah.  I haven’t yet settled on an exact route south. It will be between 700-850 miles. The coast will be farther but cooler. If this heat sticks around into late September, I definitely will limit my time inland. I might pause again in Alameda or San Francisco and fly home to help more with our move-in in Missoula. This ride will continue to be planned around other big life events.  Also, weather and climate will play a large part in the decision to bang the rest of the trip out in early September, or hold off a few weeks and finish in late September/early October. 

 Through Washington, Oregon and Northern California, I have now pedaled 1,000 miles. I just added my riding days up—exactly 1,000 miles. It’s been a major test of fitness and gear, and also a challenge to fit a clear adventure objective into the ambiguous and shifting needs of a home and work life in major transition. Can this be done, and should it? I am modeling and testing the skills, methods and mindsets we teach at the Center for Adventure Leadership. I noted a year ago on my Southern Tier trip that if our approach to adventure is sound, I will succeed and if they are not, I will fail. Publicly. I’m pretty good at this stuff, but that doesn’t make success automatic. I still has to show up everyday and do the work. Getting smacked down today by a Share the Road sign is a visceral, painful reminder that novices and experts alike are equally subject to the unapologetic forces of reality. 

Absolutely the best day of the ride. First, the Avenue of the Giants. Second, 80 miles, hills and all! Third, Johnson and the Royal Tree Villa.

I got a good early start today because promised to be a toughy. Heading inland up the South Fork of the Eel River equals no more fog/more sun/more heat. Rivers wind and highways prefer up and down. Cheaper to build, shorter to drive. So, hills. Today’s distance, some 80 miles, is longest planned distance of any day so far. It’s here, ready or not, because the schedule is relentless. I must get to Ukiah tomorrow, to rent a car and drive 600 miles to my niece’s wedding, a can’t miss affair. 

The first 15 miles was in bottom land with small dairy farms and woodlots.By the way, I’ve been thinking and reading about the agriculture around here, trying to figure it out. I’ve learned that cows love this moist coastal bottomland. Happy cows make excellent milk. Umpqua ice cream and Tillamook ice cream and cheese come from cows grazing in moist coastal bottomlands, and these are exactly the conditions along the northern California coast as well. Dairy farmers here are having a rough go, however. Land prices, climate change, and pricing set by massive agribusiness are taking their toll, and who knows how long they will hold out. I’m not sure if the farmers here have formed their own powerful cooperatives like Darigold and Tillamook. It will take a whole host of countermeasures to keep this local dairy community viable and profitable enough to carry the economy here. 

Next, the massive redwoods of the Avenue of the Giants. This portion of the once vast Redwoods forests was protected around 1921. The Avenue snakes along the Eel River as state route 254, parallel to US 101. It actually was US 101 prior to the highway being rerouted and engineered as a 4 lane highway. US 101 takes almost all traffic off the Avenue, making for relaxed, easy riding without much traffic. The trees are of course truly massive and the canopy creates a cool, light filtered micro climate. In sections where the road is exposed to full sun, usually when it runs right next to the river, it feels like the temperature climbs 20+ degrees. Coming back under the redwood canopy, particularily after a sweaty climb in the sun, causes an immediate chill until my sweat evaporates. 

I didn’t rush my ride through the Avenue, and noted several nice campgrounds in the redwood groves to revise on another (not cycling) trip here. But alas, I reach the end and was coughed back onto the divided highway, with fast traffic, unending up and down, and hot sun. I stayed patient, stopping to rest halfway up the longer hills, not wanting to get too deep into the fatigue well. The road just kept going up and down, which you have heard enough of. 

I was late and I realized I would likely be caught out after dark. My rechargeable rear red blinky light lasts about 10 hours and today was longer, so I began to put in on a battery to recharge whenever I took a break. The shadows lengthened, which cooled my ride, and my legs stayed strong right up to the end of the ride. The end came after dark at the Royal Tree Villas. I had called a few days ago to reserve a room. The manager just took my name and phone number, no credit card to hold the room, so I called him early this evening to say I was still coming. He said “take your time! Get dinner in town before you get here. All I have is junk food for sale! I’ll be up until midnight! Don’t worry!” I rolled in at 8:25 PM. Johnson was super cheerful. So was his dog. Everything about the place is happy. He took $10 off my room rate because I worked so hard to get here. The place is home spun but very nice. The room included Cup o’ Noodles and a hot water kettle, so I had something hot and tasty to go with my dinner of chocolate recovery mix and sardines in hot sauce. Bottom line: visit the Royal Tree Villas and meet Johnson. He’s worth a trip to California just to say hi and have a chat. 

