After double checking our route last night, it turned out that our trip would be closer to 170km rather than the original 140km we originally anticipated. This is officially the longest day of our trip. Luckily, Santa Barbara to LA is practically flat, other than some quick steep climbs around Malibu and right as you leave the coastline in LA.

Our hosts, Marianne and Lewis, made us a substantial breakfast before sending us off in mthe morning, knowing we had a long day ahead of us. They were both extremely kind and it was such a pleasure learning some valuable life lessons during our one night stay. Thanks again for everything!

The side streets out of Santa Barbara were pretty spectacular to cycle on. Lewis made a good point about the cycle infrastructure in the area, so we made sure to stick tight with Google’s suggestions to stay off the highway, mainly rerouting us to adjacent roads with bike lanes or a separate bike path all together. We were both at ease with the smooth cycle infrastructure connections, tailwinds, and ~20 degrees to carry us through to LA.

Sammy and I had planned to meet up in Oxnard, approximately 65km into the ride, but at some point mixed up a few turns and ended up crossing the town at different times into the early afternoon. We both found a coffee shop with wifi to reconnect, but didn’t manage rconnecting with each other until end of day. We were now both on our own, but felt very confident we would meet up at the final destination and celebrate the day.

Riding solo, we headed southeast (with the wind) for the majority of the day, and eventually made it into Malibu. We then proceeded to both search for the first exit off Highway 1, since it was becoming increasingly filled with aggressive drivers who didn’t seem to have much patience for cyclists.

It wasn’t much longer until the stretch of beach pathways began, allowing both of us to hop off the highway and wind our way through each beach on route to our final stop, near Manhattan Beach. The pathways were flooded with cyclists, scooter riders, tourists, other pedestrians making their way to or from the shoreline, you name it, so it was quite difficult to weave around everyone with still another 30km or so to go. With no other reasonable option, we both took the time to appreciate the Pacific as we started to realize our ride was quickly coming to an end.

Through Santa Monica, I quickly ran by the local REI to lock up some bike boxes for our flight out on Thursday, so now we at least have a way to get all of our gear back home safely!

With one final stretch of pathway, we strolled along the completely flat shoreline before pushing over one last 7% grade climb. And just like that, we’ve made it to our final stop! It’s kind of a surreal feeling to be done cycling for this trip, and it still hasn’t completely sunk in yet. It will be a challenge to switch from shovelling in about 6000 calories a day to the average daily intake, but maybe a bit of a relief to take a few steps back on cycling and all sorts of saddle soreness that come along with long distance riding. We’ve both lost a few pounds, but don’t imagine it taking much time to gain it all back, hopefully with some added muscle.

We have a kind host tonight, Sancith, who has already given us a bit of a tour around the Manhattan Beach and Hermosa Beach areas. We have some loose plans for tomorrow and Thursday before we fly back to Canada Thursday night.

Tomorrow, our final host is the webmaster of Warmshowers, the man who sends a welcome message when you sign on to the site. It’s sort of nice way to wrap up the trip, and bring everything in full circle. We’re both pretty excited to celebrate a bit of the 4th of July with him before we part ways towards the airport, and maybe we’ll even see fireworks from the airplane liftoff.

For those who are looking to tour by bike, we would definitely recommend touring bikes and camping gear if you’re looking to go at your own pace, but as we’ve offically proven, it IS possible to shave a lot more weight (and test your luck) with road bikes and without camping gear, although it’s hard to say whether we would have as few mechanical issues if we did this all again with the same setup.

It’s pretty safe to say we both gained a bit of wisdom and have a few key takeaways from cycling the Pacific Coast, and we hope that these eyeopening experiences are just a small sign for other unique life opportunities and adventures.

This is us logging off for now, but maybe not forever.

Final Count:

Bars devoured – 48

Bananas chomped – 58

Peanut butter wraps – 32

Arizona iced tea drained – 14L

Gallons of Gaterade – 8.5

Warmshower hosts – 17

Total ascent – 24,435m

Calories burned – 93,000

Total distance – 2530km

Top speed – 82.6kpr (Jordan)

Punctured tubes – 1

Longest distance without punctured road tube – 2492km

Longest distance without punctured Marathon turn – 2530km and counting

Our host in Santa Maria came back from an event in LA late last night and greeted us with her parade of dogs chasing each other in circles. She was super sweet and made sure we were all set up for our one night stay. We got a nice night sleep before heading out of town towards Santa Barbara, a relatively flat and straightforward day.

