I admit, I have been known to make the odd ‘blooper’ with a misspelt word or incorrect punctuation. Thankfully I have a guardian spelling angel who has been known to kindly point out the error of my ways on my Facebook page – in full view to the social media world. My angel has now visited this blog, so watch out for corrections – I’m sure there will be a few!
Mike says: I’m on to it!
They are smiling in the Isle of Man tonight, yes, Cav has done it again. A fine stage win in the Tour today plus he’s extended his lead in the green jersey competition. Fingers crossed he’ll hold onto it until Paris – pity we won’t be there to see the finish this year, but there are only so many holidays that it’s possible to have in a year. Anyway, to ‘mark’ the occasion, (no pun intended), here’s a picture of the man himself at last year’s Smithfield Nocturn in London.
If you’re a touring cyclist who hasn’t experienced Warmshowers (the touring cyclists equivalent to Couch Surfing for backpackers), then you should. We first tried it at Easter this year when we rode to Hamburg and back. We stayed with Klaus and Katherine in Munster who fed us with a fab breakfast and sent us on our way with a packed lunch. In Oldenburg Dietmar (a retired Lutharian pastor) had a four course vegetarian meal waiting for us on our arrival and in Zwolle Faulkirt and Lineka also fed us wonderful meals. Whilst the food was delicious, the best thing about all our Warmshowers hosts was their friendliness and insight they gave us into the places we were visiting. They all showed great interest in our trip.
We’ll be staying with ten Warmshower (WS) hosts during our ride down the west coast of the USA and from the communication we’ve had so far we’re really looking forward to meeting them all. Today we go a message from our WS hosts in San Diego who’ve kindly agreed to receive and store our bike bags during our trip. Posting them from Vancouver to San Diego is a lot more inviting than having to carry them 1800+ miles (they are quite big). It seems apt that as we’ll be taking advantage of lots of WS hospitality we should repay the favour, so we’re pleased to have been contacted by a young Belgium family who’ll be cycling the south coast of England later this month. I hope we’ll be able to repay some of the hospitality we’ve received through Warmshowers.
It’s Pride Bristol today, so we’ll be marching with Pride at 12 noon. Afterwards I’m helping to staff the Cycle Out stall in Castle Park – so I hope that the drizzle stops and it dries up later (it’s forecast to improve). I’ve baked some rock buns and some home made Jammy dodgers to sell for the Cycle Out club funds. With a bit of luck we’ll drum up some more punters for tomorrow’s very short family pride ride from Queen Square to Castle Park. When I say short, I mean short. It will probably take us about 10 minutes, quite a difference from the trip we’re planning!
The Garmin City Navigator for North America arrived today, which means we can start to plot the detailed route. Well, actually it means that Mike can start to plot the detailed routes. I’ve done the task of finding our start and finish points for each day, including accommodation. Where ever possible we’re staying with WarmShowers hosts (if you’re a touring cyclist and don’t know about WarmShowers – you should, check it out). Anyway here is the basic route:
Thur 25 Aug – Flight Dep Lon 12.55 / Arr Vancouver 14.25
Fri 26 Aug – Vancouver – Mount Vernon
Sat 27 Aug – Mount Vernon – Seattle
Sun 28 Aug – Seattle – Centralia
Mon 29 Aug – Centralia – Portland
Tue 30 Aug – Portland
Wed 31 Aug – Portland – Neskowin
Thur 1 Sep – Neskowin – Florence
Fri 2 Sep – Florence – Port Orford
Sat 3 Sep – Port Orford – Orick
Sun 4 Sep – Orick – Myers Flats
Mon 5 Sep – Myers Flats – Fort Bragg
Tue 6 Sep – Fort Bragg – Sea Ranch
Wed 7 Sep – Bodega Bay – San Francisco
Thur 8 Sep – San Francisco
Fri 9 Sep – San Francisco
Sat 10 Sep – San Francisco – Seaside
Sun 11 Sep – Seaside – San Simeon
Mon 12 Sep – San Simeon – Buellton or Solvang
Tue 13 Sep – Buellton or Solvang – Ventura
Wed 14 Sep – Ventura – Los Angeles
Thur 15 Sep – Los Angeles – Seal Beach
Fri 16 Sep – Seal Beach – Solana Beach
Sat 17 Sep – Solana Beach – San Diego
Sun 18 Sep – San Diego
Mon 19 Sep – San Diego
Flight Dep San Diego 20.05
Tue 20 Sep – London
Flight Arr Lon 14.25
Very impressed with the speed with which our new bike carry bags have arrived. They are rather large, but we’ll need to do a few test runs packing them before the off. Unfortunately we forgot to order the road bike insert we’ll need for our bikes to pack nicely, so we’ll need to wait to practice before they arrive.
We were in Paris at the end of the Tour de France last year, we grabbed Cavs attention with our Isle of Man flag (ok, it was a tea towel). He came over and signed it for us. Needless to say it hasn’t dried any dishes!
Posted by Mike
…or rather they will be. The bikes that is. After much research and discussion (should we take our bikes with us, buy them there, use hard cases to transport them etc) the decision has been made. Mike has today ordered two Evoc bike bags, one blue and one black. We can’t get the bags in Bristol as they’re out of stock until the 13 August (and that’s a bit too close to our departure date for comfort), so Mike has sourced and ordered them from a shop in Croydon.
We’ve watched this You Tube video showing how to pack your bike – it looks pretty easy, let’s hope it is! Our plan when we get to Vancouver is to pack the bags and post them down to San Diego the warm shower hosts we’re staying with. With luck they’ll be all ready and waiting for us to repack the bikes in before we fly home.
When I said ‘warming up’ I was thinking of warming up the legs – not the temperature. As it turned out the legs barely got warmed up (barely doing 12 mph today, on our trip to Hamburg it averaged 18-20 mph), but the temperature definitely rose. I learned from the Easter trip not to wear cycling gloves that would leave a spotty sun tan pattern on my hands. Today I wore solid gloves and now have a white stripe around my wrists and completely white hands. I think some strong lotion is needed before we head west.
I’m the leader for today’s CycleOut ride today – part of the Bristol Pride celebrations. It’s a gentle 40 or so mile ride ending up at a joint BBQ with the Bristol Bison gay rugby club. It’s going to be very sedate as most of the riders are not used to the long distance riding that me and Mike do. In fact it is too sedate for Mike who has opted instead to go for a ‘fast and furious’ ride with our friend Andy. I’m sure that they’ll ride further and be home well before me! 40 miles will be about a third of an average day on our USA trip – barely warmed up by then.
Of all the things that I could be preoccupied about on our trip it’s weight that is featuring pretty highly right now. We’ll be travelling light – by which I mean mega-light, only one small pannier each. This means packing very small and with the minimum of weight.
Last week with the help of the kitchen scales I weighed various items of clothing, passports, shoes, sunglasses etc and so far my luggage is weighing in at just under 3kg. Pretty good, but can I do better? Well I could loose a few grams off the waist (and I’m working on that), as for the luggage the weight reduction challenge continues.
Posted by Matthew
In just under 7 weeks we’ll have arrived in Vancouver, unpacked our bikes, put them together again (they need to be dismantled and packed into bike bags before they can go on the plane) and set off on the first stage of our trip.
The first stage takes us towards Seattle – a perfect destination for coffee and some therapy!
Matthew and Mike Travel from Bristol 