My Pacific Coast Tour 2006 Journal, Part 3 (the Final Installment.)

And today we'll wrap up this Blast From the Past series. Hope you enjoy. Remember: click on the image to embiggen.

My Pacific Coast Tour 2006 Journal, Part 2

Here is the second installment of illustrated journal entries from my Pacific Coast Tour of 2006. Hope you enjoy! And you can click on any image to embiggen.

Blasts from the Past: My Pacific Coast Tour 2006 Journal, Part 1

It's become "unearthing buried treasures" month here at the Urban Adventure League!

Back in September 2006, I embarked on an 1,100 mile (1,800 km) bike tour from outside of Portland (Tillamook) down the Pacific Coast to Cambria, California. It was my first "epic" bike tour. And it was appropriately great!

Digging through my bin of old sketchbooks, I found the one from the trip. I started a journal for the trip, where I would use the rough outline of the route-map to illustrate my day. I started out pretty good, but only managed to keep it up for the first nine days of riding (which is the first ten days of tour when you factor in the break day.) As it is with many things in my life, I stopped doing it mid-way. I think I just didn't have the time to keep up the journal (as I remember I was doing a few entries days after the fact) and let it slip.

But hey! Nine entries are better than none. And now you get to see what my trip was like from Tillamook to the Avenue of the Giants in Redwood territory. Today you'll get the first installment of three. And if you want to check out photos from the trip, go check out my long-dead old flickr account for more.

And click on the image to embiggen!

The Trip is almost done: Pacific Coast Tour 2006

I'm sitting in the basement of the University of Arizona in Tuscon typing this now. I've been in Arizona for almost two weeks where it's been sunny and 80 degrees every day (except for the one day it rained). Beautiful weather. 

Yet I'm looking forward to getting back to the rainy Northwest. Maybe it's just the variety of weather, since the last two months of travel have seen generally "good" weather. Maybe it's because I miss the place bad, miss the people and the good things going on there. Get jealous of all the fun that has happened since I've left and can only experience it second-hand from reading other people's accounts. But I'm getting ahead of myself here... 

I'm not saying this trip hasn't been a blast. I biked 1,100 miles from Portland to San Luis Obispo, California. I experienced "bike fun" in San Francisco, Santa Cruz, Los Angeles, Phoenix, and Tucson. And tonight is the creme de la creme: the annual Day of the Dead Procession here in Tucson, which everyone tells me is amazing. 

Maybe I'm just itchy. Ever since the actual "bike tour" portion of the trip ended, I've spent extended periods in cities--LA, Phoenix, and Tucson. The slower time is a great (and much needed) contrast to the three weeks that consisted of getting up, biking all day up to 70 miles, stopping to set up camp, and sleeping. 

Maybe it's because I'm relishing the slower time a bit too much. I've been sleeping 9 hours plus every day because I don't have to be anywhere, and now I'm finding it hard to get the energy to do stuff. And there's not much point in getting stuff done. This is not my home so I can only do so much stuff for Portland from a distance. And since I spent over a month in Tucson last year, it's not a new area to be explored. Just a place for me to hang out with old friends and enjoy my extended summer. I'll be back in Portland this weekend. Hope to catch you at the Midnight Mystery Ride!

Bike fun observed--SF, SC, LA

Mural on Sunset Blvd, Los Angeles

In LA, gas stations are for bikes?

Another chicken mural, this one is by Echo Park, LA

The obligatory tall bike with hippie, Santa Cruz

I'm in Los Angeles right now. Yep, I've made it! (Some) details of the trip will be forthcoming, but first, reflections on bike fun in cities!

I made it to San Francisco in time for Critical Mass back on Friday, Sept 29th. Despite having lived in the Bay Area for a time, I never had a chance to participate in the mass. I showed up to Justin Herman Plaza at 5:30 and watched the crowd gather. When we left there was easily several hundred people. We headed up Market Street and then looped around SoMa. The mass attempted to take the Bay Bridge via the Transbay Terminal, which I didn't think was particularly a good idea (and yes, they did get thwarted), so I paused and talked with a guy who was up from LA for the Bike Film Fest. We rode around the Financial District for a bit and then managed to find the ride. From there we headed up the Embarcadero up to ultra-touristy Fisherman's Wharf to give those tourists a good show. We also took over the Broadway Tunnel for a bit. The sound of several hundred cyclists roaring through the tube (along with someone playing Twisted Sister's "I wanna rock") was awesome!

The Bike Film Fest was going on that weekend and I managed to catch the last program on Saturday. The feature: B.I.K.E., a film (loosely) about the New York Black Label bike gang. I thought it was ooo-kay, but way too long.

Next stop: Santa Cruz. The next Friday (Oct 6th), was their weekly Mystery Ride. Me and Dr. Wasabi raided his closet for RenFaire outfits, because the theme of this ride was medieval. The ride met up downtown on Pacific, a couple dozen assembled. We cut through town, had some "medieval" type of "tourneys" thrown in the mix (like a damsel rescue off the railroad bridge that the Lost Boys made famous) and ended up by the railroad tracks in the westside of town, where guerilla Drive-In presented more bike films: Caravan/Prague, about a bicycle caravan from Berlin to Prague in 2000 to protest the World Bank/IMF meeting (pretty good), and, um, B.I.K.E. Again. Didn't stick around for that one.

