In this post, we'll just be posting our day-trip rides before we get back to Seattle. This is mostly for us so we'll remember this part of the trip but you can follow along if you like :-)
October 3
San Luis Obispo - Prefumo Canyon/See Canyon/Avila Beach
24.5 miles, 1700 feet of climbing
October 5
Cupertino - Redwood Gulch/Hwy 9/Skyline/Page Mill/Altamont/Foothill
35.5 miles, 3350 feet of climbing
October 6
(Deborah) Mt Eden Loop
13.5 miles, 700 feet climbing
(Arn) Rancho San Antonio Hill Run
10K
October 7
Page Mill/Skyline/Woodside/Portola/Alpine/Altamont Loop
26.5 miles, 2700 feet of climbing
October 9
Woodside/Mt Home/Portola/Old La Honda/Skyline/84 West/Stage/1/Tunitas Creek/Kings Mountain
40 miles, 4000 feet of climbing
October 11
Montebello Road Time Trial
5.4 miles, 2020 feet of climbing
36:40 Arn, 48:00 Deborah
(no warm-up, extra weight on bikes, wind, no sleep, and a stop for Deborah to remove clothing)
These times will probably never be equaled - even with better "conditions!"
October 12
Felton/9, sideroads/Brookdale/Alba/Empire Grade/Pine Flat/Martin/Ice Cream/Felton Empire
22 miles, 3200 feet of climbing
October 13
(Deborah) Mt Eden Loop + Regnart Hill Climb
18 miles, 1400 feet of climbing
October 14
(Arn) Rancho San Antonio Run
10K
That's all folks - heading home today :-(
Sunday, October 5, 2008
Friday, October 3, 2008
Superlatives and Statistics
Statistics
1302 miles, 65550 feet of climbing, lots of road kill
29 elapsed days; 4 full days off (1 because of mechanical failure); 4 planned half days of riding
2 broken spokes, 2 flat tires - all on Arn's rear wheel
Favorite Places to Stay Open to the Public
TuTuTun Lodge Gold Beach
Overleaf Lodge Yachats
Glen Oaks Big Sur
Best Breakfasts
Craftsman B&B Pacific City
DeHaven Valley B&B Westport
Poppa Joe's Ferndale
Best Lunches
Mo's Chowder Oregon Coast
JD Bones San Luis Obispo
??? Restaurant in Elk CA
Best Dinners Available to the Public
Perbacco San Francisco
Ivanhoe Ferndale
Yachats River House Yachats
3 People We'll Never Forget
- David from DeHaven Valley Inn who shuttled us when we had a mechanical problem
- Stud-ette on Single Speed with flat pedals and one brake
- Crazy Lady at Subway in Garberville who makes sandwiches at a rate of 1 every 10 minutes with lots of sass
3 Towns Never to Visit Again
Garberville
Garberville
Garberville
Favorite Stretches of Road
Big Sur, CA to Cambria, CA
Westport, CA to Gualala, CA
Avenue of the Giants CA
Prairie Creek Redwoods CA
Otter Crest Loop Road OR
Slab Creek Road OR
Worst Stretches of Road
- Highway 30 from Westport OR to Astoria, OR
- Highway 101 from top of hill after Crescent City, CA to beach before Klamath, CA
- Highway 101 from Gold Beach, OR to Brookings, OR (death by 1000 logging trucks)
3 Discoveries to Pack on a Tour
Fiberfix Emergency Spoke Repair Kit
Topeak Road Morph Pump w/Gauge
Shower caps and rubberbands to protect bike seat from dew
Best Pass of the Entire Tour
Truck Driver pulling half a house, crossing a bridge and stopping traffic so we could ride across.
Things We Learned
- Significantly more than 50% of all people are below average drivers
- Stop and smell the "roses" of the coast - skunks, logging mills, strawberries, ocean, power plant, fog, brake pads, and wild fennel
- We need different brakes - especially the front - on our bikes
- When you are cycle touring, logging miles to log miles to log miles really sucks. We need eye candy and little traffic to really enjoy the trip.
