Summer of Chris

Today’s ride ended up being about 77 miles from the Sycamore Canyon campsite to my house in Long Beach. The ride was pretty much segmented into three parts: Malibu (Highway 1), beaches with bike paths, and then back to Highway 1 (PCH) into Long Beach. We got into Los Angeles County pretty quickly and started heading down the coastline in Malibu. There was typically a shoulder here to ride on, but there are endless cars parked on it, so we had to swerve into the road pretty often. On top of the usual traffic and parked cars, it ended up being trash day which meant that the roads were lined with trash cans and a multitude of garbage trucks blocking the shoulders and right lane of the highway. We dealt with this segment for about 30 miles.

Next, we got to the “beaches with bike paths” section which consisted of Santa Monica, Venice Beach, Playa Del Rey, El Segundo, Manhattan Beach, Hermosa Beach, and Redondo Beach. This section was about 20 miles and was great because it is the middle of the week and had relatively few pedestrians walking around. Large parts of the bike path were closed because they had been covered with sand, but they had a detour that still kept us off of the main roads. It had been years since I went to visit Santa Monica and Venice Beach, so it was nice to see that they had cleaned up both areas considerably. We cruised through these paths and enjoyed the escape from traffic.

Next we got back to PCH at the end of Redondo Beach and it took us through Torrance, Lomita, Wilmington, and Long Beach. Talk about nerve racking. This stretch was also about 20 miles, but was the most stressful (and probably most dangerous) part of this trip. We rode this part from about 2pm-4pm so traffic just kept getting worse and worse and we had no shoulder or bike lane until we had already gone through most of Long Beach. Other than Torrance and the last part of Long Beach, the rest was through pretty industrial areas, so lots of truck traffic and people rushing to get home that did not care for us taking up one of their lanes. We probably would’ve been better off taking a different route, but I’ve been trying to adhere to my book as much as possible and decided to go for it. Once we made it past the traffic circle in Long Beach, we finally got a bike lane for the last few miles of PCH for the day.

We took the San Gabriel Bike Path north from there and made it home tired, but safe. All in all I’m pretty proud of both of us for making this push in distance this week. We did 280 miles in 4 days; not bad for a couple of novice cyclists.

-Chris

P.S. Sorry for posting these last two updates so late, I got home and had plenty of things to catch up on. On that note, I decided to finish the trip next week. Only two days left, so in the end I decided that I might as well get some family time in, get rested, and then finish fresh. Look for an update/conclusion next weekend.

Since we got to San Simeon on Sunday, it put us close enough to home where we wanted to try and push the mileage and get to Long Beach. We weren’t sure how we were going to hold up over the days, but this week we have hit our goal every day. Monday was a 65 mile day, Tuesday was a 60 mile day, and today we did 78.3 miles. I think that’s the longest ride I’ve ever done. From reviewing our route book, I knew that it was going to be much flatter of a ride starting today so we wanted to get as close as possible. We went from Refugio State Beach (north of Santa Barbara) to near Malibu today; technically Point Mugu State Park – Sycamore Canyon campsite in the Santa Monica mountains. I’ve driven this part of the coast before many times, but being on a bicycle definitely gives you the time to notice a lot more detail about the area. We went past Santa Barbara, Carpenteria, Rincon Point (Isaac told me it’s a major surfing spot), Summerland and a few other towns I’ve always just cruised past. I know this is obvious and I’ve been “aware” of it, but we really do have access to some beautiful (and sometimes fairly private) beaches all within a 2 hour drive from Long Beach. Even this campsite tonight I didn’t know was here. It doesn’t seem too crowded and you just walk across PCH and there’s the scenic beach with mountains curling around the highway to add some great scenery.

In terms of the ride today, 78 miles is a long time to be on the saddle. Also, I got another flat on my trailer today (big staple this time), but was able to get it switched out in 15 minutes or so. We spent the first part of the day on the 101 / Highway 1, but once we got to Goleta (around 9 miles in) we spent most of the day on city streets or separate bike paths. In fact, there ended up being a great stretch of the 101 that had a bike path that paralleled it for at least 12 miles between Rincon and Ventura; again, the type of thing you would never get to experience or probably even notice if you just drove by. It was great because it removes the stress of having cars go right past you at 70-80 MPH and allows you to take in the scenery you’re passing by.