Another city, another Friday night. This time Los Angeles on Friday the 13th, for their monthly night ride, Midnight Ridazz (although they depart at 10pm). This ride was pretty big, easily a couple hundred people. Though folks were saying that the summer rides got up to 1,500 people. 1,500! Apparently the little rain that happened earlier in the night scared some folks off. The theme of the ride is a bit different than Portland's Midnite Mystery Ride. Rather thanride 5 miles somewhere hidden to go drink (what we do in PDX), the ride was almost 25 miles long and lasted four hours (!) It went pretty fast too, but there were several stops. It was loads fun because we basically took over several big and famous boulevards. The best was when we rode down Hollywood Blvd through the heart of Hollywood. And we also took over a gas station at one point (which i should upload the photo from) (and you can see photos from earlier on the trip (up to Eureka) here http://www.flickr.com/photos/urbanadventureleague/ ) We ended up at Echo Park around 2am where a hip-hoppedty type combo (villain City) put on a small show in the back of a U-Haul truck! 

Saturday night was a Spoke'n'art ride. About a couple dozen of us rode around the Highland Park neighborhood and went to art galleries. I consumed lots of chips'n'salsa, wine, and beer. Too much, because i had to leave the afterparty at the Bike Oven (a DIY bike workspace in someone's garage) fairly early to go crash. And what's next? Who knows...

Where am I at on this crazy tour?

Alsea Bridge, US 101 

Bicycle graffiti on the "Welcome to California" sign

Cape Meares Lighthouse

Coos Bay Bridge

Bridge near Cape Foulweather, on old US 101

Bridge at Heceta Head

Heceta Head Tunnel.  Note "Bikes in Tunnel" warning sign.

Oregon Dunes 

Seastacks at Bandon

Seal Rock

I be in Eureka, California right now, over 400 miles and 10 days away from Portland. I'm peeping all the old Victorian houses in this town. Trip has been good so far. One flat and one new wheel, that's all the bike troubles I've had (knock on wood).

The tour has been the most difficult yet most exciting and fun thing I've done in my life. There are plenty of hills on the Pacific Coast to go up and down, and riding 50-75 miles a day, every day (except for Thursday the 21st, my day off at the Redwood Hostel) does wear you down. My legs definitely feel it. But no pain, no gain. And I've had enough ocean vistas, seastacks, redwoods, and interesting folks along the way to make it worthwhile.

Looks like about another week until San Francisco. Should be there by Friday the 29th in order to participate in Critical Mass. This is the first time I've been on a computer in ten days (which has been nice) and I don't anticipate being on it much more before SF. So it'll be sporadic and short updates on the blog. I'll write more when I get to the Bay Area. Rest assured, I am okay and things are going good. Now I have a bike to ride; today I ride Avenue of the Giants through the redwoods!

Departure Day for Pacific Coast Bike Tour

Ah! Stressing out again! Once again a trip is about to begin and I'm tying up loose ends, spending more money than I want to, and worrying that I'm not "prepared enough" for it. But overall, I'm happy with the way things are going and confident that this journey won't be as tough as last year's adventures.

Originally I was planning on leaving on Wed the 13th, but there was still stuff to get done, and I wanted to make my life easier so I opt for Thurs the 14th as departure date. I'm still figuring out how I'm going to leave, though. There's a few options:

I was thinking about departing with everyone's favorite old-timey bike touring duo, the Ditty Bops. They just played Portland tonight ($14 well spent!) at the Aladdin and put on a great show. As part of the tour, they invite people to join their ride. Initially they were going to depart on the 13th, but due to injury and ailments from 3 months (!) of riding cross-country, they may push back their departure date to Thursday. Or maybe further than that, if they bike. Oh well. I was on the fence on this one. On one hand, it would be really cool! On the other, they're heading to Eugene and I would rather see more of the coast.

So how 'bout biking out there? There's a few ways and I was pondering using the secret and scenic Nestucca River Road from Yamhill to south of Tillamook. I told Kim from Bikeworks this and she urged me not to, from the experience of others. Turns out that while this route is quiet on traffic, it is extremely hilly. I looked at the elevation chart, and there's two passes at almost 2000 feet! Yikes!

Kim suggested Route 47 to McMinnville and then Route 18 to the coast. It's fairly quiet and the summit is about 700 feet, fairly low. The only trouble with this route is there is no camping between there and the coast, which would mean an 80 mile day to start out the ride. I don't know if I want to push myself that far just yet, especially since the forecast for Thursday promises some rain.

Which brings me to the bus. I can take the Tillamook bus for $10, which will drop me off on the coast and then I can ride from there. Depending on the weather and how I feel, I might do that. Sure it's cheating, but hey?

So stay tuned to this here blog! I'll be posting occasionally from the road!