Best Towns to See Kitties
- Gorda, CA (a crummy little nothing town but lots of "shop" kitties in "town")
- Centralia, WA
- Davenport, CA
1302 miles, 65550 feet of climbing, lots of road kill
29 elapsed days; 4 full days off (1 because of mechanical failure); 4 planned half days of riding
2 broken spokes, 2 flat tires - all on Arn's rear wheel
Favorite Places to Stay Open to the Public
TuTuTun Lodge Gold Beach
Overleaf Lodge Yachats
Glen Oaks Big Sur
Best Breakfasts
Craftsman B&B Pacific City
DeHaven Valley B&B Westport
Poppa Joe's Ferndale
Best Lunches
Mo's Chowder Oregon Coast
JD Bones San Luis Obispo
??? Restaurant in Elk CA
Best Dinners Available to the Public
Perbacco San Francisco
Ivanhoe Ferndale
Yachats River House Yachats
3 People We'll Never Forget
- David from DeHaven Valley Inn who shuttled us when we had a mechanical problem
- Stud-ette on Single Speed with flat pedals and one brake
- Crazy Lady at Subway in Garberville who makes sandwiches at a rate of 1 every 10 minutes with lots of sass
3 Towns Never to Visit Again
Garberville
Garberville
Garberville
Favorite Stretches of Road
Big Sur, CA to Cambria, CA
Westport, CA to Gualala, CA
Avenue of the Giants CA
Prairie Creek Redwoods CA
Otter Crest Loop Road OR
Slab Creek Road OR
Worst Stretches of Road
- Highway 30 from Westport OR to Astoria, OR
- Highway 101 from top of hill after Crescent City, CA to beach before Klamath, CA
- Highway 101 from Gold Beach, OR to Brookings, OR (death by 1000 logging trucks)
3 Discoveries to Pack on a Tour
Fiberfix Emergency Spoke Repair Kit
Topeak Road Morph Pump w/Gauge
Shower caps and rubberbands to protect bike seat from dew
Best Pass of the Entire Tour
Truck Driver pulling half a house, crossing a bridge and stopping traffic so we could ride across.
Things We Learned
- Significantly more than 50% of all people are below average drivers
- Stop and smell the "roses" of the coast - skunks, logging mills, strawberries, ocean, power plant, fog, brake pads, and wild fennel
- We need different brakes - especially the front - on our bikes
- When you are cycle touring, logging miles to log miles to log miles really sucks. We need eye candy and little traffic to really enjoy the trip.
Best Towns to See Kitties
- Gorda, CA (a crummy little nothing town but lots of "shop" kitties in "town")
- Centralia, WA
- Davenport, CA
Thursday, October 2, 2008
Cambria to San Luis Obispo
38.5 miles, 1300 feet of climbing, no road kill
We are done! D-O-N-E done.
Today's ride was a super fast, easy ride down the coast and inland to SLO. Beautiful scenery and easy riding.
We saw our single speed stud-ette again today, just when we were starting out from Cambria. The story gets even better as we spoke to her for a while about her bike. Arn pedaled up to her and noticed that she was riding with sneakers and flat pedals and asked what was up.
In life, the simplest explanation is often the best and the simple explanation was at work here. She wasn't training for anything. It was the only bike she has so that is what she rode. Flat pedals, single speed, only a front brake. She didn't even know what her gear ratio was (Arn estimates about 48-21). She is riding Seattle->LA. Wow.
We are glad to be done with the loaded touring though looking forward to a number of rides without weight on our bikes before heading back to Seattle. We think we are making a good decision to stop here as the traffic will start to become much, much worse once we get south of Lompoc and within 25 miles of Santa Barbara. Day rides will be much more enjoyable!
Check out our next post for some overall impressions of the trip. Thanks for all the comments and notes!
We are done! D-O-N-E done.
Today's ride was a super fast, easy ride down the coast and inland to SLO. Beautiful scenery and easy riding.
We saw our single speed stud-ette again today, just when we were starting out from Cambria. The story gets even better as we spoke to her for a while about her bike. Arn pedaled up to her and noticed that she was riding with sneakers and flat pedals and asked what was up.
In life, the simplest explanation is often the best and the simple explanation was at work here. She wasn't training for anything. It was the only bike she has so that is what she rode. Flat pedals, single speed, only a front brake. She didn't even know what her gear ratio was (Arn estimates about 48-21). She is riding Seattle->LA. Wow.
We are glad to be done with the loaded touring though looking forward to a number of rides without weight on our bikes before heading back to Seattle. We think we are making a good decision to stop here as the traffic will start to become much, much worse once we get south of Lompoc and within 25 miles of Santa Barbara. Day rides will be much more enjoyable!
Check out our next post for some overall impressions of the trip. Thanks for all the comments and notes!
