Milestone North - Haystack and Forts – Ep 38 Pacific Coast Bicycle Tour
Hey, welcome! Thanks for watching. In this episode, I continue the story of my bicycle tour of Southern California, Oregon and the Pacific Coast Route. On the previous episode, the Tillamook Factory, Twin Rocks, Nehalem Bay and Beach Sunset.
I've found that meeting people is a big part of bicycle touring. I was somewhat expecting it, but I figured it wouldn't be that often. There seems to be a common connection with people traveling the country by bicycle. At this and the last camp, there's a unique blend of both bikers and hikers.
A start from Nehalem Bay and a quiet road kicks off the day. Hill climbs reach high Cliff Ocean views near Oswald West State Park. Rolling Hills takes me past Haystack Rock to a lunch stop at Cannon Beach. A beachfront path in downtown Seaside is reminiscent of southern California towns.
After riding most of the day with relentless traffic, I finally get peaceful roads near my stop at Fort Steven State Park. Me: Safe travels. Man: Thank you. Yeah, be safe out there. Me: See you, Bye Lady: Bye. Man: Good luck with that hill. Me: Yeah, thanks. Heading out, starting my ride.
Good camping there. Cool this morning. Really cold. It’s supposed to get warm, into the sixties though. But it’s cold now. Hearing any unique sound coming from the bike initiates an investigation. I figured out what that sound was.
Ride broke my shoelace, and my ah.... shoe clip is hitting my shoe. ahhh I got to fix that. This town's beachside road ends up being a rare, quiet stretch for the day. Tsunami signage and markings always trigger escape scenarios in my mind. Something like; Could I make it? How big would it need to be to reach this point? And so on.
Simple things like this keep me occupied Nothing like a hill climb to get you awake. These hill climbs always warm me up. I was nice and cold, just a few minutes ago. Now I can feel the body core. heating up. Here’s a long steep climb. Start the day off.
It's a raining. Misting, at least. I don’t think there'll be a heavy rain Thinking maybe put my jacket back on. Looking over the edge of this viewpoint, initiates that “fear of high places sensation”.
Seeing Haystack Rock in the distance signals the approaching city of Cannon Beach. This 235 foot rock is a prominent landmark of the area. Arrival in town and increasing hunger aligns which prompts the search for lunch. After weeks of looking, I finally find an open pizza restaurant. I meet kind of friendly people daily, but today I meet two really welcoming and kind people at a nearby table.
We talk for a while about touring. Man: to the Mexican border... Lady: Did you ride your bike? Me: uh haw Lady: Good for you. Lady: Woah, I am impressed. Man: You’re a warrior man.
[Chit chat] The lady is so impressed and inspired that she insists on paying for my lunch. Now I'm the one inspired, by her kindness. She makes it a special day.
Seaside reminds me of beachfront cities you might see in California. This beach side path leads to the heart of Seaside. It's a good point of transition into the main strip to check out the street scene.
Not wanting to miss any of the beach trail, I return to where I left the path. I don’t know if you can see that line of cars? It's like ridiculous. It's like the first break for a long time. Here comes some more. It says 250 {the scale} I don’t know.
250! Traffic noise and volume reach an extreme level. In fact, other than riding on the freeway in California, this section has the most sustained traffic of my whole tour. Man: Hi Finally, some quiet riding as I near my camp spot for today. I should be getting close to um...
Fort Stevens State Park. or, I think within a mile. Ew, down a hill. As I set up camp, I meet and talk with a father son touring pair.
They rode down from Canada and toured Washington State. This is their last day before returning home. After off loading my gear and setting up, I explore the park on my bike. The park is huge with extensive paved trails, bridges, beaches, shipwreck, jetty, lakes, fort structures and visitor centers. It's a great location to spend multiple days if you have the time.
So I made it to Fort Stevens State Park and I'm probably going to ride home. This will probably be my last night camping. So I thought I'd do a little bit of a wrap up right now because I'm going to try to ride to Portland tomorrow. 106, 107 miles. And so I'm probably not going to be doing any narrations or wrap up tomorrow because I'll be too tired.
Overall, the trip has gone pretty smoothly. I would say. I did have some wheel issues early on with the spokes and I'm still having them. They're loosening up, but once I was able to replace the ones that were breaking on the one side, they haven't they haven't been breaking at all, just been loosening up.
And I think that's just because I can't get them tightened and balanced without the proper tools. So I have been checking it every night and most nights. It needs some adjustment.
I need to check it tonight before I ride tomorrow. I'm averaging around 48, I think with tomorrows ride I'll probably be right around 49 miles per day. I did, rode every day.
This is the I think the 40th day I got a check what day it is. No this is a 38th day, so 38th day. So I should wrap it up in 39 days. I'm definitely going be over 1800. I think it'll be right around 1900 miles. I've already passed 100,000 feet of climbing on the trip, Coming up to the coast, north, south to north.
Definitely a lot of headwinds, some headwinds again today. Most days, it's not a real major factor, but it does take it takes some of your energy for sure. Even in the mild wind, it's pretty much coming directly at you most cases once you get on the coast. I did have a couple of days with tailwinds. Those are really nice, only about two. Otherwise it was calm to very heavy winds.
I would say I had three or four really bad days that were really tough and made it a lot more difficult. The rest were kind of a minor factor. So it's definitely doable going south. to north. Some advantages to going south to the north is you meet new people every night in the campsites, because I've only saw one other person that was going south, or going north with me. Everybody else is going southbound.
So if you go south to... or north to south, then you're going to you're going to be meeting up with a lot of the same people. So you'll get to know people a little bit better.