Now that we did our long ride today, I can safely say that we’ll be back in Long Beach by tomorrow evening after another 70ish mile day. I’m looking forward to seeing my family and sleeping in my bed. We’re planning to finish the ride to the Mexican border before the weekend is done, but are still working out the details. We’ve talked about doing 115 miles in one day from Long Beach to the border, but frankly it’s just a ton of time on the saddle. At this point our legs aren’t the concern, but the time spent on the bike is still a factor because of the wear on the body overall. Unfortunately there is zero reception here at the campsite tonight, so you all won’t see this until I’m back in Long Beach anyways.

Another thing of note is the hiker/biker site at this place. It’s way back in the campsite secluded from all the other campers. First hiker/biker site I can remember like this. Right now I’m listening to a symphony of frogs croaking all around my tent, so I’m hoping that sound will lull me to sleep like the waves last night at Refugio State Beach instead of just driving me nuts all night. Either way, even though it’s not the finish line, tomorrow is an exciting day for us. We’ll see how the Los Angeles traffic treats us in the morning.

We rode 61 miles today from the Guadalupe Fire Department courtyard to Refugio State Beach. When we woke up in Guadalupe this morning it looked like we had been rained on and were sitting in a cloud so everything was pretty soaked. We needed to get out of the courtyard by 7am, so we got up around 5:30am to be sure we were out on time. Oh yeah, no hobo attacks last night. We went and had some great breakfast burritos at Guadalupe Cafe which I’m sure was the nicest spot in the town and then headed out on the road. It was cold and stayed cold and wet pretty much the whole day. The first 10 miles in the morning were on Highway 1, but it was narrow with no shoulders most of the way; and cars/trucks were flying so it was pretty sketchy. After that, it turned into a proper highway again and we had good shoulders most of the day (except for the Harris Grade part but traffic was light). There were several big climbs today, but one in particular was pretty rough. We went through Harris Grade Rd to get to Lompoc and it was 3 miles of pretty steep incline. Even though it was tough, my body has definitely acclimated to the climbs. The last climb of the day, a 13.5 mile moderate one, is supposed to be the last big hill of the trip! When we got to the bottom, Highway 1 merged with the 101 and we rode another 10 miles or so into camp. I also got another flat on my bike (rear tire this time), but I brought two extra tubes and was able to get it switched in about a half hour.

Refugio State Beach is pretty awesome and the hiker/biker site is a stone throw away from the ocean. We got here and got our tents setup right away so that they could dry off a bit. We had bought some dinner at the Albertson’s in Lompoc, so we we got cooking while the tents were drying. I was also able to get a nice hot shower which was wildly welcome after two 60+ mile days and no shower last night. It’s amazing how good a hot shower can make you feel after a long day. Now I’m sitting here and writing this while listening to the waves crashing nearby. It’s sights like these that I’m sure I’ll look fondly back on.

I thought a lot about what this trip has meant to me over the years while riding today. All the miles on the bike and the grinding through climbs really gets my mind going. I’m happy to have this opportunity to complete a trip I had always planned to finish, but was never sure when I’d be able to. But its definitely different this time too. I’m very much looking forward to seeing my family in a few days. By the way, thank God for video calls.  It’s great to see my wife and kids on a regular basis.

I’m going to go plan our route for tomorrow. We’ll be going through at least Santa Barbara and Carpinteria, so those will be familiar places.