My knee was acting up again about 10km into the ride, and fortunately Sammy came up with the bright idea of stopping in the local pharmacy before jumping onto Highway 101. This may have been the best $5 spent on the trip, purchasing a smalll tube of Icy Hot pain relief gel. Problem ‘mostly’ solved. We made our way through very gradual climbs, much more shallow than some other ascents we’ve faced during this trip, before stopping for lunch at our halfway point for some Mexican burritos and iced coffees to cool us down from this Southern California heat.

We had one more large climb in the afternoon, this time at 32 degrees, before the Highway shot us back alongside the Pacific and cooled down to a much more comfortable cycling temperature.

We arrived in Santa Barbara mid-afternoon with a friendly reminder from our hosts that we’ll encounter a steep climb before their address. Yet again, the final 25-50m or so saw us hop up our bikes and drag them up a steep driveway. At least we were told most cyclists don’t make it up the hill even without any gear!

What a view! Our hosts tonight, Marianne, Lewis, and Irene, live at the top of the hill in a beautiful home. They were super kind and kept feeding us with snacks and dinner before showing us their hot tub. We turned the lights red to celebrate Canada Day from California. Happy Canada Day!

You can say we’ve lucked out a little bit when it comes to great hosts, but the reality is that Warmshowers is filled with phenomenal individuals willing to open up the homes to cycling strangers. They have been a huge reason why we’ve stayed at relatively the same weight, have had our bikes tuned up and tires pumped up, and learned a ton along the way. A huge thank you to the Warmshower community.

We’re still in cycling mode, but maybe when we look back on this trip we’ll think about what we would have done differently or how we could have been more efficiently packed or prepared, but overall we really can’t complain.

Tomorrow is our last day of the tour, and we anticipate it will be relatively flat and filled with tailwinds once more. With ‘just’ 160km or so to Venice Beach area, our longest day of the trip (oops), we can practicially sense the final stop before taking a few day break from cycling! Just keep pedalling.

Count:

Bars devoured – 46

Bananas chomped – 53

Peanut butter wraps – 30

Arizona iced tea drained – 14L

Warmshower hosts – 15

Gallons of Gatorade – 7.5

Total ascent – 23,550m

Calories burned – 86,900

Total distance – 2,350km

With our Warmshower host unavailable until later into the evening, we decided to hang around our San Simeon motel until 11 before making our way towards San Luis Obispo, our halfway/ lunch spot for the day. As we strolled onto Highway 1, we started to understand why so many riders warned us about the California fog, with about 100m of visuals before a cloud of complete grey. We turned on our back lights, and since we had a late start, it wasn’t long before the clouds started to dissipate. Tomorrow may be more of the same story.

Our 115km route was relatively flat with mountainous ranges off into the distance further inland. We rode the morning tailwinds and made good time into San Luis Obispo for a large pizza lunch (each), and a walk around to find bubblegum alley, one of the weirdest attractions we have seen during this trip. We still managed to become full tourists for this few minute stop.

We mainly followed Google’s recommendations for side streets during the second half of our route, dodging higher speed roads and sticking to mostly well paved surfaces. This time around, we weren’t sent onto roller coaster roads with pot holes around each corner.

To end the day, we kept adjacent to Highway 101 on some service roads before crossing a cantilevered bike bridge as we entered Santa Maria. We looked back from the bridge for one final view of our “flat” day (only 800m of climbing relative to the 2400m we finished up yesterday).

We have two days left and “only” about 375km! I’m starting to get some aggravation in my left knee, but nothing too serious to stop us from finishing off the journey by Tuesday. Maybe too much hiking at Yosemite did a bit of a number on me, or maybe it was the 2400m of climbing in one day? A foam roller would be nice right now, and I know at least one of our LA hosts will have one for sure. Regardless, we will be off in the morning and on our way to Santa Barbara via Highway 101 wherever permitted!

