Category: U.S. West Coast 2012

Despite all the horror stories, Delta Airlines chose not to destroy my bicycle, and only charged $150 for the carriage of the big cardboard box I’d picked up from a bike shop in Pasadena. The sales assistant had been rude and grumpy — perhaps he’d had a bad night’s sleep. Or perhaps life as a bicycle salesman was beginning to wear thin; maybe (like almost everyone I’d met in the 8 days I’d been in L.A.) he’d arrived in the city nurturing dreams of fame and fortune in Hollywood, still introducing himself on social occasions in a well-practiced way as an… Continue reading →

With curiosity we steered off the asphalt at the top of a long climb on the road south of Honeydew. The track plunged down through dense forest, rocks and loose gravel shaking our bikes and bones, disc brakes squealing round sketchy hairpins, as the King Range Road wound its way down to the gushing creek in the depths of the valley, where an old concrete bridge had once been plonked. Continue reading →

After an impromptu and most welcome day off at Kathy and Dick’s house near Arcata (thanks Warmshowers!), we stocked up with 4 days’ worth of food supplies in Eureka and set off down the monotonous highway. The lands here were flat, but the skyline to the south suggested that a dramatic change was just ahead: the steep and tangled ridgelines of the Lost Coast. Continue reading →

If the northern half of the U.S. Pacific Coast had been one of timber trucks, small towns and persistent rains, the southern half would tell a very different tale. Continue reading →

I wasn’t sure how to bring up the subject. It seemed a thorny one, fraught with emotion. So I took the only approach I really knew, which was to speak my mind and deal with the consequences later. Continue reading →

I finished up the last of the pancakes, washed my plate, strapped my helmet over my Buff and set off along Highway 101 under a clear blue sky. It was shortly after sunrise and the air was clear and chill. A pickup truck zipped past on some early-morning errand, but all else was quiet, still and serene. I’ve always loved this time, just after dawn, riding through a world more or less entirely my own as the rest of civilization still drifts between slumber and the insistent tug of the daily routine. Continue reading →

Ben and I left Portland at lunchtime on the 9th day. The departure was a tough one. We rode south-west into a fresh onshore breeze, clouds collecting in the distance, stopping briefly to look at the Spruce Goose and fill up with water. The wind grew stronger, and after a couple more hours’ battling we pulled into a roadside cafe in order to take a break and fish for a sleeping spot. “You must be the cyclists!” Stuart accosted us halfway through a bowl of quite excellent clam chowder. He was in his sixties, white haired and bespectacled. He was… Continue reading →

I did no prior research about this trip prior to my arrival in Vancouver just over a month ago. Although it goes directly against the principles of the Information Age, I much prefer letting the process of travel bring some small element of knowledge and understanding to a more or less blank slate, rather than just Googling everything in advance. But this is America, for gawd’s sake. How could I fail to have a generous handful of precopceptions? I grew up in Britain, a nation that founded the New World and continues to feed on its culture and ideology today.… Continue reading →

Erin and Nick instantly reminded me of my younger self and Andy; two good friends, fresh-faced and idealistic, intoxicated with the new-found freedom of life on the road in a wealthy and developed corner of the world. The summer of 2007 and that timeless four-month adventure across Europe remains one of the most enjoyable, chaotic and memorable times of my life. Continue reading →