-Chris

Yesterday we drove from Monterey, CA to San Simeon State Park in order to get around the three Big Sur landslides. I called an Uber to Veteran’s Memorial Park and got to the Monterey airport around 8:15am to pick up what ended up being a Ford Escape. After driving back to camp and loading up our two bikes into the small SUV we drove to San Simeon State Park and parked off Highway 1 near the park to unload everything and reassemble our gear. We rode into the state park and turns out their hiker/biker sites were flooded; but the ranger was nice enough to give us a regular site for the same cost as two hiker/biker ones. We setup our tents right away so they could dry and then I headed back to the car to drive it back to the San Luis Obispo airport about 40 miles away or so. I stopped by the grocery store to pick up dinner, dropped the rental off, and then called an Uber to drive me back to San Simeon State Park. By the time I got back to camp it was just shy of 5pm. So all in all it was about 9 hours of travel to get around Big Sur. Nonetheless, it was a nice (though unexpected) rest day off of the bikes. I was able to watch a couple of pre-downloaded Mandalorian episodes and listen to an audiobook since we had zero reception. In the evening we met another cyclist from Seattle who had come through Big Sur and made it without getting caught. I figured it would be easy enough to cross the barriers in the evening from what we’ve been hearing, but I wasn’t interested in chancing it. It was good to hear he got through though as another cyclist we had met a couple of days ago (Rich) had left Monterey at the same time we did to give it a shot. Hopefully he makes it too.

We woke up this morning and the tents were absolutely soaked from the fog. We got moving by 8am because we had a 65 mile day today to Guadalupe. Our trusty old guidebook had our stop planned in Oceano, CA just south of Pismo Beach, but tomorrow is a hard day through Lompoc, CA and I wanted to get a head start, so we kept going another 13 miles into Guadalupe. Owen (fellow cyclist) had told me that the fire department here hosted cyclists in their courtyard, so we made the extra push and got here around 4pm. Turns out the spot they let you camp in is a courtyard between what looks like a elementary/middle school, the fire department, the police department, and city hall so they said we had to come back after 5pm (and be out before 7am tomorrow). We went down and had some excellent Mexican food and then went to a laundromat and washed our clothes to burn time. One of the firemen had told us that a homeless guy had slept here for the past two days, but it doesn’t look like he’s planning on camping with us tonight. Oh, and there’s no showers available here. We’re definitely thankful for the spot to stay the night protected from the wind, but after 65 miles of riding a shower would have been great. Instead, we took hobo showers using the bathroom sink they gave us access to for the night. This whole town looks super old and the bathrooms (connected to their city hall) look like they haven’t been renovated since the 1940s. It’s a town full of farm laborers and the people here definitely don’t have a lot of money. But I’ll stay in a town of hard workers any day; they’re not the ones looking to steal any of your stuff or cause you any problems.

In terms of the ride, it was beautiful going through Cambria (as usual) but we didn’t get any pictures because the fog was so thick it felt like we were getting rained on. But by the time we were passing San Luis Obispo we were riding in fairly clear, cloud-covered weather. We stopped there for lunch about 40 miles into the day and rested for about 45 minutes before getting back on our bikes. The good weather continued through Pismo Beach and basically for the rest of the day (cold, but good). About 10 miles out from Guadalupe, Highway 1 South was closed and we had to detour around some farmland with a nasty uphill with no shoulder. Once we made it up it went back to moderate hills though. With about 6 miles to go, I got my first flat of the trip on my trailer tire. I patched it to save time and realized that it had a patch from my first trip 13 years ago — probably should have swapped out that tube before I got going last week.

Anyways, tomorrow we have a 60 mile day planned with some pretty decent ascents to make, but after that it should be relatively flat all the way to the border. I’m going to crash now and will let you know on my next post if either of us has to fight off a hobo tonight… stay tuned.

-Chris

Didn’t have the wind to our backs like yesterday, but it was still a good day of riding. We rode 45 miles from our inn at Santa Cruz to Veteran’s Memorial Park in Monterey. Most of the day was spent riding around Highway 1 through farmland or on side trails, which didn’t put us right next to the coast, but was nice nonetheless. Passed a lot of strawberry/artichoke farms and Isaac got the first flat of the trip alongside one of them. When we did ride on Highway 1 for a bit, we saw that they were selling fruit along the side for crazy cheap. The first avocado stand we passed were selling 5 avocados for $1. A mile or so later, they were selling them 8 for $1. Then a mile or two after that they got to like 13 for $1. Was a bummer to not have room to load up some for a good snack.

