Finish Line!!!

We rolled our tired bodies and bikes into Imperial Beach, CA around 5:00 pm yesterday, July 13! My steel framed Jamis had broken a couple days back and was held together by tape from the luggage rack to the rear axle quick release. Limping across the finish line I clanked and rattled the last 150 miles of the ride. While Dusty's bike survived with only one flat the entire West Coast tour, he popped a spoke on the rear wheel while we tried to find a celebratory dinner on our way back into town!

The trips length ended up being 21 days from start to finish with a total of 1,610 touring miles. The bikes require much attention when we return home and our bodies are already making repairs as we rest in our friends Chris and Jess's comfortable home. From Seattle, OR to the US/Mexican International Boundary we enjoyed amazing views, challenging bike terrain, trying weather and winds, diverse towns/cities and made friends along the way. It is bitter-sweet to not to climb onto our bikes today, not configure a route plan based on elevation maps and assessed muscle fatigue. After all the adversity we embraced and exceptional experiences of West Coast life and geography, we are more than ready to rejoin our families and way of life back home. I have missed my wife and our lives together every mile and can't wait to return to her company. Dusty spends countless hours every evening on the phone with his friends and family and surely cannot wait to have the same caring conversations in person.

LA Beach Video

Older Videos:

Tired of the Fog & Cold

July 8th Delays

More July 8th Delays

We thank all of you who chose to check us out, follow along and support us with text messages, phone calls and comments on the blog! All-in-all we never had a bad day, we laughed a lot and we understand just a little bit more about what makes this world go around.

Ride Fast, Take Chances.

Day 19

ODO: 1,377

Day 18
Lompoc - Ventura: 84.0

Dinner in Ventura

Rode with 6 yesterday...it was pretty sweet having a touring gang of that size. Took up the whole shoulder, stopped traffic on bridges and turned heads as we buzzed through towns. The San Fransico group we are riding with all own tons of bikes, some are track racers, past road racers and each have CUSTOM made frames! It is really cool to travel with these San Franny's, their bike knowledge and city perspective is much different than Duster's and mine.

Sean and Jenny's final destination is his mom's house in Ventura, CA. It was an absolute treat to be invited to a home cooked pasta dinner and truly amazing 'Mom' hospitality!!! A treat like this on day 18 could not be better!

Day 18

Livin Large

They say when it rains, it pours... Day 17 proved this cliché true. I hope to get a video posted of Dusty telling yesterdays story to do it justice. We are both safe and healthy for the record. After a day like yesterday there seemed only one thing to do--get a hotel room!

Waking up amongst a sea of pillows with a continental Days Inn breakfast awaiting us has to be one of the greatest rewards we've received on the trip. After 17 days of camping, cold nights and dreary mornings, sitting in a Jacuzzi with a few ice cold adult beverages made us feel like kings.

ODO: 1,293

Day 16
Big Sur - Morro Bay: 92.1 miles
Big climb and tough riding in the morning but flats and tail winds in the afternoon!

Day 17
Morro Bay - Lompoc: 73ish miles
I biked 73 miles, 30 of them alone...haha. Video coming soon.

Day 15

Today We Are Tourists!

We finally hit a warm sunny day, minimal winds, barking seals, blonde California surfers and bustling streets in Monterey, CA! Trashing our plans for a 90-mile ride and a bruiser of a climb, we will finish at Big Sur State Park just 25 more miles from where this Monterey Bay atmosphere captured us, derailing our original plan.

Last night we camped at Sun Set Bay State Park which is tucked between a Pacific bay and thousands of acres of strawberry fields. Needless to say the first 10 miles of today's ride was quiet as Dusty and I picked seeds from our teeth. People, views, agriculture, towns and cities continue to provide exceptional experiences and perspectives. Riding adjacent to Hwy 1 just a few miles back we could see a sign reading, "Los Angeles - 338." That means San Diego, our friends Chris and Jess, are only 100 miles beyond that. Today is the first time we started counting DOWN.

Hope everyone enjoyed their 4th of July weekend. Libraries and WiFi have been harder to find... "had" to buy a cup of coffee at this crepe shop just to make a quick post from our Ipod. Here are stays from our July 4th weekend and we will get pictures up as soon as possible. We could be done in 6 days...what do you think about that?

Current ODO: 1,097 miles

Day 12 - 70 miles
Manchester,CA - Bodega Bay, CA

Day 13 - 102.4 miles
Bodega Bay, CA - Half Moon Bay, CA
(biked the Golden Gate Bridge!!!)

Day 14 - 66.2 miles
Half Moon Bay, CA - Sun Set Bay, CA

Day 15 - pending....

Day 10

Travel Buddies

Peddling towards warmer weather motivated Dusty and me to bike through Washington, then the cold and windy Oregon coast, and now we hear the warmth awaits us on the other side of San Francisco. We did two taxing days through the Redwoods, yesterday finding ourselves climbing the two worst climbs on the Pacific Coast route. We treated ourselves to a hippie cafe serving an all-organic breakfast in a town called Fort Brag where we find ourselves with way overdue laundry, zero groceries and two sets of tired legs.

Trips like these are easy and cheap to tackle. Dusty rides a bike built for touring; I simply threw a rack on the back of my road bike (purchased second hand during my years in college). We see people cycling with four times as much gear as us, pulling trailers, panniers on the front and back of the bikes, bringing with them everything but the kitchen sink. While some just have Wal-Mart bikes with duffel bags hanging off the sides, you can spend a fortune on the lightest, smallest gear known to hikers and bikers. It's fun looking at those folks when camping, but you can also cut corners and take what you have in a pack, on a bike, in a canoe and just enjoy the ride at minimal expense. We pay $5 a night to pitch our tents at state parks, spend $20 a day at grocery stores, and occasionally treat ourselves to a meal out (as you can see from the pictures of the margarita's last night)!

Limping into camp at a snail's pace last night, shivering, we found a state park with non-drinkable water and ice cold showers. It is times like these you appreciate having a good travel companion like Dusty. This guy has pulled me through days of agonizing painful knee problems, generated belly busting laughter amidst stressful scenarios and provided a positive outlook on the days most would call down right miserable. Yesterday, after taking a break atop a monstrous climb, he looks over at me while reviewing some of our photos on the camera and says, "Hmm, I look like a model in this picture." One look at him with fresh smears of sunscreen on his cheeks, dust covered bike shorts and disorganized bike rack and I lost it! Laughing at his less than modest remark I could barely hold my bike upright.

Though we have been cornered into tight spots, less than safe biking conditions, ugly weather and painful health issues the two of us never remark about these things while biking. It is laughter that gets us from point to point.

Happy 4th of July! Holidays make us miss friends and family...