Quick note from Comox, BC

Just arrived by ferry to Comox. Have 50 mile day ahead of us. Yesterday was long and hard. Have not had internet until this morning. Will hopefully post tonight. We cannot upload pictures from iPhone. Go to the "Track our tour" section at the top of the blog. We try to post a photo at each way point. You can also follow us on twitter. @robertlenton

Update from Vacouver

Happy 4th of July! Last year we celebrated in Eureka with Doug & Jan on our Eugene to San Francisco trip. This year there are no celebrations - we missed Canada Day on July 1, and aren't anticipating any fireworks displays over the water.

After two and a half days on trains we finally arrived in Vancouver, BC. We thoroughly enjoyed our time on the train. We met a couple from Tuson who "hash" - a drinking club with a running problem. Another couple, John and Margaret, were from Australia. They are traveling by train from San Francisco to New York via Seattle and Chicago. From New York they will cruise (for 39 days!) back to Australia John and Margaret stayed at the same hotel as us in Seattle so we met for drinks in the lobby bar where we talked politics, economics, and family.

After what seemed a very short night we were back at the train station to catch our 7:40 a.m. Train on Amtrak's Cascade route. Rob made sure our bike made it on the train.

Arriving in Vancouver, we had to detrain, gather our checked luggage and go through customs. There was no way we could manage the bike box, our two panniers, sleeping bags, and handlebar bag so we had to unpack the bike by the side of the train. We were quite the attraction. Going through customs I wasn't sure if the customs agent was questioning us about our trip ecause she was interested or as part of her job. She wanted to know how long we had been planning, if we were riding with anyone else, etc. Once through customs we finished getting ready in front of the station.

Vancouver is very bike friendly. The lanes are well marked and often separated from traffic by a divider. After checking into our hotel we walked across a bridge to Granville Island where there is an amazing public market. We ate our way from one end to the other, wishing we had a kitchen to go home and cook all the veggies, meats, pastas, and cheeses. There was even one vendor selling homemade stocks - beef, chicken, vegetable, brown, and mushroom.

Dinner was at an oyster bar in Yaletown district.

This morning we walked to the waterfront where all the cruise ships dock going to and from Alaska. We caught a trolley to Capilano Suspension Bridge. According to the guidebook it is the world's highest and longest suspension footbridge. It bounces and sways 230 feet above the river. On the other side are more footbridges strung in the rainforest treetops.

The rest of our day was spent exploring the Gastown District and going for a bikeride along the waterfront and through Stanley Park. It was a slow easy ride - only 18 miles. Not much seat time over the past week.

We start the real ride tomorrow morning, riding north toward Powell River. We have two ferries on the first day.

On the train

Still on the train.... There's something lulling about the train - if only the beds were more comfortable. Rob's back couldn't take it past 4:30 this morning so he got up for coffee in the club car. Showering on a moving train is an interesting experience. We arrived in Klamath Falls an hour early so we were able to go for a brisk walk before breakfast. While wandering we saw someone from the train who was a geo-cacher. He said his phone ran out of battery as soon as he got off the train. I downloaded the free app and the three of us were off to bag our first geocache. Rob found the small vial in the crook of a tree.

Back on the train for breakfast (mmm...runny scrambled eggs!). We have lunch reservations at 1:00 and dinner at 6:30. Not much to do but read, eat, and look at the beautiful scenery going by. Invariably someone will ask where everyone is going which leads to lots of conversations about our trip.

Packing & Decsions

The bike is loaded on the car. Ev is packing. We, again, are questioning many things to take in a constant battle of weight vs. necessity. Ev got a Nook today! Even better than my Kindle. We have decided not to take our netbook or my Blackberry. Pause while you catch your breath. We will attempt to do it all on Ev's iPhone. We plan to be at Union Station at 8:00AM. We will pack up the bike and leave on a 10:30 train. Pre-trip jitters but still really excited.

Typing is a lot slower...

Back From The Shake Down Ride

We just arrived back from our ride (and shopping). We left Fillmore around 4:30PM on Friday night. Wind in our face and lots of traffic.The three of us (Ev and I on tandem, Doug on single recumbent) made our way to the coast. We tried to simulate a day on the big tour, so we stopped at a grocery store and bought food before our destination of McGrath State Park in Ventura. Just before arriving we rode over a bridge spanning the harbor. Ev snapped a quick picture, but the ride is scary. Separate metal walkway and bike path to keep us away from cars but it's narrow and hard to keep a straight line.