As soon as we hit the county of Monterey we were able to use a number of bike paths to stay off of the main road all the way into the marina; mainly the Monterey Coast Trail and the Fort Ord Trail. We didn’t spend time down by the boardwalk because we had skipped lunch and wanted to get setup in camp so we could go back down and get something to eat. After a nice day of riding, we hit one of the steepest uphills of the trip to get to Veteran’s Memorial Park. Half of it went through a nice residential neighborhood and the other half winded up a hillside and ended in the park. Despite that unpleasant surprise to end today’s ride, the park is very nice and I’m glad that they’ve kept their hiker/biker site here in the middle of Monterey while many others along the path have closed them down.

Perry was at the campsite when we got there, so once we got our tents setup, we all walked down to the downtown area to get some dinner. Perry had planned on riding down, but I was done being on the bike for the day and definitely didn’t want to cycle that uphill again. Downtown Monterey had some graduation ceremonies going on and was pretty busy, but we found a place called British Pub and I grubbed on some good fish and chips and clam chowder.

I’m not sure if I will post tomorrow as it is our driving day to San Simeon to get around all of the Big Sur closures. If nothing eventful happens, I’ll likely post again on Monday (we have our first 60+ mile day planned that day).

-Chris

Today we did 53 miles from Half Moon Bay State Beach to Santa Cruz. The hills mainly had gradual inclines and we had tailwinds for a lot of the day. We hardly stopped along the path, so we got to our inn around 2pm. The views were great and there were numerous beach access points along the path; this is another area I will have to come back to with my family.

Bad news is that neither me or Isaac took any pictures today because we had such a good pace going and didn’t want to stop. Good news is that we found a local bike shop that true’d up Isaac’s front wheel and tightened his front fork while we waited (shout out to Bicycle Trip in Santa Cruz). I’d say the norm when you’re bicycle touring is that bike shops will try to prioritize you to help out and keep you moving on, but it’s still obviously up to each shop and I’m glad we found a good one. Isaac’s wheel looked a lot better after they got done working on it and should last for the rest of the trip.

Anyways, we covered a lot of miles and again have a chance to sleep in beds instead of a tent so I really don’t have much more to update on today. I should probably go explore the Santa Cruz boardwalk, but it feels too good to just veg a bit, watch garbage TV, and plan tomorrow’s ride.

I’ll make sure to take some pictures tomorrow.

-Chris

Today was our shortest day yet; 16 miles. Turns out there is not a lot of options between here and Santa Cruz (~50 miles away) and we didn’t really have a need to do 65 miles today because we need to be in Monterey on Sunday morning to do our alternate route around Big Sur (landslides). Also, my mother-in-law is from Half Moon Bay, so I thought it would be nice to spend a longer day than usual here.

We didn’t get on the road until 10:30am or so because we didn’t have much road to cover, we had comfortable beds to sleep in, and its been real cold in the mornings. When we did get going, we got to the Devil’s Slide climb within a couple of miles. I remember worrying about this area 13 years ago when I started this trip because of the famously narrow road, steep dropouts, and California drivers. It was suggested that we take the whole road at the extreme parts in order to avoid being run off the road by a car. Well, back in 2013 they opened a tunnel through the mountain for car traffic to go through before the harrowing part of Devil’s Slide and turned the old part of Highway 1 into a trail for hikers and cyclists. So we still had to deal with some crappy traffic and narrow roads for a good part of the climb, but the end of it split off into an empty road that we were able to take our time on and stop to take in the views several times. They had closed the North entrance of the trail, but it was easy enough to get a bicycle through and we didn’t see anyone else until we hit the peak of Devil’s slide; even then it was just a few pedestrians walking the trail. This was a nice surprise for the day even though the partitioned off trail was much to short. When we merged back onto Highway 1, it was all decline and after another few miles, we finally got some good shoulders on the road to ride on. The next 10 miles or so were relatively flat with moderate inclines and we made great time into Half Moon Bay.

