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Heading west!1661
Day 0: 2025-09-06

 

 

At the campsite now w/ one other guy, Jeff from Florida. We meet up w/ the rest of the group tomorrow afternoon, and then Monday bus up to the Canadian border and bike back to Larrabee State Park.

The real tour, all 1800 miles of it, starts Tuesday.

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The Group comes together1662
Day 1: 13.2 miles (13.2 tot), 669 feet climbing (1207 tot) 2025-09-07

 

 

We have 12 riders and two leaders. The other leaders alternate driving the van; everyone else bikes.

I'm thinking that the world of road-based touring is getting smaller by the day, at least here in the US. Of the 13 riders, I think only four (including me) have arrived not knowing any of the others. Even our leader, Brielle, knew at least three or four already. Much of this is by design, of course, they call up their buds and say let's go do a trip together. But it's actually more than than. One guy did a TDA (another tour group) ntrip in Korea and Japan with Stephane, a French guy that I briefly rode with on the Transam in 2023. Three of us were independently signed up for a TDA trip in Africa called cape to kill for fall 2026, before it was cancelled. Rosana biked with a woman in the Baltics this year who was also signed up for that same trip. None of the four of us knew each other! It get's worse: Stephane signed up to do this crazy TDA trip from Tuktoyaktuk to Panama City. The woman Rosana met in Estonia and Pam, one of the women on this pacific coast trip, have both signed up to the last part of Stephane's trip: Mexico City down to Panama City.

I'll have pictures of all these folk tomorrow. For now you get to see another group of ACA riders heading down the coast two days ahead of us, a drab day over the water, pretty winding road, and an overworked goat.

Tomorrow will be a short ride: 40 miles from the Canadian border back to our campsite here at Larrabee State Park outside Bellingham. After that it will be on in earnest...

(pics might need to wait until more bandwidth tomorrow)

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Touch the border!1663
Day 2: 40.4 miles (53.6 tot), 1220 feet climbing (2427 tot) 2025-09-08

 

 

This trip is border-to-border, so we started by loading 14 bikes on the top of the van, piling in, and driving to the border. Arriving there we unloaded and headed to the Peace Arch, which officially commemorates the Treaty of Ghent that ended the war of 1812 between the US and England (including Canada). Unofficially, it commemorates "over 200 years of peaceful coexistence and friendship between the two nations".

Inscriptions include:"Children of a Common Mother" on the U.S. side, "Brethren Dwelling Together in Unity" on the Canadian side, and "May These Gates Never Be Closed" above the archway. Whelp, it was good while it lasted. The brief glow of good feeling flickered a bit reading those words.

But we were starting our adventure, so off we went. We only had 40 miles, so there was no great urgency, but people naturally separated into different groups. By far the fastest rider is 22yo Zoey (on the left of one of the pictures, the other being our leader Brielle), who is ranked 20th in the under-23 cross-country mountain biking rankings for the US. There are several other extremely fast cyclists, and then the rest of us. I'm merely trying to survive after messing up my newly-reconstructed right knee in the runup to the tour. If I can get through the first week or two, I'm good.

The group is overall a very impressive bunch of people, and I'm looking forward to getting to know them all over the next six weeks.

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Deception Pass1664
Day 3: 42.1 miles (95.7 tot), 1896 feet climbing (4323 tot) 2025-09-09

 

 

Another short day took us out of Bellingham and down to the evocatively named Deception Pass, and the similarly named state park and bridge. The "deception" is that the original white discoverers initially thought Whidbey Island was a peninsula.

The day included a few more miles of great bike trails, some great downhills, and the Deception Bridge in two of the following pictures. Beautiful bridge w/ heavy car traffic and a tiny raised walkway on the side. A couple of us opted to take up the whole lane, which took the tension out of it for me. I worry more about walking/biking along 300-ft drops than a car or 10 :-) I was vindicated when one of the Jeffs was finishing the walk across the bridge on the narrow pathway, saw me waiting, bumped a protrusion from the railing and teetereed awkwardly against the railing. Jeff is 6'4"; the railing looked very low. But all was good!

During dinner I had a fascinating conversation with Pam about her 6000-mile tour in Africa last year, and then we trooped down to the beach to watch the sunset. We ended the day watching a seal chase a big fish right at a guy fishing on the beach. He drops his pole and flips it onto the beach by smacking at the water as the seal tries to grab it away from him.

Pretty good, and a bit bizarre, day.

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Into Port Townsend1665
Day 4: 37.7 miles (133.4 tot), 1903 feet climbing (6226 tot) 2025-09-10

 

 

...and right out the other side. Today was short because we had a sometimes unpredictable ferry from Whidbey Island to Port Townsend. In fact this morning was a beautiful fog-shrouded ride that threatened to leave us stranded at a coffee shop for hours because the first few ferries were expected to be canceled. In the end, none of them were and we all caught the half-hour ferry ride at 11:45 over to the Olympic Peninsula. By then, and especially after the sprint for the ferry that we missed at 10:15, we all just headed to our sites on the beach. Part of the reason is that the local navy base was flying F-18 Hornets in pairs to practice short carrier landings last night. So until 10:30 or fighters were flying low over our heads with flaps and undercarriage down, and then they'd hit the afterburner. Grrr.

The way these tours work is that we have 12 riders and 2 leaders. The leaders alternate days riding "sweep" (following the last rider to ensure everyone is safe) and driving the van, which is pulling the trailer that has all our kitchen and other sundry supplies.