Most of the traffic's been okay. 101 started off not super great and it's got even gotten worse. And today was really awful. There was just cons.... It's only it's a Wednesday in a week and there's just a constant flow of traffic. Very rarely do you get a break at all.
It it's just so peaceful when that happens. There's so much traffic, it's often hard to get across the road, which I.. That’s another disadvantage of going northbound is a lot of times the views are on the other side.
So if you want to get a picture or something, you have to cross the road. Let's see what else. Yeah, no major incidents with cars, trucks.
Well, actually, I did have one pickup truck came very close to me. When there are two lanes, I don't know if he did intentionally or not, but he was way too close. I think it was really close because I was really close to the white line because of the guardrail. And he was he was really close to the white line. So I did talk about it somewhat. I won’t talk about it too much now.
pretty smoothly. My tent, my tent does have a leak. I think I'd want to get a new tent if I did again, end up buying a tarp. And it worked really well. Be able to cover up the top and then the one side that was leaking and it worked the couple of times it rained after I put it up. So it kept, kept everything dry I have been eating a lot of meals in camp.
So I started getting a little bit more elaborate in my, in the cooking. I'm glad they brought a little cook stove. I think I would just go with one pot. I pretty much have only used one pot, so I think I might trim down the cook kit I would bring on it. Most of the very hard riding was in the mountains as expected in the very first week.
That was those were some of the hardest days for sure. In Big Sur, I did have a really hard day, had a pretty good distance and a lot of hill climbing and heavy winds. That was a really hard day. So I've been varying the last two days have been very relatively easy and I did that on purpose.
So I can ride the 100 plus miles into Portland tomorrow. That's my goal. I do have winds in my favor. So I am I, I think that will give me the best chance of making it there all the way. I don't really have a plan B yet. I could try to find a place to camp. I wouldn't want to do a hotel so close.
So I'd probably call for a pickup if I really had to. The Oregon camp campsites are really good. the hike / bike sites at the State Parks. So I've been impressed with those.
The California ones are okay. Most of them don't have power. Most of them are pretty remote. I would say were kind of rundown in some of them. So I wasn't really impressed.
I mean, I'm glad that we had them and I used them a lot in California, and they're definitely appreciated. But I wasn't really impressed with them. Mostly the weather has been really good.
I only had probably like I mean, even today, a sprinkle, but it wasn't bad. The roads weren’t wet. I would say four or five days at what I would call rainy and then two that were really rainy days. So that's not bad at all. 30, 38 days, pretty good weather even today is really, really nice.
It was cloudy most of the day. Now is the nicest weather. Yeah. I mean, it was a great time. I definitely got into the swing of things and I think I'm ready to finish up.
That's the other motivation for getting back tomorrow. I'd probably have to wild camp or camp in, off a camp, not in a campground. And I don't really want to do that and I'm pretty tired and I would if I had to.
Yeah, physically it was it was okay for me. I think the distances were fine and I'm definitely sore and tired. It was hard to get enough food, calories, intake. I don't I don't think I got enough really. So I in a way, I feel like I'm kind of getting a little bit weaker. I don't know.
It would it would probably be good. I just don't know if one rest day would be enough of a help. So I've been riding every day and I like that. I think if I think I'd probably do that again in most cases, I think just doing shorter days and still riding and getting somewhere is a good thing. You do feel a little bit rushed so you can't see all the sights I'm trying to do. Like tonight I'm actually riding around the park, which is pretty big.
Um, I don't know how many miles I get, but I'll get quite a few more miles. I think. I had a really great time. I would. I would definitely do it again. I wasn't sure I was in shorter ones and really loved them. And so I don't know, I was like, Oh man, this can be a long one.
Will I like it? Will I want to just get home? And I would say I like it quite a bit. And there's definitely some some drawbacks or some some discomfort. But overall, I think it's it's enjoyable. I wouldn't call it relaxing the way I'm doing it. It's a lot of work. It's a lot of work.
I'm riding, setting up camp, getting food, you know, checking your route. Although my route was pretty defined so I didn't have to do a lot of that. Getting making food. Setting up camp, taking down. Oh, and additionally, I'm doing a blog every day with pictures and that that I like doing.
But it takes I would say, it sounds ridiculous, but at least 2 hours every night. But it's something I can do in the evening. So I like doing it. Sometimes I get so tired it's really hard to finish. Okay, I think I’m going to wrap it up so I can get to more areas of the park and take a few more pictures and then eat dinner.
I end up riding nearly ten additional miles just to explore a small portion of the park. A final solo tent dinner party protected from the swarm of mosquitoes. I'm now at the furthest point north of my tour.
As I go inland tomorrow, I head in the southeast direction. My plan for 100 plus mile distance tomorrow to finish my tour is still to go. I'm feeling good and expected tailwinds make for an optimistic outlook. This will be the furthest I've ridden with a fully loaded bike on a single day.
Seems to be a fitting way to wrap things up on the next episode. Big Elk, Astoria Bridge and Waterfront. Columbia River. Long distance, Bike trouble and return to Portland [Birds] Garter of snake got squished. Squished on the road.
Wahoo! [Air Hockey] [Italian Music] Man: That’s awesome man, that’s courage. Man: That’s awesome man! So you meet people, and Man: Like keep going. [Electronic Piano Music] [Clunker car passing] Worker: What can I get started for you? Worker: Before you start, I don’t have tuna or meatballs.
Me: What! Those are my two favorite. Worker: Are they? Me: Yeah Worker: Oh Me: Oh man, Now I got to decide.
2023-08-14 12:42
