Cycling West Coast USA

Cycling West Coast USA Arriving in LAX and having only 4 weeks to cycle 1838 miles (approx 3000kms) from Canada to Mexico, plus more for some planned side trips (to take the total distance to over 2000miles), I was not at all hopeful of completing the entire trip. I decided to split my trip into stages – firstly cycle the southern part to the Mexican border and then spend the best part of 2 days on trains and buses heading up to Vancouver, Canada and then After assembling my bike among some strange looks from other passengers at LAX I cycled out from the airport through a maze of busy LA roads to the California coast. Despite LA being something of a cyclist’s nightmare, the coast is well provided with cycle lanes covering large sections of the coast heading south. I was keen to get out of the stinky LA air and managed to cover about 100km to the outskirts of LA where I spent the night sleeping on a disserted beach. I allowed myself 4 days to reach the Mexican border, but travel over this part of the country was quite quick and I covered the distance in just over 2 days.

The trip south was not uneventful however – a heightened terrorist alert meant that I could not cycle through the large marine base north of San Diego. Instead the wide shoulder of a 20 km section of the I5 multilane freeway was used – travel was quick as I didn’t feel comfortable cycling next to so much traffic. At the Mexican border I arrived at dusk at a state park camping ground expecting to put my tent up. However, I found out that the US definition of ‘self contained camping’ means camping for a RV (the large US equivalent of a campervans) and the only ‘campsites’ were a section of tarmac. My options at this time of the day were limited – I didn’t feel like trying to cycle back into San Diego in the dark and there wasn’t anything else around. So another night on the beach was in store. I was wondering why there was no homeless people or other bums sleeping out on this part of the coast – there were hundreds of them living on the beaches and streets of San Diego and other parts of the coast. I found the reason why at about 2am when a large light appeared over me – I thought I was in deep trouble as a helicopter with a large spotlight decided to check me out in the middle of the night. I think it was just as well those in the helicopter couldn’t have heard my comments at this time of night ##@#@##@!! but anyway after a bit of hover they must have decided that I wasn’t Latin American enough for them and were on their way again.

Taking the train north to Vancouver was a great way to see the rural Western USA countryside. I did wonder however why there were so many rather large people on the train when one day I noticed one of them struggling to get into their seat in the dinning car (obviously seats on the plane were too small for some of these people).

Tramping & Mountaineering 2003 Wayne Stevens cycle as far south as I could towards LA.

Vancouver looked a nice city and the surrounding area reminded me of Fiordland – i.e. snow capped mountains and above all, rain, rain and more rain (in fact the entire time in Canada it was raining or drizzling). I decided not to hang around in the Fiordland of the north and instead did a side trip over to Vancouver Island. The weather was marginally better on the island and after a look around it was back to the US mainland. I was wondering if the rain in Canada was a sign of things to come – but as soon as I crossed the US border, again the rain stopped.

In comparison with the hussle and bussle of Southern California, Washington State seemed real quiet. I crossed a series of islands in the north of the State that were connected by spectacular bridges or ferry. The further away from Canada I got, the better the weather was – I had only one afternoon of rain just south of Canada. I was beginning to get more doubtful whether this trip was possible in the time that I had, especially if the weather crapped out again. So I started to increase the kms cycled each day – from 80/90kms a day up towards 200km one day. I was keen to make the most of the good weather and the impressive views. As I headed inland through the central part of Washington State I got great views of Mt Saint Helens (the volcano that erupted in 1980 killing 59 persons). However, one problem with the Western side of the US in summer was that the further you get from the coast, the hotter it can get. I was doing a good distance every day, when one day the temp hit the high 80’sF (about mid 30’s in Celsius speak). One short day was required to handle the heat and I started to change my cycling plans – early starts were in order and some late finishes meant that I could take my time during the hot part of the day.

Cycling through rural parts of Washington State gave me a somewhat distorted view of what Americans think of the world. I met some colourful characters that had some strong views about the war in Iraq and in one shop they even had a sign where people had written up ‘a thousand ways you could kill a Muslim’. Obviously some people in this state hadn’t travelled much or had much contact with non-Americans, but as least they were very, very friendly to me. Having visited the US a number of times before and after September 11, it is obvious in some parts of the US that there are some very strong views developing among some segments of the US public. It was good to see however, that most people in the bigger cities seem more questioning of the merits or otherwise of US intervention in the world. Many Americans I meet were very interested in hearing what NZ was doing in the war against terrorism or what I, or people in NZ thought about US intervention in Iraq and Afghanistan. It was certainly an interesting time to visit the US.

Oregon State contains some of the most spectacular coastal scenery in the US. Just north of Manzanita there was a section of 30 kms of coast that must be among the most beautiful in the world. Being by myself had its advantages, as I was able to stop and wait for the sunset from one spectacular spot. It was fantastic. There were also other parts of the Oregon Coast that must be some of the most spectacular coastal scenery in the world – a couple of spots reminded me of Knights Point on the West Coast of the South Island – awesome.

