Coastal Craziness

All packed up and ready to go. Emily and I got ourselves, 4 days of stuff, including riding gear and food, the dog, and dog stuff packed into her truck (plus bikes) last week for a trek out to the gorgeous Mendocino Coast. The dog is sitting so high up largely because of the over-packing I did.

Spring is a great time to be out there -- perfectly clear, mid-60's, and not over-run with people who think California + beach = summer. San Diego this is not.

The drive is a tough one -- 4+ hours of driving with the last hour or so being on a twisty turny, puke-inducing road. When the dog started looking at me like this:

I thought it might be a good time for a break. We stopped around Clear Lake, which is also gorgeous (and made for some good cycling last summer) and had a little walk.

I told the dog she should go take a long walk off a short pier and she didn't think I was very funny. Trying to explain to her that I wasn't kidding wasn't successful either.

After a windy road and not many adventures, we got to Ft Bragg around beer-thirty and did a little taste-test of the North Coast Brewing Company's finest. When I say 'finest,' I mean 'all' -- some of them were finer than others.

Mmmmm. . . it's sort of hard to tell from the photo, but these are 4 oz glasses. We didn't drink 12 pints between us.
Once we made our way to the house, we turned on the hot tub, dumped all our stuff, and took a little hike down to the beach. The sun was starting to slough off and create a glow in the trees. The hike down was dark while we were hiding under a blanket of redwoods, and then it opened up

into this view of a small valley and the ocean beyond.






















Not to forget the funny (and kind of scary) looking plants.

I was happy to have made the hike down to the beach that first evening. It set the tone for the next few days. Starting off a weekend with a bunch of bustling and cooking and trying to get settled sounded too stressful. Walking along here was the opposite:
Seaweed in a retreating tide.

Scary seaweed at low tide.

Saturday morning, we went about getting ready for a ride south along the coast from Westport to Mendocino -- about 18 miles one way. We started around 10 -- kind of late to start riding, but it's not like we had anywhere to be.
This is the start of the ride. About a tenth of a mile to start pedaling, and then immediately a hill starts. I was tired just looking at it. It only got more hilly as we went.
On the way to Ft. Bragg, we turned off to follow the Pacific Coast "bike trail." After biking around through a campground for a while, we stopped and asked the ranger how to get to the bike trail to Ft. Bragg. Apparently we'd passed the entrance a few times. The paved part was washed out, so we had to pick up our bikes and hike a little ways to a path that gave the River Road a run for it's money in that it was more pot-hole than road.
While waiting around, I found it was whale season for one more day and walked out this little trail to look for some spouts off the coast. Nothin' doin'. Maybe the whales packed up early.

We made it to Ft. Bragg (10 miles to Mendocino) and the wind was picking up and the grump was coming on (eat something, Heather!) so we stopped at this cute little coffee shop.
What I like about this sign is that the coffee shop offers "conversation, entrees, coffee, and music." Seems they can really only guarantee three of those four, unless they have people who will sit down and strike up a chat with the patrons. As far as I know, they do not.

Sitting in the window offered the opportunity to keep an eye on the bikes and stare at three young men loitering outside, skateboarding, smoking, and playing with these sticks on a string. I have no idea what they are, but they appear to light up (had it only been dark) and to entertain this guy endlessly. I commented to Emily that he is very good at this and she responded that it's probably all he does. One of the boys with dark glasses and an "I'm too cool" affect came up to the bikes and started talking about them to his friend. I couldn't hear him of course, but he seemed to be showing off his expert knowledge of bikes. I stared at him as though it were a one-way window and he couldn't see me (I have lots of fantasies about one-way windows).
Then when we finally went outside, Mr. Too Cool was telling his friend that he used to skateboard, but since blowing out his knee, he rides a fixed gear bike. It was quite obvious (to me) that he was showing off and trying to make himself look cool in front of a couple of "real" cyclists, and I actually really wanted to engage with him, but whenever I looked at any of them, they didn't make eye-contact, so I thought maybe they were having their own one-way window and I was just a prop in his story.