Count:

Bars devoured – 46

Bananas chomped – 51

Peanut butter wraps – 30

Arizona iced tea drained – 14L

Warmshower hosts – 14

Gallons of Gatorade – 7

Total ascent – 22,450m

Calories burned – 82,200

Total distance – 2220km

Today was a whirlwind of challenging climbs and stunning coast Vista Points. We stuck onto Highway 1 all day, with variation between a full width bike route lane and no shoulder at all. Fortunately, cars along the coastline have been very accommodating, by either slowing down completely to pass when safe to do so or shifting wide into the opposing lane. While climbing tough hills, drivers have often cheered us on or passed by with the Shaka sign. It’s a nice sign of encouragement as the sweat rolls down our faces and we crank out ~10km/hr up 6-8% extended climbs.

We hit another milestone today, surpassing the 2000km mark! With four days to cover about 500km, we are starting to imagine what the end line will feel like and whether we will actually take a full rest day in LA unlike our intense hike “off days” in SF area.

With over 1000m of ascent in the first 50km of our route from Monterey, most would think our ride was extremely challenging, and it was, but since we stuck along the coastline all day we were distracted by stunning views. We cycled through Big Sur, known for it’s continuous scenic coastline and highway alignment built at the edge of the cliff.

We passed a Swiss cyclist who has been living in a hammock for his entire tour, and also bumped into one cycle duo we saw back in Mendocino. It’s nice to see some familiar faces and help motivate each other as we edge closer towards LA.

Big Sur and the California coastline certainly did not disappoint, and although Oregon’s coastline could pass as a strong second best, to cycle through a full ~100km of Pacific Coast was pretty spectacular. Many towns along the route are known for just one resort or restaurant, so there wasn’t much opportunity to break and check out small towns along the way. Otherwise, our route could be summed up by several state parks and Vista Points.

San Simeon isn’t known for too much other than its proximity to the Hearst Castle. Hearst built the castle in the early 1900’s, originally as a family home, but now stands as a tourist attraction for it’s incredible architecture.

We have three days left until LA, all of which with a fraction of climbing compared to today. We will ride Highway 1 until it terminates closer to Santa Maria, and then we will mainly stick to Highway 101 to finish off our remaining routes. We’re definitely looking forward to a flatter ride after today’s climb.

Count:

Bars devoured – 44

Bananas chomped – 49

Peanut butter wraps – 28

Arizona iced tea drained – 12.5L

Warmshower hosts – 13

Gallons of Gatorade – 6.5

Total ascent – 21,650m

Calories burned – 78,150

Total distance – 2105km

Santa Cruz is a bit of a cyclist’s haven, with bike shops at several locations and bike lanes on most collector streets. There are Route options in almost every directs, and the Pacific Bike Route brought us inland today since Highway 1 still prohibits cyclists. Tomorrow we begin to stick on Highway 1, so we didn’t mind the quieter roads in the meantime. The Pacific Bike Route made it pretty simple to navigate towards Monterey, and with only 75km, our shortest day of our trip, we planned to cycle everything in one stage and spend more time at our end point.

Since we arrived in Monterey by 1:30, we decided to explore the downtown area of town and walked towards a delicious Mexican restaurant for lunch, and then followed the waterfront trail towards the Fisherman’s Wharf, and even saw local trolleys! Unlike SF, these trolleys in Monterey are off tracks completely and act as their main bus transit system.

We made one final stop at the local Trader Joe’s, which should get us through the next few days of breakfasts and mid-ride snacks. We’ve made a good habit of typically making overnight oats, an idea shared from some friends we made in Astoria, and of course the classic peanut butter wraps/sandwhiches to start off our day.

We have our largest overall ascent day tomorrow, with an estimated 2550m+ of climbing over 150km. We will have tailwinds on our side yet again, so we’re not too worried about tomorrows tough day, and on top of that we will be passing through some pretty spectacular parts of a Highway 1 including Big Sur to keep us motivated.

Count:

Bars devoured – 40

Bananas chomped – 46

Peanut butter wraps – 26

Arizona iced tea drained – 12L

Warmshower hosts – 13

Gallons of Gatorade – 6

Total ascent – 19,350m

Calories burned – 71850

Total distance – 1950km

As we sneakily packed up and left Colin’s place in the morning, we managed to remember everything from his apartment except for the car keys. We felt terrible waking him up after all that effort of sliding out extra quickly early this morning, but at least we got to say a proper goodbye. Thanks for the great stay in SF, Colin!