We have a rotating pair of cooks for each day. Ideally, the cooks and the van driver leave the campground at 3pm to go shopping for the dinner, and for breakfast and lunch supplies. In this crowd, the leaders have included themselves in the rota, though this is a bit unusual, and very welcome. W/ a total of 14 people, this means everyone is cook for one day per week, six total in this trip. Hardly honorous, though a bit stressful for those who don't often cook (me). Appetisers (usually chips and veggies) are put out at 5, dinner served at 6, and map meeting (where we discuss the coming day's ride) is at 7. Obviously this sometimes needs to be adjusted for longer or more difficult days (71 miles and 4030 ft of climbing tomorrow), but since we aren't carrying our own gear we can usually get to the site quickly when necessary. And the site is almost always a campground. On the west coast, and especially in NoCal, this usually means beautiful sites, ocean views, maybe a redwood or 100.

Down south it's a bit trickier and RV parks sometimes are necessary. This isn't as bad as it sounds, as an RV park usually has washers and dryers, and good kitchen facilities.

What the van has in camping sites is not bad, however. We have a standalone 3-burner propane stove, several big pots, and assorted cutlery.

Tonight is not a "blood moon", which is the red moon you see during a total lunar eclipse. The red comes from mostly red light skimming through the atmosphere to bounce off the moon (blue light is mostly scattered). That was yesterday. However, there was still a partial eclipse tonight and it is still very red. Thanks for pointing it out Dimitri!

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Long Day into Belfair State Park1666
Day 5: 71.9 miles (205.3 tot), 4298 feet climbing (10524 tot) 2025-09-11

 

 

This was a long, not very exciting day w/ a few highlights. First highlight was the Larry Scott memorial trail. Wonderful forest path. Not long after there was the Hood Canal Bridge, "the longest floating bridge in the world located in a saltwater tidal basin", and third longest overall. I'm not sure exactly how all this works, but the vast majority of the weight is supported by pontoons. The rationale behind the design is that the water was too deep: from 80 to 340 feet, w/ tidal swings of 16 feet. So the surface of the bridge actually rises and falls by that amount.

Then there was a lot of "eh?", and finally we arrived at Belfair State Park, which was fabulous. We were right on the beach, w/ front row seats for the bike-boarders (some of whom would actually get way up off the water via hydrofoils). At some point I'll have video, but you've probably seen this if you vacation in the south. I had not seen this at all.

The other noteworthy event was a nest of raccoons peeing and pooping on Bob's tent. This was bizarre and just a bit unwelcome.

Finally, this was 71 miles! Prior to this tour I did get in ~2400 miles of training, but only 1 day over 50 miles and 3 over 40. The reason is that my right knee was replaced in November. I haven't been willing to push it too far until now. But now time it up! Bottom line: doing fine....

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Into an RV park in Elma ...1667
Day 6: 57.2 miles (262.5 tot), 2198 feet climbing (12722 tot) 2025-09-12

 

 

An interesting day, w/ some crazy steep hills, but overall not too sharp or too long. We're spending the night in an RV park, but one w/ plenty of space, shade, laundry, and fabulous grass. Because of my knee replacement last November, these last two days are the longest I've done this year.

It was fun, though. I started riding with/ Doug (owned a company decimated by tariffs and newly retired) and Molly (worked for Bike Friday for a few years), two folk who met on an earlier ride and got so close that their families know each other. Both are exceedingly strong riders. We were soon joined by Jim, recently retired from a company that builds facilities for high-tech needs, recently work in San Francisco for a relatively large amount of time.

I had a blast w/ those three until we hit the 17% hill (!!!), after which I biked mostly with Pam (not fast but incredibly strong, recently rode the Tour D'Afrique from Cairo to Cape Town (6000 miles, 4 months, in Africa), Tim, a laconic dude from Louisiana, and Jeff G, a recently retired high mucky-muck from ATT and who lives in Ohio and Florida. We also spent some time with Anne, who works in senior living and serves on boards for community banks.

On this trip there are a ton of connections between various riders (and our leader Brielle):

• Jeff G/Tim/Bob all rode the Southern Tier in 2023.
• Brielle was the leader of the 2024 TransAm that included Stephon, Jim, Molly, and Doug.
• "Mark" (not on this tour) was a co-leader of both the above.
• Brielle and Pam were both riders on the Sierra Sampler in 2016, when their leader was Kelly Hannigan.
• Kelly Hannigan was leader when I did the Southern Tier in 2018
• Anne and Brielle both know a Steve Powell.
• Pam's oldest friend's sister is a good friend of Stephon (though they didn't know each other)
• I've been talking longingly about doing this crazy trip doing basically the length of Africa, and Pam turns out to have done this last year.

Being part of a community of bike tourers is fun.

Surrounding the picnic table are Tim, Stephon, Jeff from Ohio, Anne, Jim, Pam, and me.

The picture w/ the three are Jeff G, Jeff Z, and me. Jeff G is telling us about the dildo he supposedly saw on the side of the road.

