Author: greg

So far, it’s been a great ride. The weather was perfect – warm and sunny and a nice tailwind. The coastline, as you might imagine, is gorgeous and much mellower than the northern ca coast in terms of terrain. The 50 mile a day pace leaves plenty of time for lounging about and eating lots of food. It seems biking is just what we do between snack stops. Many thanks to Manjula’s parents for not only letting us crash at their place but also making us an awesome dinner. And to top it off, we got a surprise visit from molly and andrea – too bad they broke the roller coaster so we couldn’t ride it. Also jeff followed this girl into a creepy cave with kiefer sutherland and now he keeps going on about living forever. That’s the one thing I never liked about santa carla – all the damn vampires.

well, we’re back on the route. We caught a train out of LA last night to San Bernardino just in time to catch a foul pop-up as we rode past the sixty-sixers game. Unfortunately, someone decided to build a wall between san bernardino and big bear, and the elevator up to 6000 feet was busted. That combined with the heat, sun, and a major rookie mistake of not bringing enough H2O put the bums in a bad spot. Luckily, the magical oasis of the Oaks restaurant appeared just before we had to drink beaver pee. if you don’t here from us for a week or so, you can assume it’s because we’ve permanently moved into booth #4.

Wow, okay, it’s been a bit. The last week has definitely been the toughest week of bike touring I’ve ever done. We’ve been climbing between 5000 and 6000 feet nearly every day. Add to that the heat and general unfriendliness of SoCal and it makes for rough riding. Despite it all, we our ride through the angeles crest. Rim of the world highway is spectacular, but don’t do it on a weekend. We also survived our jaunt across the mojave desert. However, Nick was enamored by the seedy nightlife of Lancaster and stayed behind to open his own bike saddle accessory emporium, so now it’s just Megan and I. It’s too bad nick took off, because after we crossed the tehachapi range, everything changed. The joshua trees were replaced by wild oak, and the scorching desert flatlands gave way to the golden foothills of the sierras. Additionally, it seemed that folks got friendlier as soon as we left LA county. I just finished a refreshing, much-needed swim in Lake Isabella, and tomorrow we ride up the Kern river canyon. There’s so much more to tell, but I must go to sleep…g’night everyone!

we woke up this morning in 50 degree weather with patches of snow ’round our tent and ended our ride in the foothills where it is 104 degrees. Luckily, while we were re-upping our gatorade fix in a gas station, we were invited to stay in someone’s 5th wheel behind their house. So here we are in Mitch and Debbie’s RV trailer complete with A/C, queen bed and a living room bigger than Megan’s old NYC apartment. We were really lucky to run into them – they’ve been awesome hosts. Other highlights since our last post include

we made it to yosemite okay. Our meetup with sarah, skye, molly, and andrea was slightly delayed as they decided to make a sweep of the foothills in search of El Dorado. Yosemite was the zoo I had feared…absolutely packed – I was in line for a campsite at Camp 4 at 4:50 am and was still #39. Yesterday I did something bordering insanity. Although the tioga pass road is open, all of the campgrounds and services up there are still under snow, so you pretty much have to to the ride from the valley to lee vining in one shot: 75 miles and over 6000 feet of climbing. Luckily there is also a shuttle, which Megan took (because she is smarter than me). Lucklily, she also took the bulk of my gear, or else I wouldn’t have made it. I left around 6:30 am and rolled into Lee Vining at around 6:15pm, 8 hours of which was riding and the rest was napping or gasping for breath at the side of the road. But I made it, and it was awesome. The rocket ride down Lee Vining canyon was particularly spectactular. Now we’re eating breakfast burritos overlooking Mono lake. Next stop: travertine hot springs!

The last few days through oregon have been great! After my cold plunge in Crater Lake and The Biggest Pancake in the World, we headed up the cascade lakes scenic highway, which was gorgeous. We camped at the headwaters of the deschutes river whilst armies of mosquitos tested our defenses. Megan had an amazing day of street-scoring; not only did she find a really nice cycling jacket on the side of the road, but also a working iphone! We did the right thing and gave it back to its very grateful forest ranger owner in Bend, and he sponsored our night of debauchery at the Deschutes brewery! I highly recommend the black butte porter xxiii limited. We ran into 7 other bike tourists yesterday, but noone doing our route. Now we’re camping on a beautiful lake – with no mosquitos!

we me up with Kristin yesterday. Somehow we got ahead of schedule, but had no trouble killing a day in Hood River. Microbrews + Harry Potter took care of most of that. Also I replaced my shifter, which was about to fall apart – I guess that’s to be expected after 17000 miles. Luckily the discovery bike shop gave me a killer deal on a slightly used one. We’re about to cross over into washington, so it’s back to pumping our own gas. It’s been a little cool anf gloomy, with bits of rain off and on, but I much prefer this to 106 degrees.