Sammy got his back tire replaced this morning at REI (American equivalent to MEC) before we headed out of SF. By the time we left in the later part of the morning, we were practically ready for lunch, which was a bad sign for things to come in the day. We did however manage to grab a few pounds of sourdough bread, apparently Boudin Bakery was a good choice for fresh breads, before proceeding to scoot out of town towards Highway 1.

When we finally arrived at the highway, we saw a familiar prohibited cyclists sign, forcing us to change our route onto the Skyline Highway. It wasn’t long until we got mixed up with directions and decided to hop off the highway once we found a nearby trail. Unfortunately, by that time I already had gotten split up with Sammy and managed to build in an extra 5km and 165m of climbing into my day before finding the route. The trail brought us out to Half Moon Bay where we celebrated a challenging 60km with a delicious sandwich lunch and live background music. The owner was super sweet and sent us off with a delicious brownie just because we were cycling long distance.

The reminander of our route was right on Highway 1, with a wide shoulder and strong tailwinds guiding us throughout the afternoon. We saw no shortage of wind surfers, farmer fields, and of course the Pacific Ocean. The 80km flew by and we arrived in Santa Cruz by 6:30.

We are staying with Jim and Teresa tonight, who live right next to the Beach Boardwalk Amusement Park and Pacific Ocean. Jim is an ultra cyclist, and for those of you who don’t know, that means insane distances and climbs in one ride. We’re not talking 200km or 300km, but more like 300miles or 450miles. He’s in incredible shape and retired in his early 50s, now cycles about 200miles a week. Jim introduced us to a neat climbing site called Pjammcycling, which lists all of the toughest climbs in the world. Something to strive towards if we really want to test our strength (physically and mentally).

We ride to Monterrey tomorrow which is ‘only’ 85km. We can use a short day after our Yosemite hikes which are still forcing us to walk like penguins. From there on end, we will mostly be on Highway 1 until LA.

Count:

Bars devoured – 40

Bananas chomped – 44

Peanut butter wraps – 24

Arizona iced tea drained – 11.7 L

Warmshower hosts – 13

Total ascent – 18,800 m

Calories burned – 69,400

Total distance – 1875 km

Max speed – 82.6 km/hr (Jordan)

Normally, a three day break from cycling would be a good indication of fresh legs and more or less full body recovery. Instead, Sammy and I are running fresh off 55km worth of hiking over the last two days in Yosemite National Park.

Let’s wind it back a few days.

We arrived in SF on Sunday night and stayed at Sammy’s old roommates place, Colin, near the financial distract. We got well acquainted with the city streets that evening, with several tech companies and start-ups squeezed between each block.

On Monday we took a legitimate rest day and explored the city by foot and by transit. We entered the Golden Gate Park and Japanese Gardens before taking the tram to Fisherman’s Wharf and passing by Pier 39.

We then treated Colin (and ourselves) to the Giants game just minutes away from the financial distract and Bay Bridge. The Giants lost but we had an awesome time at Oracle Park.

On Tuesday morning we walked our way over to National Rent a Car to start our journey towards Yosemite. Although we asked for a soccer mom mini van, we were given a monster Chevi Tahoe. We made our way to Yosemite by early afternoon where we were given advise on two 7+ hour hikes for our two day stay in the National Park.

The John Muir and Panorama Trail took us up a large ascent across from the famous Half Dome, where we hiked up sharp switchbacks and stumbled across a brown bear. With 14 days of cycling under our belts, the ascents felt much easier than typical, and we made pretty good time on our first day hike. Yosemite is truly spectacular, hard to describe through photos and words.

Our SUV rental acted as a two for one because we couldn’t grab accommodations in the park before they were all sold out, and rather vamped (camped in our van) just outside of the park.

The locals gave us some prettyvaluable advise with where to legally vamp, and we had a perfect spot to quickly make our way back into the park first thing in the morning.

We woke up with the sun just before 6am to drive back to the trailhead where we planned to tackle the Half Dome hike. The visitor centre rep mentioned it took him 16 hours to complete, and we planned to complete the round trip in a bit less than half that time to get back to SF by the evening. We made incredible time up the hike towards Sub Dome, with a total of 4000ft ascent. On our way up the climb, we passed the Mist Trail where we got drenched in Mist, not the most pleasant at the time, but definitely a fantastic feature of this hike.