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Into Lewis and Clark State Park...1668
Day 7: 58.7 miles (321.2 tot), 1522 feet climbing (14244 tot) 2025-09-13

 

 

Nice without too many hills, though those that we had were pretty great (see above). This was a beautiful ride through pine forests and into a lovely state park. The highlight was that two riders from one of Brielle's previous tours, Paul and Rhee, drove down from Seattle w/ dinner, dessert, and puppy Rottweiler love for the whole crowd. The food was incredibly good (lasagna and salad), hearty, and appreciated. Zuzu was a very good dog, and quite affectionate.

I think it's a testament to these guys (Dough, Molly, Stephon, and Jim, plus Brielle), that Paul and Rhee insisted on coming out w/ food. Spending three months with a small number of others means you get to know them quite quickly, and pretty thoroughly. Despite that, they wanted to come!

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Into Cathlamut Marina...1669
Day 8: 61.0 miles (382.2 tot), 1962 feet climbing (16206 tot) 2025-09-14

 

 

Pronounced as in "Catlhamut I am tired!!!" Most of the day was fun, I rode w/ at least half the crowd during the day, biking down the Columbia river to the coast. It got even prettier as we got closer, but the shoulder completely disappeared.

Others were concerned, but not! I've done a lot of sketchy rides! It got tough in the last 10-15 miles to the coast, when we ran into a fierce headwind just as the nasty little hills disappeared. I was riding by myself by this time, and getting a bit tired. Then Zoey, our 22yo wunderkind rips past me cheerily calling hello. I was getting tired, so the idea of drafting someone else was appealing. I tentatively upped my pace to see if I could hold on, though she was already a couple hundred feet ahead. I could! So I used the last of my energy to reel her in and we zipped along chatting happily for five minutes until, w/ an enormous "pfft!", my rear tire went flat.

Luckily I was able to stop in one of the infrequent parking sections and so was shielded from the incessant traffic. I had everything I needed to get going again (multiple pumps, multiple patch kits, and one extra tube), so I waved her on and starting changing the tire. It was a rear wheel, which can be a pain, but was actually much easier on my bike because of the geometry of the dropouts (which hold the axel), and having a clean carbon-fiber belt rather than a greasy chain and rear derailleur. So all was good, except that......

(1) it wasn't a simple pinch or puncture flat, so I couldn't patch it and be on my way, and (2) during the rain the previous night I'd taken my frame bag into the tent, and during reorganization my extra tube fell out....

So I was screwed. There were 7-8 people behind me, but most people were touring on skinny road tires and tubes, like 28mm. It's possible that that would work in my 44mm tire for a brief time, the the volumetric difference is huge. Luckily, after 15 minutes or so Jeff Z came along w/ a 38mm tube and I installed that and made it to camp w/o issue.

Once there it was my turn to cook, w/ Dmitri, the second of our tour leaders. Dimitri is a good guy, but had no interest in participating in the decision process. It was non-ideal, but we eventually made a good meal of chili, greek salad, and a stab at cornbread (tasted great, but was all crumbles). The next morning Dimitri made delicious bacon and eggs for breakfast and all was fine.

We stayed in a Marina, which was not great, but being near the water is always fun...unless you are Stephon, who let the wind take his tent for the second time on this tour. This time it went into the foul marina water and started heading out to see. Luckily, Tim ran down the next doc barefoot and was able to fish it out before it totally set sail.

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Into Astoria Oregon.....1670
Day 9: 36.1 miles (418.3 tot), 1801 feet climbing (18007 tot) 2025-09-15

 

 

Today I had to put out breakfast and lunch supplies for the crowd (as part of being cook for the previous night), then we road 5 miles to a ferry that took us across the Columbia River to Oregon. Sadly no sigh to mark the passage. Beautiful boat trip, though. We talked to a local that lives on one of the islands. He explained how the dredging works, and about the locks up the river that are necessary because of all the dams.

After that we had another 30 relatively hard but fun miles to get into Astoria, where we are staying in the Atomic Hotel: a very basic but clean hotel a mile from the center of Astoria. Nice location, it will be good to be off the bike for a day.

The highlight of this day, besides the ferry ride (love ferries), was the stop at Rogue Brewery. Rogue makes great beer but is mostly unknown in most of the country. I had no idea it was here and just turned at the sign. This took me out on an old wooden pier where they had their "Public House", w/ all their beers on top. Six more folk showed up before we finally left.

Also, Pam started talking to a married couple nearby who were interested in our biking. Turns out they were interested because they had a good friend named Joe who did tours. Turns out Joe is/was an ACA tour leader that led one of the rides Pam has done.

Freakish.

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Rest Day!1671
Day 10: 2025-09-16

 

 

Not going to ride today. Only have 9000 steps and haven't quite made my 1000-active-calorie goal, but I'm good. Astoria isn't really a destination place, but parts are cute and it has been a good day.

After a breakfast in the parking lot (there was a gazebo), we separated. I walked to the laundromat, and then a bike shop to get some new tubes. Afterwards I caught up on a few work things, did this blob, and then Jim, his wife (Carol?), Anne, Pam, Bob and I piled into Carol's van and went to the Astoria Column, which has 164 steps up and sits on a 600-ft hill. Beautiful views, and the local gimmick is throwing balsa gliders off the top. Most of ours didn't go that far, but Bob's probably went half to three-quarters of a mile and ended up in the sound.

A few years ago Pam actually did the Astoria-Megler Bridge, which turns out to be the longest continuous truss bridge in North America.

Tonight we go for a fish feast.