Most campsites don’t open until 2pm for check-in, so we stopped at a Mexican food spot right before the turnoff to Half Moon Bay State Beach and ate a solid lunch. Afterwards, we cruised into camp, got setup and had plenty of time to relax. We took in the beautiful views at the beach and cruised (without our packs) a half mile or so to a Safeway and bought some dinner and snacks for tomorrow. We loaded up because there aren’t any stores at all until 40 miles into the day tomorrow. So the plan is to wake up early, go into town for a big breakfast and keep moving until we get to Santa Cruz. The original plan was to go 4 miles past Santa Cruz to New Brighton State Beach, but they no longer have a hiker/biker site and the normal camp sites were all full. Instead, we’re going to stay at another inn tomorrow night before heading off to Monterey.

Other than the hiker/biker area, the campsite tonight is mainly for RVs, but it’s incredibly scenic. The hiker/biker spot is the biggest I remember on the entire U.S. Pacific Coast and it’s a well maintained grassy area that’s just steps away from accessing the beach. I hung out on the sand for a while to get a good look at the waves and the “half-moon” shape of the bay. So even though I feel a little guilty about the ultra-short day, I’m glad I got to spend a nice day at this beach.

Today’s last note involves some bad luck. They have a bike rack here where Isaac and I both had our bikes parked. Somehow Isaac’s bike went sideways and the front wheel he just had true’d up before the trip got bent. Isaac thinks it’ll be alright for the trip, but I’m hoping to find a bike shop tomorrow in Santa Cruz and see if they can fix it or replace it.

Another last note. Met new touring cyclist today named Louis. He drove out from Wisconsin to the West Coast, junked his car, and is now cruising down the coast.

-Chris

I realized I didn’t note the Swiss couple’s names yesterday. I’m sure the spelling is going to be wrong, but they were Sveena and Birk. I realize that the names don’t matter much to you all, but I like having them in here because it will help me remember my experiences years down the road.

In the book I’m using as a guide, today was supposed to be a 58.1 mile day straight to Half Moon Bay. But based on how my body was doing for the first few days I had planned to split this day given the elevation gain between the two parks and all the cycling through city streets we had to do for most of the day.

The map had showed some pretty good elevation gain coming out of Samuel P Taylor and based off yesterday we were expecting a pretty hard start to the day as we reached the summit. So we were pleasantly surprised when it ended up being a very long, but gradual, uphill to the summit. Turns out yesterday was the worst of the climb. This made for a great start to the day as we were able to make good time for the first 10 miles into Fairfax. That town was clean, had plenty of local restaurants, and for the most part had great bike lanes. We also came across a bicycle shop, so Isaac was able to replace his chain that he had repaired on the side of the road a few days ago (had been rigged together with 3 quick-links) and I bought a mirror as I was wishing I had one on busy highways since I started the trip back up. We added the new parts to our bikes right outside of the store, so we ended up hanging in Fairfax a little longer than planned.

After Fairfax, we went through Sausalito which was another beautiful town that I definitely want to go back to with the family to walk around and hit the bay, restaurants, and shops. In terms of riding a bike through it, there were a good amount of short, but very steep hills that we had to get past. All the same, it was a nice sunny ride through these towns to the Golden Gate Bridge. Once we hit the bridge it immediately got very foggy and a bit windy, but it was a great landmark to hit. In terms of the trip down the entire coast, I’d have to say that it’s the most iconic item and it felt good to head over the bridge and into the city of San Francisco. We went through San Francisco without really stopping until the southernmost limits to eat some great Mexican food. We had gone over 30 miles at this point without really eating since breakfast, so the meal was particularly good.

Afterwards, we rode out of the city and started another steep and long uphill towards Devil’s slide. We turned off into Daly City after a false summit and made our way into Pacifica from there to end our day at an inn; we’ll tackle Devil’s slide first thing tomorrow morning. Even after only 5 days of riding, it’s great to have a soft bed and a chance to do laundry.  We ordered a pizza to the room, pigged out and started planning the next few days of the trip.

