The Absent Mind

California

2009-08-20T08:24:00.000-07:00

We've made it back to California, and once again the weather sucks, and is quite wet. I'm on the verge of wanting to pack it in at this point, because the weather is so miserable to ride through, and I'm sick of having wet clothing and sleeping bags because the tent is insufficient at keeping water out. It doesn't hurt that I've had some numbness in two of my fingers, which doing some reading this morning is Cubital tunnel syndrome, almost spot on. Apparently it's a common issue for cyclists, and most bicycling forums encourage you to keep riding, but the more serious medical sites indicate it could wind up being permanent damage - though it does typically go away in three weeks to three months. The little things are building up, and really not encouraging for continuing to ride on. Weather reports for cities down the coast all seem to indicate about the same shitty weather the whole way, which is unfortunate.

Tillamook, OR

2009-08-16T10:09:00.000-07:00

We've made it partway down the Oregon coast now, after spending last night in Astoria with a friend of my mothers. Today is our next day off, so relaxing and seeing how thigs go. Currently sitting at a RV park/tent campground in sight of the Tillamook factory (I can see the sign from where I'm sitting.. it's basically across the street. Will have to upload videos at a later date, as this isn't currently powered. Sprinted down to Tillamook yesterday, and I'm damn sore today, so it's good to have a day of rest again. I think our next day of rest is going to be in about 5 days in the northern reaches of CA. We need to be averaging aroud 75 miles daily for 10 days to make it back in a reasonable amount of time, which is not going to be easy for that many days in a row.

Also worth noting..

2009-08-11T13:29:00.001-07:00

Everything is being cross-posted over here: http://www.soundcyst.com/biketrip2009/ and it has Kevin's side of the story as well!

Forks, WA

2009-08-11T13:17:00.000-07:00

So, we hit what was apparently "More rain than Washington has seen all summer" yesterday and were drenched to the bone. After about forty miles we saw the first sign of habitability (yeah, there really was -nothing- and stopped at the Hungry Bear Cafe & Motel. In hopes of the weather clearing up a bit, we decided to take a day of rest here. Admittedly, I'm quite impatient at the moment and a bit irritable all in all, though it was a good time to tune the bikes back up, do some laundry and get things back in order. The weather report is looking mildly better as we head south tomorrow, and then looking poor again. Hopefully we'll be better prepared to keep moving on.

It is fun to note that while tuning up I made some modifications and rode my bike without weight - it's really like riding a whole different bike. Movements are agile and the speed of it feels amazing.

Hopefully tomorrow we'll have a nice long ride and make it to a good spot with minimal weather. Looking forward to drought-ridden California!

Elwha, Washington

2009-08-09T22:22:00.000-07:00

We arrived safely in Vancouver sometime around 5pm on Friday night, dropped off by Eddie and Andrew. The drive up was rather long, and didn't allow for very much sleep. As a group it was decided to head on in to Stanley Park in Vancouver, at which point we spent a few minutes unloading and preparping, with a very small amount of park wanderings in between. Kevin and I took off from the park region and proceeded along the Lion's gate bridge and stayed near the water in an RV park just on the other side.

On Saturday we proceeded down towards Tawwassen, stopping to pick up a few supplies on the way, like another bag for Kevin, and a cyclocomputer for me. Both have been fairly handy for us thus far. From here I had my first flat tire of the trip, which turned out to be fairly quick to fix. Once we hit Tawwassen, we took the ferry across to Vancouver Island just north of Sidney and found a little-known campsite for the night.

It was extremely undeveloped as far as state or federal campsites go, and was exactly what we were looking for.

This morning we left our now wet (thanks rain) campsite and headed in to Victoria proper, about a 30k ride.

This part of the ride was really quite nice, there was a side of the road bike path from where we were about 1/3 of the way in, at which point we were on Hwy 17 precisely. (Amusingly enough we rode across all of Hwy 17.) Stopped at a Tim Horton's in Victoria, which doesn't happen to be as plentiful as on the east coast. Biked the rest of the way downtown to Victoria, and got to see the Parliament building from the outside, and then caught another ferry from Victora into Port Angeles.

(This one isn't that interesting)

Tonight we're in Elwha, Washington, just outside the port and it is the first time we have had internet and power for an extended period of time. ~~With any luck the batch upload of videos will work, and the above place holders will be removed.~~ done.

Hopefully at the start of Oregon, we will take a day break and another set of blog posts :).

Pre-Trip

2009-08-08T07:33:00.000-07:00

Pre-Pre-Trip

2009-08-02T22:00:00.000-07:00