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Astoria to Manzanita1672
Day 11: 48.5 miles (466.8 tot), 2877 feet climbing (20884 tot) 2025-09-17

 

 

Beautiful ride down the Oregon Coast. We had several wonderful stops, including the Seaside Coffee Roasters, beaches, and beaches. We started the day w/ breakfast in the parking lot of the Atomic Hotel, went over a kind of nasty long, but low, bridge. It was nasty because of the traffic. The first half of this rather short route was beaches. The second half was all climbing, w/ spectacular views down on the beaches.

One of the issues w/ this route is a short, uphill tunnel where riders have to take up the lane and trust RVs to see the flashing yellow lights and your flashing 350-lumen rear blinkies. We had a couple riders who didn't trust the RVs and hugged the side of the road, which allowed the cars to just rip past in the tunnel. This was a mistake.

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Nehalem Bay State Park to Cape Lookout State Park1673
Day 12: 42.5 miles (509.3 tot), 1585 feet climbing (22469 tot) 2025-09-18

 

 

Relatively easy day, highlighted by a visit to the Tillamook Creamery. We also did a short section of fire road, and had more glorious beaches. Ending the day at Cape Lookout State park, home of the most beautiful beaches you could find. Miles long, more than a hundred yards deep, and maybe 20 people on the whole thing.

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Long day into Newport1674
Day 13: 74.1 miles (583.4 tot), 3953 feet climbing (26422 tot) 2025-09-19

 

 

Long, hard, day. Three big climbs, two of them quite sharp. We followed the coast pretty much the whole day, w/ a couple segues inland to get off 101.

We saw two humpback whales in one spot (mostly just spouts and a small part of back). In another spot Jeff G and I saw a single humpback, closer to shore. He partially breached, and then kicked his tail out of the water before disappearing.

For me one of the highlights was the Yaquina Bay Bridge just before getting to the South Beach State Park campground. This is not a bridge that would cause me problems if on the driving surface. The only option was to walk the half-mile bridge on the narrow sidewalk. So four of us decided to take up a lane. I hit the bicycles-on-bridge button that turned on the flashing yellow lights, Jeff saw a mini-break in the traffic with a truck pulling a boat behind it and immediately pulled out into the lane. The rest of us followed and we cruised peaceably across. We did have one guy wish us a cheerful "Good day!" as we pulled off the road, or at least that's how I choose to interpret it.

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Into Florence....1675
Day 14: 49.9 miles (633.3 tot), 2146 feet climbing (28568 tot) 2025-09-20

 

 

Good recovery day, even the climbing was mostly gradual. Went past the Seal Cave, which I've seen twice before, and multiple gorgeous beaches.

Most exciting part for me was seeing the rental homes where Rosana, Blue, and Giulia met me at end of the Yorktown Beach to Oregon Beach TransAm in 2023. The TransAm is the granddaddy of all tours, and for good reason. It's over 4000 miles and crosses the entire country. It goes through the Rockies (Hoosier Pass), the Tetons (Jenny Lake), Yellowstone, the Blue Ridge Parkway and many more incredible sights. Given the challenges we had during that tour (ACA cancelling it, planning it on our own, disagreements between even the those of us who finished), arriving in Oregon in the bosom of my family meant that I've rarely felt as fullfilled as I did when I walked through that door.

Passing these homes sort of ties everything together, makes this part of the a web of criss-crossing the country that I have done over the years.

Now I have to go overseas......

I will add that while the coast is almost uniformly gorgeous and many of the campgrounds wonderful, we deal daily w/ non-stop traffic, narrow or non-existent shoulders, and narrow bridges that must be crossed in the car lanes (riding in the sidewalk is rarely feasible). Comparing it to something like the TransAm is difficult because they are so different.

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Into Coos Bay . . .1676
Day 15: 59.0 miles (692.3 tot), 2776 feet climbing (31344 tot) 2025-09-21

 

 

No connectivity today, but started in the rain, went over another huge bridge, and now I get to cook! excitement!

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Gorgeous day1677
Day 16: 60.1 miles (752.4 tot), 2986 feet climbing (34330 tot) 2025-09-22

 

 

We packed up our wet (heavy dew) tents and headed out to what was promised to be a brutal climb right out of the gate, and it didn’t disappoint. Over 12% in spots, and we climbed over 1000 feet in a few miles. I started slowly today, as the previous nights cook also has the responsibility to make coffee, set out tables, and fill them with supplies for breakfast and lunch. Then we clean everything up afterwards.

So I started late, but still earlier than our speedsters: Zoey and Bob Hake, who can sprinting around me on an 8% hill. That was impressive. Eventually I made it to the top, and we had miles of fun rollers: hills even enough that if you sprint downhill you have a good chance of creating the next hill still moving along. In this way I caught Jeff G, chatted for a bit, and then caught Doug and Molly. I rode with them for several miles before catching Pam, and we traveled off and on again for the rest of the day. With Stephon we stopped at The Bait and Tackle for espresso (I also had a shrimp po-boy for second breakfast).

By 10:00 am the sky was clear blue, the sun was shining, the vistas were incredible and we had a fantastic day.

At this point I can barely tell that my right knee was just replaced in November. My left knee, which was replaced in 2018, is another story. I get pain in three distinct places, and it swells up easily. On the other hand, the celebrex seems to be controlling it, and when I’m having fun, such as on the rollers, I can push it *hard* downhill and have a blast going up the next short climb. It stiffens up if I get off the bike and stand around for a few minutes, and is a bit painful when I start pedaling again. However, once I warm up again, alls good again!

