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.

Bike is Fixed!

For all of you who have been reading about our bike issues, I'm happy to say our bike is fixed! Thanks to the guys at Block Bikes. They installed a Chris King bottom bracket and new chains. They also adjusted everything. We tested the bike on a great night ride. Block sponsor's a 25 mile ride through the streets of the AV. It's not quite a "Critical Mass", but was a lot of fun (there were over 50 bikes). We met a lot of people, including some who have tandems. We were the only tandem that night, but maybe more will show up! Check out the ride by clicking the link below:

http://www.teamblock.com/PicsJuly22Lancaster.html

We still need to test the bike on some hills using the granny gear. The "hills" we ride on our training route do not seem like hills anymore. Guess we will have to find a different route!

We organized all of our photos from our trip. Take a look.

Ev and I have started to discuss the next trip. We might ride from S.F. to Santa Barbara this fall if we can take the time. Vancouver, BC to Florence, OR may have to wait until 2011.

July 11th, 2009 - Last Day

To the Golden Gate Bridge.

We left our B&B and headed for San Fransisco. The ride is only about 40 miles long. We do not ride on Hwy 1 again. Both the book and maps say the rode is too dangerous. We ride through Samuel P. Taylor Park on a great bike path. Right after Woodacre we start to ride on designated bike routes through the many small towns of Marin County. It's Saturday and there are bikes everywhere. Many people have ridden in from the city. Many Lance wanabees but also many others. Most of them pass us and take notice of our tandem and full load. We are still inland and the temperature is warm. We ride with only our short sleeve jerseys. On the climb right before we descend into the bay, we see a tandem. Our first of the entire trip. They are locals and ride the area often. We dodge the "pink walkers" (see post below) and make our way into Sausalito. Kendal is there to meet us. It is great to see her. Lunch overlooking the bay, we drop our bags off in the car and head to the bridge. On final climb and we are on the bridge. What a ride. We stop a couple times for pictures. Kendal drove ahead to meet us on the other side. We did it! We are done. Many mixed emotions.

Evelyn's Perspective

Until now, all the posts have been written by Rob. I would like to take this opportunity to tell you about our ride, from my perspective.

The train ride to Eugene was one of my favorite parts of the trip! Traveling by train is such a change to the "hurry-up-and-get-there" mentality of car and plane travel. Sitting in the lounge car watching the country go by, we saw three bald eagles soaring and diving over a huge lake in Oregon. We talked to people and heard their stories. One group was traveling to visit cousins, and had taken the train frequently. They knew all the landmarks, and could tell us exactly where we were from their GPS (which they never traveled without). There were couples with small children, reminding me of the trips our family used to take to Iowa to visit our relatives. There was an older man and his grown son, several groups of women, and many older gentlemen traveling alone. Everyone had their own stories.

The most common comment I get when people see our bike is something about how I don't have to pedal. I also get asked about how I handle the lack of control, with Rob doing all the steering, shifting, and braking. We both pedal, and both coast at the same time. Yes, I can feel when he is working harder than I am, but he can also feel when I am working harder than him - which does happen from time to time. Without a tandem, I would be left at the bottom of the hills, or always feeling like I am holding Rob back. We are in this together - connected at the pedals and seats, you could say. There isn't anyone I would rather give up control to than my husband. I trust him implicitly. I get to sit back, watch the scenery, take pictures, give him an occasional pinch (just to let him know I'm still there), and rub his shoulders when they get tense from all the traffic or braking.

For me, this was the most physically challenging thing I have ever done in my life! I have never been one who enjoys exercising just for the fun of it. I much prefer to be out doing things - hiking, biking, kayaking, etc. There were days when I just wanted to quit. Rob pulled me through those times.

One of my favorite days on the road was also one of the most challenging. It was the first day Doug rode with us. Climbing the Crescent City Hills was difficult, but the sense of accomplishment when we made it to the top was fabulous! I don't remember all the parts of the day, but I do remember the river valley we rode through with the bridge guarded by the two golden bears. The best part was the last five miles, downhill through the redwoods. There was no traffic - only one or two cars passed us; we rode side by side with Doug through this magical canopy of redwoods. That isn't to say our seats weren't hurting, and we weren't exhausted! But the quiet of the forest, and the trees so tall you couldn't see the tops without craning your neck was the perfect ending to a long, hard ride.

At the end, I did want to quit. Our ride on Thursday was so difficult. I want to know when a "hill" becomes a "mountain"! The narratives in the book never said anything about mountains! The climb on that day was so long and strenuous. The ride down the other side was when the brakes burned up. Our legs were shot. The next day was short, but we ended up pushing the bike up hills we would have easily ridden two days earlier. Rob said I asked the B & B if there were any hills to get there - I had a plan all worked out of how we could lock the bike up and call a taxi if she had said anything other than the road was flat. And I was ready to have Kendal come get us the next morning. I'm glad I didn't! The ride into Sausalito was relatively easy, and beautiful. We rode through a state park that I would love to go back to. The thousands of people in pink walking for breast cancer awareness in Sausalito and across the bridge were an inspiration. As we rode by them, I could read signs on their backs saying they were walking in memory of their mother, or wife, or sister. Others had lists of names of people - some three or four columns long. I was in my pink riding shirt, so we got cheered on with the walkers!

Seeing Kendal waiting for us was a wonderful sight! When she told us the hill we had to climb to get to the bridge was steep, I again, was ready to call it quits. My cheerleader, Rob, said we could do it, and we did! Riding across the bridge was so exhilarating! The sun was shining, the pink walkers were on one side, the bikers on the other. I clicked pictures all along the bridge as we rode. And, Kendal was waiting for us on the other side, ready to cheer us on, and take us home.

So, what I learned from this trip...

• with enough stops, I can climb any mountain
• it may not be a pretty sight, but together, we can do anything

I get asked if I would do it again, or when are we planning our next trip. The answers to those will have to wait a while. I have missed being on the road since we got home, but I'm not ready to go out and do it again right now. Maybe we'll start off slow and just do some day rides or weekend bike camping.

Thanks for all your support and interest in our ride!

Evelyn