On that point, the trip has become increasingly difficult over the years because a lot of the hiker biker sites have closed down south of San Francisco because of the homeless population (sorry if I already mentioned this in a previous post). On top of that, one of the main stops on our route near Santa Barbara is apparently closed down because of damages from the rainy season we had this year (Gaviota State Park). So with that being said, we’re going to do our best to find alternate campsites to stay at, but worst case scenario we’ll have to rent more rooms to keep going when we hit one of these areas.

Overall, I feel really good about today. The trip started out pretty rough as I definitely didn’t train enough and its been plenty wet and cold. But when I woke up this morning and got on my bike, I actually felt pretty good. Likewise, as I went up some incredibly steep hills today, I was plenty tired, but my body was able to keep pushing on. I’m cautiously optimistic about the upcoming days despite our lodging issues.

-Chris

We had planned to eat breakfast in Bodega today at one of their many cafes, but turns out that most of them are closed Tuesdays and Wednesdays. We definitely wanted to fuel up for our day, so we ended up going to The Tides Wharf and Restaurant inside of what looked to be a pretty upscale hotel. Plus side of this is that we got to eat at a table overlooking the bay and had a solid breakfast. This was good because we started off the day with 2 very steep hills over the first 17 miles or so on our way to Tomales.  Tomales is a tiny town but looks very nice.  We stopped to buy some snacks at the nicest general store I’ve ever been to and then went to fill up on water and take a quick break at a local park. The park was really well maintained and all of the facilities were immaculate; definitely want to go back there with the family.

After Tomales, our goal was to make it another 17 miles or so into Point Reyes for lunch. We made pretty decent time as the hills got significantly shorter (although still plenty steep) and eventually we hit a 5 mile patch of pretty flat road (or as close as you can get around these parts) and were able to make up some time. We made it into Point Reyes and had a fantastic burger at Station House Cafe and then got a text from Larry and Owen (fellow cyclists) saying that they planned on making spaghetti for dinner at camp and had bought enough for us. After a quick stop at the grocery store for some snacks and breakfast for tomorrow, we headed out to do the last 7 miles of the day to Samuel P Taylor State Park. After a couple of miles of good road, we turned off highway 1 onto Francis Drake Blvd and started the climb of a very steep and very long mountain (I was very thankful for our big calorie lunch). Before crossing a bridge into Lagunitas, there is a turnoff onto a paved bike path away from all of the traffic that was an awesome change of pace.  It was mostly flat and took us straight into the park and our campsite for the night.

At camp, Larry and Owen were already here as well as a couple from Switzerland that is finishing a year long cycling/hiking/traveling trip in San Francisco. They’ll bike into the city tomorrow, spend a week there, and then head back home. Before doing their little 4 day cycling trip around here, they shipped their bicycles to Ecuador and cycled all the way down to the tip of South America; very nice people as well.  Larry and Owen made us the spaghetti they promised with ground beef, mushrooms, and bell peppers they had brought up from the market in Point Reyes. It was a nice treat to have a normal hot meal at camp; the spaghetti was very good.

While we started eating we all were able to get to know each other a bit better. Larry was interested in Isaac’s engineering degree as he just got a product patented and wanted to talk about production. They asked me a bunch of questions about my job and background so I talked plenty (probably too much). The Swedish couple was interested too because they’ve been listening to cybersecurity related podcasts during some of their trip. Anyways, turns out that Owen is a scientist who works with a company doing research on the neurology and inner workings of the retina; sounded like a great field of study. He specializes in modifying the DNA of mice for the lab to test with.

Overall it was a good day and meeting people like these is definitely part of the fun. Also they tend to have done way better research than me about this trip and I’ve been getting great information about the upcoming areas we’ll be in. Aside from Big Sur being closed, some of the campsites south of there are closed due to damages from all the rain this year and other state parks in SoCal have taken out the hiker/biker sites because they were getting overrun with homeless people. So we got some ideas for alternate campsites and will look for motels where we aren’t able to find any.