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Into rest day in Brookings, OR1679
Day 17: 54.1 miles (806.5 tot), 3812 feet climbing (38142 tot) 2025-09-23

 

 

In unaccustomed luxury for an ACA tour, we are booked into Ocean Suites Motel where everyone has their own queen-sized bed in their own rooms. Crazy...

Relatively short day w/ over 3300 ft of climbing, today was the "most scenic nine miles on highway 101". It was staggeringly scenic, but there are other places with w/ scenery as good; they just aren't directly on highway 101.

Nonetheless, as Jeff G said "This is why we signed up for this tour." Massive rock formations, natural bridges, beautiful beaches, 73 degrees and blue skies, the day couldn't have been much better. It was so good I rocked bare feet in my riding sandals for the first time on this tour.

Tomorrow a rest day, then eight straight days of riding into SF, culminating in two days totally 143 miles and 9300 ft climbing.

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Rest day in Brookings, OR1680
Day 18: 4.1 miles (810.6 tot), 187 feet climbing (38329 tot) 2025-09-24

 

 

Beautiful day again, had a haircut, biked up to Harris Beach State park and jumped in the Pacific, and took my first nap in two weeks!

pete

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Into California and redwoods!1681
Day 19: 64.3 miles (874.9 tot), 3271 feet climbing (41600 tot) 2025-09-25

 

 

Beautiful trip into NoCal. This was a hard day in that the climbing was almost all on two climbs, the first 1276 feet, and the second nearly as much distributed over two distinct summits. They were fun, because nothing caught by surprise, and when you get on a big climb, you can just "gear down, and settle in", as a friend told me many years ago.

After the climbs, we passed gorgeous beach, and ended up riding the "Redwood Trail", as one sign had it. Basically miles of redwoods completely surrounding us on all sizes. More than one of us compared it to being in a European cathedral, where the environment demands silence, and gives peace

The entire park is a jointly administered by NFS and the California state system, possibly why we didn't see any effects from the layoffs and budget cutbacks.

The campground is called "Elk Prairie" campground, but though I've seen elk here before none were in the offing this time.

We also had zero cell coverage, but I was able to get a text and location sent to Rosana by satellite (thank, Apple!).

All in all, one of the best days we've had as a group (six of us ended up cruising the final miles through the redwoods together), and me personally, as the legs are starting to round into form.

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Practically a rest day1682
Day 20: 47.6 miles (922.5 tot), 2067 feet climbing (43667 tot) 2025-09-26

 

 

Today was almost a rest day because we didn't have any of the big climbs that marked yesterday, and generally it was a chill ramble along the shore. Much of this was on a gravel road elevated over the ocean, leading up to Tepona Point, a fantastic overlook just built last year.

Our overnight is in an RV recently converted from a KOA, so pretty decent overall: nice sites, showers, laundry, power, and a giant chess set! No-one has played yet :-(.

We are moving ever closer to San Francisco, where I will meet Rosana, Blue+Giulia, and Giulia's family: James, Kate, and Thomas. Very excited!

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Into Burlington Campground in Humboldt State Park1683
Day 21: 60.7 miles (983.2 tot), 2067 feet climbing (45734 tot) 2025-09-27

 

 

This was truly a special day. After starting out riding through a deserted section of the town, complete w/ rather scary-looking homeless, some w/ hostile dogs, we emerged onto a pretty marshland, before heading back to highway 101.

101 here is a four-lane divided highway, fast traffic, but usually decent shoulders. We bumped on and off several times before arriving in Fernwood, which might as well be called Pleasantville. Very cute, well-kept houses, store fronts, and cafes. There was a non-working phone booth. Hadley Gardens was a tiny park w/ cool giant doll houses, shaded walkways, hobbit holes, and a chocolate standard poodle named Fozzie, whose owner is a dead ringer for Catherine O'Hara. Fozzie barked at me until I removed my helmet after which he sat on my foot.

Once out of Fernwood, we climbed through bucolic countryside until we dropped into The Avenue of the Giants. We stopped at the first redwood grove we got to and just wandered for a bit. The contrast between the busy 101 highway and the absolute peace and quiet of the giant trees was crazy. I laid down on a fallen tree for about 10 minutes, just staring up through the surrounding trees. Forest bathing indeed.

We continued through down the ave passing an encampment of squatters who were there 17 years ago, though they no longer have signs telling UN soldiers to keep out. Conspiracy theories are nothing new.

We also stopped at a flower farm that won an eminent domain fight against the guvment and were allowed to stay. You donate a few bucks and they give you clippers to bliss out in the garden and take as many flowers home as you want. They also make fantastic popsicles out of whole blackberreries grown on the farm. I had two.

Finally we arrived campground, maybe the most beautiful and unique campground I've been to. Just boggles the mind that we started at the Peace Arch on the Canadian border and arrived here a couple weeks later, on bikes!

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Travel day1684
Day 22: 44.2 miles (1027.4 tot), 2595 feet climbing (48329 tot) 2025-09-28

 

 

Started by biking through more beautiful redwoods, and then it was basically a travel day: a ride to get us from under cool place to another. Sadly, might have rain tomorrow interrupting the big climbs we have coming.