How the Half Dome climb works is through a lottery system where only a limited number of hikers can enter to keep the traffic levels down. We unfortunately didn’t win the lottery, but still made our way up to Sub Dome in less than 3.5 hours. On our way back down, about 20 minutes below Sub Dome, we bumped into a group with extra permit spots! We quickly made friends and decided it was worth the extra few hours of hiking to complete the Half Dome bike. What we then proceeded to experience will be a lifelong memory. To hike Half Dome, you climb a ~60% grade with small wooden slots and wires on either end to keep your balance. The view at the top of the climb is indescribable. Just absolutely stunning and satisfying after a 4.5 hour hike and 5000ft elevation gain.

The way down was extremely tough on our legs, burning our calves and quads with all the hiking and biking we completed over the last 2+ weeks. We had just enough food and drink to last us the hike, and with a 9 hour hike on our final rest day (and 55km of hiking over two days) before cycling another six days straight, we were ready to collapse by the trailhead exit.

We made it back to SF very late last night with all the road work along the highway, and although our legs are hating us right now, we’re switching gears and getting set for a 140km day. Next stop, Santa Cruz!

(Count to be continued tonight)

Next to Russia House #1, we stayed in a small trailer along the Russia River. We made our classic breakfast of peanut butter sandwiches and oatmeal, and our hosts also sent us off with these delicious European style pancakes.

Our original route would have been about 120km along Highway 1 including a 400m climb before entering Sausalito and eventually the Golden Gate Bridge, but for some reason, Google didn’t even offer that route as a viable option from Jenner, but rather to take a series of inland back highways, side streets, and paths. Although it added another 20km to our route towards SF, we didn’t want to gamble with a route Google didn’t see viable, so we made our way along the Russia River islands towards Santa Maria.

To say our new route was troublesome would be an understatement (thank you Google). Our first turn off onto the Bohemian Highway was closed road to through traffic, but that didn’t stop us from scooting around the signs to what was more or less a perfect road to cycle on. We had two ~150m climbs, with the second climb shooting us into a rural Valley road, which we would like to rename Death Valley. This is not the type of road you want to take a touring bike on, let alone the road bikes we have on our tour. For about 10km, we would climb 10-12% grades only to steeply descend onto pothole happy obstacles. Instead of enjoying each descent, we played a game called inspect all shaded areas for holes or sharp objects. Call us lucky, but we managed to avoid any major damage to our tires, other than one connection piece on Sammy’s panniers. Our wrists may have taken the most damage based on squeezing our brakes alone.

Our route then proceeded to take us out onto another set of rural roads, all of which were better paved than Death Valley, but still plenty of obstacles to avoid along the way on 10-12% grades yet again.

Eventually we made our way to Petaluma for our lunch stop. Although still 75km from SF, this may be the biggest town we’ve stopped through in quite some time, so it was nice to have some options for food. By the time we left, our bike computer was telling us we’ve reached the temperature of 33 degrees. Since it was just a bit after 1:30, we decided to dodge the next set of rural roads and take the nearesr Highway 101 entrance.

We flew for the next 25km on the 101 before an official “Cycling is Prohibited” sign was spotted. Luckily enough, there is a route (Route 5) which would take us from that location towards Sausalito, so we were now clear of the rural Death Valley Roads. Our next issue was the inland heat. By 3pm, temperature hit 38 degrees. We played it smart and made a point to stop to replenish water more often.

Route 5 was really well designed with bi-directional facilities adjacent to Highway 101, including some really neat cyclist round-a-bouts and cycle tunnels.

By the time we arrived in Sausalito, the temperature cooled off significantly. We had one final climb of about 100m, this time populated by many local cyclists and cycle groups. It was a pretty satisfying feeling to cream all cyclists up the hill (other than one e-bike), now that our legs are more or less immune to any climb under 9% grade or 200m ascent. With one final push, we made it to the Golden Gate Bridge! We have to be honest, it felt pretty cool to know we had cycled from Vancouver to SF in 14 days on the bike.

Our host in SF is Colin, one of Sammy’s old University of Toronto roommates. We have a few days off in SF, one in the city, and two at Yosemite National Park, before making our way down to LA with our remaining six days of cycling.