The wind had picked up even more, and I convinced Emily that we did not want to ride farther down the coast with a tailwind because we'd have even farther to come back in a headwind. She agreed.
It was a hard ride. Bigger hills on the way back. Lots of wind. There were times that the wind was blowing so hard that we had to pedal on the downhills. I tried to capture how steep these hills look, but it's just impossible.
This hill goes up, does a hair-pin turn, and then goes up more steeply (steeper?).


Take a look at the hill in the back ground here -- it's hard to see. There's not really anywhere on Highway one to stop to take pictures. Looking at this hill, I didn't even think my bike would stay on it, it was so steep. I thought I might just fall off, slide down, or maybe just tip over from inertia.
Getting up to it, I could see that it wasn't nearly as steep as it looked. It went up, turned again, and just about as I yelled back to Emily, "Is that it?" (meaning, did we get through the worst of it?), I saw that the 'real' climb was ahead of us. Nothing too long, but man oh man was it steep. (Emily and I disagree on this point. She thinks the previous hill was more steep (steeper?). The discussion we had is proof that 77% of climbing is in one's head. I thought the worst was over, so when we came to this hill, I was floored, and she thought that the worst was ahead of us, so had prepared herself for this one).
Either way, we made it. Those hills were only a few miles off the end of the ride. I was a little shaky, but pretty happy that I'd done the ride -- some of it was harder riding than I've done in a long time -- and didn't ever stop on the hills, which is great progress for me.

Here were are looking pleased as punch to be done.
We went back to enjoy the afternoon, some wine, a hot tub, and some dinner. We also took the pup down for some sprints on the beach.

Starting off on my own for a very windy ride. Emily decided not to ride on Sunday, so I psyched myself up for a ride from Westport, CA down the coast to Mendocino, alone with my bike and my thoughts. Aye. Like Saturday's ride, it was a chilly start, windy, and the road was well-populated, twisty, and hilly. Very very hilly.
Riding on my own gives me more opportunities to stop whenever the mood strikes me to take a photo or just soak up the moment. I took a few opportunities on Sunday.
There's a pedestrian/bike/horse path from about three miles outside of Ft Bragg that parallels one, but has no traffic -- here's the little path you have to take to get to the "paved" (I use that term loosely) road.
Happy Birthday to me! For my birthday, my mom sent me some money because I'd said I wanted to find new dishes. I still haven't found any dishes I like (chock it up to my commitment problems, I guess), but I did really need a new helmet. "They" recommend replacing them every 3-4 years, and I've had my old one way longer than that. Here I am about 3 miles to Ft. Bragg, after taking another minute to look for the whales on the last day of the season.



This big bridge is 1) newly built, 2) very very scary -- notice the slats go longwise so cyclists have to spend the whole time wondering if their skinny tires are going to get caught (they didn't), 3) it's very high so looking down is not an option, but it's right over a beach, so very tempting to look down, 4) a welcome reprieve from Highway 1.














A few other points -- last year, my sister commented that there are "avid cyclists" and their are "crazy a** cyclists." She put me in the latter category. This ride sort of reminded me of that -- I sort of vacillated between thinking I was doing some "bad-a**" and some "crazy-ass" cycling. The wind was blowing across me so hard at some points that I looked down at my bike to see if there was something wrong with it -- like my tire coming off. A wee bit scary.

I pulled off Highway 1, thinking about how cool I was for biking down this amazing highway, how awesome that I can access this road without too much of a hassle (whining about the drive over notwithstanding), and that I was completely able to do it.
As I turned onto the exit to Mendocino, this was my view. I'd climbed, I'd suffered, and I'd laughed outloud, and was welcomed with this:
and this:

And I thought I was done. I thought I would just turn off the road and pop into town. No. First I had to climb another hill, go around a bit, and climb yet another hill. Just as I was thinking, "Thank god I'm done with that," I saw this sign:

Perhaps it was divine providence that got me through those windy miles/hills.

Evidence of wind in Mendocino -- that means the wind is blowing at least 20 mph, but I heard reports that gusts were up to 30+.

I went back to get in the hot tub and was greeted by this rather unwelcome guest. It's not the greatest shot, and he looked much bigger in person, I'm telling you -- there's a frog holding on to that table there.



Indeed I did.