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Our luck ran out ..1685
Day 23: 47.1 miles (1074.5 tot), 3930 feet climbing (52259 tot) 2025-09-29

 

 

Some good hard climbs got us going today, and then the rain hit. The last downhill was in the rain and then we arrived at the coast where a headwind and hard rain awaited sadly, it looks like we’ll have at least some rain in the next few days. Happily, it was a nice ride and everyone is OK.

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Manchester England, England.....uh California1686
Day 24: 48.9 miles (1123.4 tot), 3117 feet climbing (55376 tot) 2025-09-30

 

 

In some sense today was another travel day: traveling towards the two big days into San Francisco. Today was supposed to be 43 miles, but I ended up doing 49 miles due to a few side trips. I ended the day riding with Jim and Anne. Anne is really strong on the uphills; Jim, is a good all-rounder.

Both have been faster than me this entire ride, but today I hung w/ them pretty well, even through some pretty sick, but thankfully short, climbs. Bob, our fastest rider, had a reading of 22.3% for a short pitch and asked everyone else who came in afterwards whether they "made it" up the climb, i.e. w/o walking. Jim, Anne, and I made it, though of course Anne led the way on the steep stuff.

So it was a good day, and my knee never really complained, even after some long climbs the previous day. This is a good thing, as tomorrow is the toughest of the tour: 72 miles and 5400 feet climbing. I certainly felt better today, maybe due to more sleep (6h 41m!), maybe the knee is coming round, maybe I'm getting tougher, or some combination of the above.

Only 145 miles until San Francisco, and my daughter Blue's nuptials!

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Queen Stage1687
Day 25: 72.0 miles (1195.4 tot), 5276 feet climbing (60652 tot) 2025-10-01

 

 

Today was huge, over 5200 ft of climbing with 72 miles. The weather cycled through mist, cold, heat and back again throughout the day. The scenery was spectacular: Highway 1 right on the cliff edge. Most of the climbing was concentrated at the end, just one climb after another. It almost doesn't matter at that point, you get very used to it.

By the time we got in everyone felt a sense of accomplishment. And to celebrate, tomorrow we do a slightly smaller day into San Francisco, where about half of our crowd will disperse to be with family or friends.

I cooked tonight, w/ Brielle, and will get breakfast and lunch ready in the morning, starting at 6am. Given that, I'm signing out...

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Into San Francisco1688
Day 26: 70.8 miles (1266.2 tot), 4177 feet climbing (64829 tot) 2025-10-02

 

 

Coming into San Francisco is a big deal. The biggest is that I get to attend my daughter's wedding, which they scheduled purposefully to intersect my day off in San Fran. It's also the third of four layover days, a beautiful ride down the coast that gradually turns into city, and the crossing into San Fran by bike over the Golden Gate Bridge. Riding over the Bridge is just a spectacularly fun time. It's high, the views are gorgeous (the ocean, the rocky shoreline, the city in the distance, flights of pelicans, the beautiful 10-ft wide path), and even I never feel unsafe. Finally, I took several Waymo rides. Spectacular safe feeling, decent aggression, and loads of fun.

Coming into town I met Rosana, Blue, and Giulia. Tomorrow, they will be married!

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Into Santa Cruz. . .1689
Day 29: 60.3 miles (1326.5 tot), 2720 feet climbing (67549 tot) 2025-10-05

 

 

Back in the saddle again! I rejoined the group by taking an uber to Half Moon Bay, and got back on the road with a 60-miler today. Started cold while we were in the marine layer, but warmed once we saw blue skies. Highlights included another beautiful lighthouse, watching the nearby pelicans squabble, cruise inches above the water looking for food, and setting Lise Getoor and Pete Outz. Both will be retiring over the next year, but Lise is still actively surfing and they are living the good life!

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Into Monterey Bay1691
Day 30: 40.1 miles (1366.6 tot), 1562 feet climbing (69111 tot) 2025-10-06

 

 

Today's ride took us through flat agricultural land until we returned to the coast in Monterey. We went from fields of brussel sprouts and strawberries, to seal watching on the wharf. We are spending the night at a city campground amongst the trees high on a hill. The Tim and Zoe cook team does good.

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Detour towards King City1692
Day 31: 67.8 miles (1434.4 tot), 1847 feet climbing (70958 tot) 2025-10-07

 

 

68 total miles, a decent portion of which were off-road.

We were supposed to be headed towards Big Sur, but as the road has been closed for a couple of years, ACA is now detouring around. This means headed inland, w/ much less inherent beauty, but it was an interesting day. For one thing, some of the migrant workers work proudly flying a Mexica flag. We whooped and hollered and they did the same back. Feels horrible to be biking past on an expensive bike while these hard-working people are payed a pittance and treated like dirt as they grow our food.

We spent a decent amount of time on short off-road routes: we were in the fields, rather than just flying past. Coming out of one such section, we saw a fire raging in a field a quarter mile down the road. There was one fire truck there at the time, and more coming, but given that the fire was upwind at about 18 mph, we hied it down the road.

At the end of the day, Pam and I had to cook. She made Pad Thai, and I made a spicy Thai cucumber salad that turned out pretty well. Really not a bad dinner at all.

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Short, hard day into Lake Nacimento1693
Day 32: 48.7 miles (1483.1 tot), 2904 feet climbing (73862 tot) 2025-10-08

 

 

Relatively short day, and the first part was mostly flat. Then big steep hill, followed by rollers, and then even more steep (>9%) climbing into the campground.