We’re both thrilled to take a break from riding on our saddles, and look forward to exploring the city and hiking what will like likely be the most spectacular National Park of our trip!

Count:

Bars devoured – 34

Bananas chomped – 36

Peanut butter wraps – 20

Arizona iced tea drained – 11L

Warmshower hosts – 12

Total ascent – 17100m

Calories burned – 64,100

Total distance – 1740km

We met up with our host, Jesse, back at his shop where he has pieces together several mountain bikes for some of the big tours he has completed over the years. Jesse gave us some great advise on mountain bikes, smart ways to lock up bikes without heavy locks, and neat ways to potentially use small umbrellas to catch the tailwinds to ride up hills. Thanks for a fun stay in Mendocino, Jesse!

Our first 50km was absolutely stunning and extremely fun to ride. With the ocean waves eroding parts of the shoreline, Highway 1 often dips in and out of the edge of shore, dipping downward closer to sea level and upwards again at a 6 or 7% grade back towards the ocean. With these dips constantly appearing throughout the day, we ending up climbing more than 2000m for the second day in a row. We did have one 80m climb with 12-15% grades around the bends, but other than that the climbs were more manageable.

The drivers have been extremely accommodating along Highway 1 so far, and there are even signs every once and a while that note “Cyclists May Use Entire Lane”. It has certainly been a confidence booster to see pro cyclist safety signage throughout the Pacific Coast.

Tonight we’re staying at our second host throug Couchsurfing, Tatyana, who works at Russia House #1. The restaurant is completely pay as you can or donate what you can for meals throughout the day, and often large groups get involved with cleaning dishes or sweeping rather than paying. Local farmers and guests pay with other contributions to keep the place going smoothly, and it’s in a really stunning location just off of the Russia River bridge in Jenner.

Tomorrow we head towards San Fransisco! We will take a few days off once we arrive, so we will try to muster all of our remaining energy for our 7th day of cycling in a row, and make our way into the Bay Area.

We are officially considering our bodies “hurting units”, but we have also looked up a few intense Strava riders today, and compared to them, our ride is ‘peanuts’. It’s all a matter of perspective I suppose?

Count:

Bars devoured – 31

Bananas chomped – 33

Peanut butter wraps – 18

Arizona iced tea drained – 11L

Warmshower hosts – 12

Total ascent – 15800m

Calories burned – 59,000

Total distance – 1600km

Our stay in Redway was pretty neat. Our hosts have a garden and yurt in their backyard, a pool with humongous goldfish and coy fish, and a forested area which connects down to the river. Susan and Jeff and sent us off this morning with a bag full of cookies. The extra calories were much appreciated!

We scooted into Garberville just 2 miles south of Redway for a large breakfast and caloric smoothie, all of which would become very crucial towards our big Leggett hill.

Our first 40km was more or less all up hill, all in anticipation of our big climb. We grabbed some Peg Leg sandwiches to go right before Leggett so that we can celebrate with food once we reached the ocean. In total today we climbed over 2000m. This is the most either of us have climbed in a day, so it’s a pretty cool feeling to still be able to walk down the street after grinding through so much climbing, and it gives us hope that we can recover from the next 8 days, most of which will also include intense climbing.

The main Leggett hill was probably not the worst hill of our lives, but it was the tallest. We weaved our way back and forth through the winding road as we descended a full 550m before climbing yet another 200m. At last, we were back at the Pacific! With food on our mind, we stopped at the first town to scarf down those Peg Leg sandwiches. At the store front, we met up with two Pacific Coast cyclists that we are actually staying with tonight at another Warmshower in Mendocino. We crossed paths a few more times before finally meeting up back at our host’s place.

The town is quite stunning, and our host, Jesse, was kind enough to open up his place to us for the night and share some of his epic mountain bike and South America cycle stories.

We head along the coast on Highway 1 towards Jenner tomorrow, and although we are not cutting through a mountain range, we will still encounter quite a bit of climbing throughout the day.

Count:

Bars devoured – 29

Bananas chomped – 31

Peanut butter wraps – 16

Arizona iced tea drained – 9.3L

Warmshower hosts – 11

Total ascent – 13,800

Calories burned – 53,000

Total distance – 1460km