Ten Dollars, per person, for a hiker/biker site! California is broke! We set up camp and made a dinner of pasta, salad and wine. Finished at dark, dishes, then bed. Oh, we did camp next to a large church group. They had a little revival going, and we heard part of the service.

Oatmeal for breakfast (what else?) and out of camp by 8:30AM. We took a different, and much better route back. We followed Foothill Blvd. over rolling terrain, not many cars and many bikes. Doug's wife, Jan, called and reported that their condo in San Diego was flooding. We were planning to rush back and meet Jan so they could head to San Diego. Turns out (after some worrying) that there was no flood. Tenant called and  had found no water.

Lunch in Filmore at a bar watching USA in the World Cup. Saw us tie the match, but later learned we lost. Off to REI. We can sure spend a lot on stuff! But we also saved so much by not buying a new GPS or shoes. We did buy new pillows. Last trip we stuffed our clothes in the sleeping bag stuff sacks for pillows. One issue was that we do not take that many clothes! Another is now we bought water proof sacks (expecting rain) and they are not the greatest feeling for pillows. Found some "cute" blow up ones that feel nice and are very small.

Then to Bent Up Cycles. Doug needed a tune-up and some new tires. Bought a flag for his new (to him) tandem trike. Jan, I know you have to work this trip, but we expect you to be there on the next one!

Ev set waypoints on trackmytour.com as a test for the big trip. I think it worked well. We have a different link for the big trip on the blog main page.

Back home. I am sure next week will be a blur. Kendal comes home Monday to see us and take us to the train on Thursday. Have to sign up enough work to keep everybody busy, service the bike, get ready for the train, pack again, and second guess everything we do. Can't wait!

Packing & Bike Changes

We are packing! Not for the big trip, but for a "shake down" ride with Doug this weekend. Last year we did an overnight trip to test out everything (see one of our first posts). Doug will join us midway through our trip. He now has a recumbent and trailer and needs to see how it all works for touring. Filmore to Ventura again. I sense a trip to REI is coming.

We leave July 1st from LA Union Station and take Amtrack to Vancouver.  We are both very excited, but the reality has just hit us that we leave in a week. Training? Some. Ready to leave my company for three weeks? No. Have everything? Maybe. If we can find last trip's list it would help. Healthy? We'll see how the back holds out. (We did not complete the century ride in our last post. My back went out one week before. Twelve-weeks-of-physical-therapy later it is much better. It is not 100% and I fear that it never will be again. Getting old sucks.)

We are expecting more inclement weather this trip so in preparation we have changed out our carbon forks to steel so we could install fenders. The front were relatively easy to install. The rear was a little harder working around the disk brake. Seriously considered changing out the rear braking system and going with a drum brake and V brake but never got around to it. Guess the down hills will again be an E-ticket ride!

Planning the next trip!

It's official, we are planning our next trip! We will take the train up to Vancouver, BC in early July 2010 and ride up, then down to Eugene, OR. Using "Bicycling The Pacific Coast" as our guide, this trip will include many ferry trips and a couple of 70+ mile riding days. We plan to stay about a day and a half in Vancouver and find a hot dog cart with a Japa Dog (with seaweed and wasabi mustard) to eat. We'll camp until we get to Victoria, BC, take a rest day and stay one night in a hotel. Then more camping until we get to Astoria,OR where we plan to stay two nights, rest and maybe go up the Columbia River. We will ride just over 900 miles in 18 days (not counting travel and rest days) averaging 50 miles a day. We have made many of the reservations, but still have a lot of planning and research to do.

I'll blog periodically on our planning. We are looking into a new iPhone App that will allow us to track our trip and instantly plot our progress for all to view. The first test today did not work. We have not decided if we are going to twitter. I twitter Lance, Levi and George and enjoy following them. Do you really want to know what we had for lunch? We also need to figure out how to blog from an iPhone or Blackberry, for we do not plan to take a laptop this time. Ev should be done with her Masters. Yea!

We are signed up to ride the Solvang Century in mid March. We have not ridden as much as we had planned, and 100 miles seems a little daunting, but we will see. It's already paid for so we have to try.