However, all very striking, we are in the midst of three days away from the coast because of the damage to the PCH around Big Sur, and it's just an entirely different state. Dry, sandy hills as far as the eye can see. The climbs at the end took us up to the lakes, which gave us beautiful views below. In the last few miles into the camp, I saw a bald eagle, a pronghorn antelope, some longhorn cattle (is that legal outside of Texas?), and a big (as the palm of my hand) fuzzy tarantula crawling onto the road five feet from my sandled, sockless feet. Needless to say no pics of any of this :-(.

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Back to the Beach1694
Day 33: 63.4 miles (1546.5 tot), 3458 feet climbing (77320 tot) 2025-10-09

 

 

After three days circling around the disaster that is Big Sur, we arrived back at the Pacific at Pismo Beach, passing through San Luis Obispo: a cute college (Cal Poly) town. We started our day at the high campground on the lake, where we passed an interesting night. First, as I arrived in the campground after a brutal final climb Tim offered me a beer. So of course I pitched my tent right there, in the "Jurassic Zone" as the denizens described it. I wasn't worried, as I'd slept near all of the snorers, and I felt kinship as the last time I did the coast I was a snorer too.

Mistake. I usually try to get to sleep at 8:30 or 8:45. At 9:15 one guy was going full blast six feet near my tent, and one of the other snorers wasn't even asleep yet, but talking quite loudly on the phone. Quite normal behaviors, but it was absolutely calm and all six of us in that site could hear every movement from everyone else. After 15 minutes I called out (softly, as remember everyone could hear everything) to our leader, "Brielle, how YOU doin?" She laughed long......

I took a Benadryl and .... woke up in the morning w/ my best sleep score (Apple Watch) on the trip so far: an 88 on 7 hours of sleep. So much for whining about the snorers.

Prior to going to bed Tim had been surrounded by raccoons and took a few pictures. The raccoons were evidently w/ us for a couple hours, one snuffling under the fly of a rainfly and refusing at first to leave. After they left, some belligerent deer moved in....

Today was mostly cute small towns, morphing gradually (as we crossed the hills) into coastal landscape, w/ a crazy stretch of a short climb followed by a long fast downhill on the shoulder of 101, which here was a divided, limited access highway whose shoulder was strewn with the debris of exploded truck tires.

Dinner in the form of home cooked lasagna, garlic bread, salad, and magic cookie bars, was provided by Doug's wife, Lois. Really nice to have a touch of the outside world.

As darkness fell, the mosquitoes rampaged for about the first time on the tour, and the raccoons returned. I looked into the trees and saw a whole family of five or six. When I pulled out my phone, only one was left, but he just laid there under the tree, clearly not seeing any reason to move just because three guys were yelling at him. As I type this, I hear Anne calling "get away, get away...."....

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Another travel day1695
Day 34: 42.3 miles (1588.8 tot), 1877 feet climbing (79197 tot) 2025-10-10

 

 

Not a lot going on today. Pam and Anne set up near the treeline, and Pam spent 10 minutes kicking the walls of her tent to get the raccoons who were trying to get in to get away. Anne woke to find a big through her tent's wall, and one of her shower shoes gone. It was later found under the van.

The day short relatively featureless, and ended at a motel 6, which mercifully had washers and dryers. Tomorrow we are finally back to the beach for our last week!.

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Into Carpentiera1696
Day 35: 69.5 miles (1658.3 tot), 2408 feet climbing (81605 tot) 2025-10-11

 

 

Long day into final rest day in Santa Barbara / Carpinteria. Also my last cooking day (tomorrow, on the day off). A lot of this day was fun. The early climbs felt bracing, and overall great, Santa Barbara at the end finally made it feel like we are in Southern California. Big, beautiful bouldevards! Palm trees! Heat! "Jerry Day" in the park! I listened to about a half hour of nonstop jamming (unless you count the drum solo, which no-one listened to). A couple of the players had actually played with Jerry Garcia on his "Jerry and Friends" tour. Really good stuff and a wonderful surprise.

Campground is packed, loud, but fine. Swimming tomorrow!

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Nature abhors a vacuum.1697
Day 37: 48.7 miles (1707.0 tot), 889 feet climbing (82494 tot) 2025-10-13

 

 

Supposed to be a "short" lead-in to the last real three days of riding, i.e. 48 miles and less than 1,000 feet climbing, but as the title says, nature has other plans. We didn't have many miles, and didn't have to climb, but the headwind was crazy.

Pam and I rode together, as usual, and it was *hard*. We started out with gorgeous beach for the first 20 miles, stopped at a "Freedom Coffee" on the beach for an orange mocha, and everything was rosy. Then the wind turned and grew in strength, and it was all we could do to survive.

I was operating w/ <6 hours of sleep, but Pam was <4 hours, and laboring, so she drafted off me for the final hour or so. Meanwhile, Tim, who has been on a tear since he had a haircut, flew by us. This kills me, because I know that I could catch him (and I'm a bit competitive), but I'd probably ruin my knees for the final few days and Pam, our cook for the night, would be in camp much later. I chilled out then, but couldn't resist testing the knees by climbing out of the saddle for the final small climb. I'll see if that was an issue tomorrow... If not, I'm pretty happy. I'm definitely stronger than when I started, and I'm readier to push the knees than I was. I might be ready to try crazier shit in the future (i.e. more ambitious tours) if the morning brings happy knees.