-Chris

First off, Isaac is a handy guy to have around. Has been since he was little. Yesterday he noticed that even considering the wind, my bike seemed to not be coasting right. I felt it while I was riding, but I assumed it was a combination of the wind, my trailer, and being wildly out of shape for this kind of trip. So he checked out my bike and noticed that I had tightened my bike lock bracket in a place where it was pushing the rear brake line a bit far out; so my brake was lightly engaged all day. Aside from feeling like a dummy, it made today’s ride a lot more doable once this got corrected.

We decided to take it easy today and just get to the next campground here at Bodega Dunes State Beach.  We had some breakfast at camp and planned to stop for lunch at Cafe Aquatica in Jenner. It was a tiny, but cool little town and the salmon rolls that we got at the cafe were excellent. It was the last place to buy groceries even though it was about 10 miles out from our campground, so we went across the street to the gas station / grocery store / fake deli that was there. It was essentially a big liquor store and they said they only make sandwiches when the season gets busier.  So we each bought some beef jerky and a couple of prepackaged sandwiches to take for dinner.

The last 10 miles involved a couple of more semi-long uphills, but after that we were able to coast on gently rolling hills for about 6 miles all the way to Bodega Dunes. The sun came out a bit on that last part and it was really just a beautiful view of the coast. Also, we finally have good cell reception at the campsite today .

Another thing that happened today early on was that a fellow cyclist (Perry – retired firefighter from Vacaville) pulled up next to us and started chatting for a bit. He asked us what we were planning to do to get across Big Sur. I asked what he was talking about and he told us that three big landslides had taken out the roads there and they were still shutdown. Isaac had sent me information on those landslides several months ago, but we had both figured that the roads would be repaired / open by now. Turns out we were both wrong about that. I used our good cell reception here to look up the closures and sure enough we’re blocked from about Pfiffer-Big Sur State Park (about 30 miles south of Monterey) to a tiny town called Ragged Point about 20 miles north of San Simeon. We talked to some of the other campers and most of them were still scheming about how to overcome this obstacle. One guy said that he talked to another cyclist who had ridden through Big Sur in the middle of the night while there weren’t any construction crews or cops onsite; apparently they’ve plowed some dirt roads around the slides for construction crew use that he was able to use. Another guy that’s riding a minimum of 80 miles a day (can’t remember his name) decided that he is going to leave the coast at Salinas and go around Big Sur (about a 160 mile trip) for what would’ve been 100 miles down highway 1. His route goes through King City, through Paso Robles, continues on to Atascadero, and comes back in around Cambria or San Luis Obispo (one of those two). I have zero interest in doing either of those things. So, the plan for now is to rent a mid-size SUV after we camp in Monterey (hopefully) next Sunday from an airport that’s just a few miles away from the campsite. We’ll load up our bikes and gear, drive to San Simeon State Park to drop off the bikes and gear, I’ll drive the car back to San Luis Obispo airport to drop it off, and then Uber back to the San Simeon State Park to camp there.  If all goes well, it will turn into a weird and impromptu rest day for us and we’ll get started on the trip again. It’s a bummer to not be able to cycle that part, but the point of this trip for me is to ride the Pacific Coast, not through inland mountains and wine country. Who knows, maybe I’ll make a 2-3 day trip up here next year to finish this part after the roads open up again (currently scheduled to open December 2023).

All that aside, I’m glad we found out about the closures now instead of when we got there and I was happy to have a shorter day today and run into 4 other cyclists here at the hiker/biker site. Perry is here doing his retirement trip (wants to go all the way to the Mexican border eventually, but might stop in San Francisco to go rest at home for a bit), Larry and Owen we met 2 nights ago and seem like good people (not sure where their final destination is), and the other guy whose name I can’t remember is apparently a master brewer somewhere and is going to take a rest day in Oakland tomorrow (the guy is a fast rider) at his home before continuing on to his end destination in San Diego.

Last note. Perry found that one of the showers here is “broken” and works (hot water included) without having to pay tokens or quarters for it. So I was able to take a long hot shower in some nice facilities. So definitely a good day overall.

-Chris