Geez – are these guys still up to the same old shenanigans? How many times must we witness these fools scoot about the countryside on their laughable “vehicles”, engaging in what surely must be either some ego-maniacal quest for attention or a luddite manifesto.
This year finds the Bums completing an unfinished tour of the Left Coast, from the patchouli-steeped shores of San Francisco to the Prada-pursed beaches of Los Angeles and beyond, straight through the geo-political fiction separating the Baja from the Alta.
After breaking bread with our neighbors to the south, we’ll pull an 180, and follow the spine of two mountain ranges – the Sierra Nevada and the Cascades – along an unparalleled swath of natural grandeur. The list of highlights is long and enticing: The San Gabriel mountains, the Mojave desert, Sequoia National Park, Yosemite Valley and Tuolomne meadows, US 395 along the eastern face of the Sierras, Mono Lake and Lake Tahoe, over the peak of Mount Lassen, across the base of Mount Shasta, the deepest of blues at Crater Lake, the Columbia river gorge, threading the needle between Mounts St. Helen’s and Adams, North Cascades National Park, Vancouver and the British Columbia Sunshine Coast, Vancouver Island, the Olympic Peninsula, and, finally, a hop across the Puget Sounds to catch the train in Seattle. That’s enough scenery to fill a truckload of View-Masters!
The 2011 roster is centered around Bum regulars Nick, Megan, and Greg. Nick and Greg will be escorted out of the Bay Area by veterans of BikeBums 2010 Sarah and Jeff, along with newcomers Manjula and Brooke. Megan will join up with the weirdness in L.A. Beyond that, it’s anyones guess who comes along – several folks have expressed interest, but time will tell who is able to slip the surly bonds of the everyday and join the adventure of the BikeBums!