Category: Cycling

Mill Valley to Half Moon Bay (Garmin File)

Crossed the Golden Gate Bridge and spent most of the days going up and down hills in the Bay Area.  Fortunately it was a short day and tomorrow is a rest day, where we pick up the next group of riders.

 

 

Ocean Cove to Mill Valley (Garmin File)

A long day with tons of climbing and a very steep hill at the end of the day in Mill Valley.  Looking forward to the next rest day in Half Moon Bay.

 

 

Fort Bragg to Ocean Cove (Garmin File)

 

 

Leggett to Fort Bragg (Garmin File)

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Arcata to Redcrest (Garmin File)

More Redwoods and a fantastic cookout at the cabins in Redcrest.  I have been riding long enough to have my legs under me, but not so long I am burned out.  Good times!

 

Gold Beach to Crescent City (Garmin File)

The rest day helped.  The warmer weather helped.  The fact that the climbs came in the first half of the day helped.  I arrived at the Ocean View Inn with something left in my legs.  That’s a good thing since it’s back to 70+ mile days with 4000+ feet of climbing, tomorrow.  More good news is we made it out of the Pacific Northwest with only one half day of rain and the ten day weather forecast between here and Half Moon Bay is sunny with highs in the 60s.  That is better than anything I had hoped for. Overall we are doing well. Parkinson’s Disease is not beating anyone down too bad, that I can tell.  Age and a lot of time in the saddle is another story.  My Garmin tells me I have been on the bike 56.7 hours and have made 29,164 pedal strokes since leaving Seattle 10 days ago.  In the group I am aware of sore knees, hips, backs, and necks.  A big blister on someone’s toe.  One person claims saddle sores – I will take his word on that.  Since Norwegians are stoic there are probably a few more aches and pains I am not aware of.

The big news of the day was entering California.  With Washington and Oregon out of the way all we have left is California and Arizona, we are 1/2 way there right? Oh, the Elk are massive.  The internet tells me that they are Roosevelt Elk the largest species of Elk in North America.  California is incredibly diverse!

Gold Beach Rest Day

Our knees hurt.  Five hundred fifty miles and over 26,000 feet of ascent over 8 days is a lot for us.  Although our legs are slowly adjusting.  The highlight of the day was watching harbor seals swim up and down the Rogue River.  Many of these animals originate from the nearby Rogue Reef, located just offshore, which is one of the largest seal and sea lion rookeries in the Pacific Northwest and they come up river in the spring to hunt spawning salmon. [1, 2].

Bandon to Gold Beach (Garmin File)

All I wanted to do today was make it to the hotel and enjoy a rest day tomorrow. I have a bunch of pretty pictures, but honestly I was distracted by thoughts of sleeping in.

 

Florance to Bandon (Garmin File)

Some days, like yesterday, it is unicorns and rainbows; today was not that type of day.  The entire morning I rode the white line of death, while dodging road debri and trying to clean my glasses with gloved hands.  Fortunately, the rain cleared out by early afternoon.  The white line separates the road, where cars try to kill you from the shoulder, where you try to kill yourself.  When it rains the white line gets slick as ice, so it tries to kill you as well.

It probably sounds overly dramatic, but many sections are “Russian Roulette”, with little to no shoulder, blind curves, tree limbs, truck tire tread, pot holes, pavement cracks running parallel to the road, road kill.

I even passed an entire pile of nuts and bolts large enough to hold a bridge together.

Florance to Bandon (Garmin File)

It was all about the view today as we hugged the coast.  Oh, in the category of you don’t see that every day, we saw a pet goat standing in the passenger seat of a truck.