Today was a crux day and everything came together. I haven’t reported on my bike in a while, mostly because it’s totally bomber and everything is working. No flats, squeaks, and because of the drive, no grease. The only issue is it’s kind of a pig, more of a 15-40 mile-a-day bike and not a 60-90 mile-a-day bike. So I’m working pretty hard, but the rock solid steadiness of the bike—zero problems—counts for a lot. 

Today was a transition from the quiet forest of the Drury Scenic Parkway to the manic gotta-get-there-fast of US 101 the California Freeway. I first hit 101 in Reedsport, OR. Until just north of Trinidad, CA, 101 serves as the main street of towns it passes through. From Trinidad south, it bypasses towns. I got off the freeway at Trinidad and found a quaint little town and a fantastic lunch. Much of today’s ride, and pretty much anytime I am on 101 going south, I’ll be riding a freeway shoulder. Of course, this means cars and trucks whizzing by a high speed, but it also means a predictably wide, smooth and clean shoulder, which is much safer than the narrow and occasionally disappearing shoulders I’ve been on in recent days. 

The official Pacific Coast Bikeway leaves 101 frequently. Sometimes the actually bikeway is on nice, quiet, rural road. In other stretches, it may be quiet but the roadbed is awful and its windings add miles to the trip. This is not a leisurely ride for me, unfortunately, I’m having to bang out some serious miles to keep on schedule, particularly this stretch from Coos Bay to Ukiah, so I am forgoing the official bikeway in favor of the more direct but better engineered and louder US 101 freeway.

Today, I opted for the bikeway around the west side of Arcata Bay, whereas 101 cuts along the bay’s east side. Despite the headwind and occasional pothole repairs on top of pothole repairs, I got to see the rural nature of this area as it has probably been for a century or more. Family farms with low fields of hay, but mostly pasture for cattle, which dotted the landscape in small herds. One farmer I passed seemed to be in a standoff with a large bull with huge horns. 50 yards down the road, another large bull with huge horns was standing in the road staring at me. I picked up my pace and gave him a wide berth, but he didn’t seem very interested in me. It looks like making a living here is hard. Everything looks second hand, and while initial construction and engineering of structures looks sound, it all looks tired. It’s an austere place with hard weather. Everything looks rainswept and sandblasted. 

I hit Eureka at rush hour, and it was nuts. Eureka itself looks like South Tacoma Avenue in the 1980s, just tacky on tacky, and the traffic was bumper to bumper and impatient. 101 is the main drag here, and it’s two narrow lanes and curb—no shoulder, not much of a sidewalk. I decided to negotiate sidewalks with the occasional pedestrian rather than wrestle for respect in the roadway.  As a rule, the national chain stores seemed to be well maintained, and local stores seemed to be short on cash and behind on maintenance. It’s easy to see where Eurekans spend their money. No “buy local” vibe here, and it shows. 

South of Eureka proper the surface street 101 became freeway 101 again, and traffic sped up and thinned out. Nothing more to speak of, really, about today’s ride. Strangely, I again felt a surge of energy in the last quarter of today’s miles, feeling stronger through mile 60 than I did for most of the day prior. Fortuna is a town south of Eureka that appears to be making an effort. Houses are painted, local shops appear to have customers, and landscaping is watered and alive, instead of planted, ignored, and dead.

Tonight I am in a motel that should have cost much less than it did, but I’m too tired to shop. When I opened the door to my room, I discovered that it was already in use—by two strung-out, startled and annoyed junkies. The manager had programed the card key incorrectly. And if she did that with my key, who knows if she gave out a wrongly programed key with my room number to someone else. I hid my valuables when I left the room to get something to eat and assured Joan that I swung the deadbolt when I went to bed.

I have left the coast and won’t see it again until Bodega Bay, 225 miles to the south. Much of tomorrow’s ride follows a single river, rather than crossing over hills into drainage after drainage, as I have been. I will ride through the Avenue of the Giants, which parallels 101. I have two more high mile days to Ukiah so I will motel it tomorrow night too, staying at a place called Royal Tree Villas in Leggett, some 75+ miles away. Laundry is done and the bike is serving as a drying rack. My damp gear is laid out all over the room, so there is a fair amount of repacking to do before I hit the road tomorrow. Time for sleep.