Sadly, we haven't actually seen Malibu yet, but some decent shoreline, a naval base that wouldn't let us go through, and some nasty highway.

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Into LA and Seal Beach1698
Day 38: 69.5 miles (1776.5 tot), 1407 feet climbing (83901 tot) 2025-10-14

 

 

One of the more ... trying .... days in the two: only the second day w/ major rain. Rained hard at night but the wind pretty much dried our tents by the morning. We got through breakfast and loading our luggage before it came back. We huddled miserably under trees for 20 minutes or so as the deluge continued, and then we finally gave up and started biking.

The rain, w/ temp in the 50's, continued for the next 3-4 hours as we rode down a busy road still under construction because of damage from the Palisades fire. There was burned wreckage on the water side; up the hill lots of lots had been razed down to foundations.

No pictures, because really, really cold. We made a complete mess of the floors at McDonalds where we hung out for a half hour. Eventually the rain stopped, and we started peeling off layers.

This whole day was tolerable because instead of biking in ones or twos, i spent most of the time in a group of 4 or 6 riders. Shared misery and all that. The group also had four flat tires, though my marathon plus's kept that at bay for me.

One plus of the offseason and miserable weather: we had the beaches all to ourselves!

The highlight was getting to share a dinner with old friends Pat and Marcia!

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Fantastic Day1699
Day 39: 69.4 miles (1845.9 tot), 2018 feet climbing (85919 tot) 2025-10-15

 

 

Today was utterly fantastic. It started out miserably: the brake pads in my rear brake were clearly fried. The last straw was probably the grit and sand from the the previous day. So in this morning I attempted to take out the old pads and put in some new. This resulted in my not getting either the new or the old pads back in, so I was completely without a rear brake to start the day. This isn't a killer if the front brake is still good, and I only had 3 days and 126 total miles left (70-31-25). However, the front brake seemed to be fading a bit in the first 20 miles, so I started getting worried. Brielle texted me the name of a couple bike shops so I raced ahead of all the other riders (maybe the first time I had been in the front?) in an attempt to get to a shop and get my brakes fixed in time to rejoin the other riders before we got on ... Interstate 5 for 8 miles. Camp Pendleton now being closed to non-military folk, it is the only other feasible way south. Sadly, the shops were closed.

I continued on, hoping to get to another town, and then my rear tire explosively blew out. I had two Kenda tubes (now sold branded as REI), and both of them flatted by the inflation valve breaking in half. This is absolutely crazy. I flipped the bike and put in my spare tube. I'd given up on going to a bike shop, but as long as I had the bike upside down I started messing w/ the rear brake again in full daylight, and was able to get one new pad and one old pad into the calipers. I had a rear brake again! Crazy noisy and not full power, but maybe 70%, good enough!

The others caught up and Pam, Anne, Jim and I ended up riding together, going through some crazy rollers through residential areas. Anne and I were talking and without realizing it we started riding pretty hard. I was having a good day and rode the rollers until I was out in front of the others for a while, but Anne is probably the strongest climber in the group and soon caught up. The rollers turned into bigger climbs, then into the old I-5, which seemed a bit sketchy, and eventually we were 52 miles into the ride and were at I-5.... so we got on the interstate.

I wasn't worried about the cars, we had a broad shoulder and signage informing drivers about cars. I was more worried about flats: I've ridden three other interstates and gotten flats on two, so I was very careful to not ride close enough to Anne that I couldn't see the kind of truck tire detritus that causes them. I-5 was fun! I got a Starbucks double shot espresso at a rest area and was feeling very strong so I climbed the hills w/ Anne and caught Doug and Molly (who did this tour) on an uphill.

Overall, on the day after the horrible 69-mile day mostly in the freezing rain, this 69-mile ride I felt stronger than I had so far on this tour. Really a great feeling.

Also, Brielle's husband Dan brought her to pugs and pizza to the campground. Overall, a great day.

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Into San Diego1700
Day 40: 30.9 miles (1876.8 tot), 1283 feet climbing (87202 tot) 2025-10-16

 

 

Woke up from our last night camping to another beautiful SoCal day. Bittersweet, as we are basically done. This group, however, is tight. We all have places to go and people to go home to, but it was a great trip.

The ride into San Diego was beautiful; the whole area around the hostel is basically a throwback to the 60's. From the decor of the hostel to the kids smoking weed and holding hands while doing the kumbyas inside, it was a hoot. Hightlights included climbing almost a mile at 8% up to the Torrey Pines State Park, w/ beautiful views of the countryside and ocean, to going past Torrey Pines golf course where Tiger Woods was ... well ... the old Tiger Woods.

In the hostel Doug, Bob, Tim and I were crammed into a room w/ three bunkbeds; Doug arrived last and got an upper bunk. Luckily, he's very considerate, as was Tim, who evidently slept little trying not to snore and fart. Good times....

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It's a wrap!1701
Day 41: 8.0 miles (1884.8 tot), 85 feet climbing (87287 tot) 2025-10-17

 

 

We biked 21 miles down to Imperial Beach, the last place we knew we could get to, and then biked another 8 miles, some through flooded paths trying to get closer to the border. We did see it, in stretches, but ultimately couldn't get near the actual border, as most of the "border park" is closed.

Fantastic trip, fantastic people; I really enjoyed myself on this one. The new knee is doing great and am eyeing further adventures.