Category: Bicycling

Last night I was able to get a pretty restful sleep. The skunks and the screeching owl didn’t bother me. I ended up being the only one camping at the fire station that night. This was the first night camping where I had very heavy dew when I woke up. Not exactly what I needed…

Overnight the winds came in as expected. Some extremely strong gusts made the tent shake and at times I thought it might fall apart. I’m so glad I put the extra tiedowns on the tent. With the tent flapping around hitting me in the head and making noise, there was little sleep to be had.…

Heading north today with best weather so far. Best news, no spokes breaking today! I looked for bicycle shop half heartedly in Santa Barbara without success. Those additional spokes will have to wait. Hopefully my wheel and I are on the same page now. Gaviota state park where I’m staying is full along with all…

The main objective for today is to make it to the next big city where there are some bike shops to address my wheel issue. The two cities with potential are Oxnard and Ventura. The area around Oxnard is a very agriculture based with various fields, harvesting and planting all over. I didn’t find any…

After a great rest in Redondo Beach, I wanted to make it through the rest of the Los Angeles area beaches and to the next campground. Today the weather finally cleared a little bit although the temperature remained comfortable and not too hot. This seems to bring out more people as well. Redondo Beach seamlessly…

Waking early and finishing up the last of my hotdog buns with peanut butter and honey for breakfast. Even though they don’t look so appetizing they’ve actually grown on me. It doesn’t taste too bad and it’s a quick way to get a lot of calories and energy to start the day. One little bit…

This morning was a rush to finish the blog post from yesterday‘s ride so that I don’t fall behind. I still had to fix my bike wheel and sort through my gear before we had to check out of the motel at 11 am. It was all hectic and certainly not a restful day. But…

Today I start heading north from the border, up the coastline when possible and hopefully through Oregon to the Washington border. I will follow the popular bike touring “Pacific Coast Route” (PCR) for most of the rest of the tour, In places I will break from the official PCR and make my own way. The…

While packing up and eating breakfast at Pico Picacho campground, a campground official came over and warned me that I wasn’t supposed to be camping there. I explained that it was allowed and I had a permit. He was surprise but was okay when I showed him the paperwork. Apparently the hiker / biker option…

I didn’t get much sleep last night and it was an interesting experience wild camping. It makes a difference being all alone and little critters bugging you all night snooping around the tent. It doesn’t make for a very sound sleep. I woke up at the break of day, glad night was over. There were…

A nice sleep and rest helped me to recuperate from the days before hot and steep climb. almost good as new, I got up early to see all but one of the hikers had already left, and it was before 7 AM. So I had the whole picnic table to myself to queue up all…

Looking over the next segment of the route last night, I realized I needed a low mileage day, and boy was I right. It seems like I’m writing a lot about climbing but this is the big challenge right now until I hit the coast. I took advantage of the first couple of miles downhill…

I woke up surprisingly refreshed right before daylight. But it was too cold and I wasn’t that interested in getting that early of a start. So I went back to sleep and got a late start. Slowly packing and filtering water for the bike ride ahead. The day started with a nice trail ride around…

I knew when I planned this segment that it was going to be hard. It lived up to my expectations and more. It was one of my hardest physical activities that I’ve completed. I have a personal scale of one (easy activity) to 10 being the hardest activity that I’ve ever completed. I would rate…

Today we drove down from Las Vegas to Cajun Junction California about 225 miles. from there my wife dropped me off and I went solo up the climb about 12 miles and about 1200 foot elevation climbing. It feels good to finally get on way and started. The weight in front was a little bit…

These last few days my wife and I have taking our time working our way south by car to get the planned bike tour starting point in Southern California. Currently we are in Las Vegas and will continue south this morning to Cajon Junction, CA. From there, I will get a late afternoon start of…