There is quite a bit of wildlife on the West Coast, including elephant seals, dolphins and whales. Over the course of the trip I saw all of these – the most memorable was seeing a California Grey Whale. There are also great areas of forest including, what must be some of the most impressive forests in the world – the Redwood Forests at Del Norte Coast Redwoods State Park and Redwoods National Park. I had to be careful when camping in the forested areas. Most of the time I stayed at State or National Park camping grounds which had bear lockers to put food and other items such as soap, shampoo, toothpaste in. However, there were a couple of times I ended up camping out in the forests and this meant putting all this gear that bears like into a bag and hanging it from a tree. While I saw quite a few deer ”Geez, you should see the bridges they build for cyclists & trampers over here” Wayne Stevens Tramping & Mountaineering 2003 and elk in these forests, I was very relived not to see any bears. Next time I will take some bear spray. The forests themselves were great to cycle through – not only did they offer some much needed shade from the sun, but it was awesome having trees that were up to 100m, high towering over you. The Avenue of the Giants, which I renamed “avenue of the strained neck”, contained mile after mile of some of the tallest trees in the world – it was really awesome. I had one particularly memorable day, cycling slowly downhill, in the Redwoods National Park just on dusk one day – just magical.

The only puncture I had the whole trip was in the middle of the redwood forests – the scenery when I stopped almost made having a puncture a nice experience. A few days north of San Francisco I did develop a crack in my back wheel, which slowly got worse and worse. I suppose, with my bike having done somewhere between 25 to 30,000 kms over the last 4 years, it was to be expected that something would fail. The crack got worse and worse and the back wheel soon started to loose shape. I was worried that I might have to take a bus or hitch a ride in a car to San Francisco, but I managed to nurse the bike into a bike shop on the outskirts of San Francisco (I was determined to cycle every last metre of my route). This bike shop was awesome – they dropped everything and replaced my bike wheel within 20 mins or so and I was on my way – awesome.

Cycling into San Francisco was one of the great experiences of the trip. Heading through the northern suburbs of San Francisco was quite nice as my Lonely Planet guidebook directed me through the back roads. Seeing the Golden Gate bridge for the first time as I came around a corner and seening it only 500m away, was probably one of the most memorable images that I have of the trip. I was worried that the usual fog would cover the bridge and the city, but as I came up to the bridge, it was almost as if on command all the fog lifted. It was simply awesome. San Francisco is a beautiful city and must rank one of the top big cities in the world. It was fantastic to cycle across the Golden Gate Bridge and around the waterfront.

Heading south of San Francisco, more beautiful coast is encountered. I cycled through Santa Cruz and watched some awesome surfers. Its not hard to understand why Santa Cruz is one of the surfing meccas of the world and some of the surfers must rank among the best in world. The city of Monterey was one of the nicer cities I cycled through. I didn’t bother buying the local newspaper. However, they must have been desperate for news as I was accosted one day for an interview.

Cycling the famous Big Sur coastline, which lies midway between San Francisco and LA, meant that I had to climb some sizeable hills. Some cyclists I met in advance of cycling commented that it was one of the hardest places to cycle, and seemed a bit freaked out by it all – but all the cycling I had done had improved my fitness substantially by this stage and I found the hills enjoyable.

A few days north of LA, and for the first time I didn’t enjoy my trip as a cyclist was killed cycling into the camp ground that I stayed in. He tried to cross 4 lanes of highway where the traffic was doing over 65 Tramping & Mountaineering 2003 miles per hour on a bend. Luckily I didn’t see the accident or see the body, but the California Highway Patrol didn’t do a great job of cleaning up the sight and rather sickening red pool of blood and bits of cycle parts were left lying at the side of the road in morning. It was quite a sobering experience. I found American drivers a lot better than NZ’ers. Maybe it is the number of lawyers in the States, and a general litigious society that means that drivers are much more cautious than in NZ. However, I was starting to feel glad that my trip was near an end.

North of LA the coast road becomes something of a cyclist nightmare thru Malibu. Coastal erosion and some very high coastal real estate prices seemed to mean that houses were built everywhere and many were sandwiched in between the busy road and the coast. Most parts of the coastal highways had really good shoulders on the road which meant that cycling was really safe, but in parts of Malibu the shoulder of the road, if there was one, seemed to be the front door step of somebody’s house. It wasn’t a pleasurable experience doing this part of the road.

Once into LA it was back on the cycle tracks that exist on the LA beaches. It was great crossing under the Santa Monica pier and cycling down through Venice Beach. At the end of the trip I had a mix of emotions. I was looking forward to going to Washington DC for a work trip; I felt sorry for the dead cyclist; but I really wished that I could just keep on going – cycle touring is great. I could have kept going quite easily to the bottom of South America. Cycle touring is like some imaginary nice drug – its very addictive and you feel like you are on the top of the world. I’m an addict – I can’t wait until the next trip!