Wednesday, October 1, 2008
Big Sur to Cambria
75 miles, 5050 feet of climbing, road kill (2 mice, 2 rattlesnakes, 1 big unidentified furry thingy)
What a fantastic day of riding! Deborah's favorite day of the entire trip. One of the best two days for Arn.
It is hard to describe just how fabulous the cycling was today. Fantastic and varied scenery; long climbs and descents; and very little traffic.
What more could you ask for? We'll tell you. Turns out, CalTrans decided to give us a wedding anniversary present. About 10 miles south of Big Sur, they were stopping traffic for 20 minutes at a time while they did "scaling" on the cliffs above a section of road. The net effect of this was that for the next 2-3 hours, we had virtually no traffic - save for a blast of cars every twenty to thirty minutes that passed in a pack.
That's right. We got to cycle the absolutely best part of the California coast taking up virtually an entire lane of traffic. Truth be told, even without this CalTrans gift, the traffic would have been light.
As we got further south, the higher altitude air was full of lots of smoke from some fires still burning in Los Padres National Forest. Much of this area was closed 2 months ago because of fires. It didn't effect the riding but did effect the pictures a little.
We saw lots of touring cyclists today. When we were most of the way to Ragged Point - on the very last big hill of the day - we saw a gal up ahead of us who was absolutely suffering. She eventually resorted to pushing her bike. Arn joked that she was on a single speed. Well, turns out, she was. What a studette! We can't believe that someone would cycle this section of road fully loaded on a single speed. Perhaps she was a future Olympian? When we asked her where she was going, she replied, "To the beach." All righty then!
The last 25 miles from Ragged Point to Cambria was virtually effortless. Almost flat terrain with a tailwind and it was fun to push forward at 20-25 MPH after crawling through all of the hills. We thought about continuing on to Morro Bay (another 20 miles) but the choices for accommodations/restaurants weren't as nice as Cambria so we just stopped.
While here, Arn stopped into Cambria bikes. They have a huge web presence but a pretty ordinary shop in town. He spoke to one of the guys in the shop who mentioned that some group of riders was stuck at Ragged Point. One in their group had a broken pedal - another had a busted frame. OUCH! Hopefully they secured a shuttle.
Tomorrow we have an easy 38 mile ride to SLO and the end of our tour!
What a fantastic day of riding! Deborah's favorite day of the entire trip. One of the best two days for Arn.
It is hard to describe just how fabulous the cycling was today. Fantastic and varied scenery; long climbs and descents; and very little traffic.
What more could you ask for? We'll tell you. Turns out, CalTrans decided to give us a wedding anniversary present. About 10 miles south of Big Sur, they were stopping traffic for 20 minutes at a time while they did "scaling" on the cliffs above a section of road. The net effect of this was that for the next 2-3 hours, we had virtually no traffic - save for a blast of cars every twenty to thirty minutes that passed in a pack.
That's right. We got to cycle the absolutely best part of the California coast taking up virtually an entire lane of traffic. Truth be told, even without this CalTrans gift, the traffic would have been light.As we got further south, the higher altitude air was full of lots of smoke from some fires still burning in Los Padres National Forest. Much of this area was closed 2 months ago because of fires. It didn't effect the riding but did effect the pictures a little.
We saw lots of touring cyclists today. When we were most of the way to Ragged Point - on the very last big hill of the day - we saw a gal up ahead of us who was absolutely suffering. She eventually resorted to pushing her bike. Arn joked that she was on a single speed. Well, turns out, she was. What a studette! We can't believe that someone would cycle this section of road fully loaded on a single speed. Perhaps she was a future Olympian? When we asked her where she was going, she replied, "To the beach." All righty then!
The last 25 miles from Ragged Point to Cambria was virtually effortless. Almost flat terrain with a tailwind and it was fun to push forward at 20-25 MPH after crawling through all of the hills. We thought about continuing on to Morro Bay (another 20 miles) but the choices for accommodations/restaurants weren't as nice as Cambria so we just stopped.While here, Arn stopped into Cambria bikes. They have a huge web presence but a pretty ordinary shop in town. He spoke to one of the guys in the shop who mentioned that some group of riders was stuck at Ragged Point. One in their group had a broken pedal - another had a busted frame. OUCH! Hopefully they secured a shuttle.
Tomorrow we have an easy 38 mile ride to SLO and the end of our tour!
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