Bike - Specialized Roubaix
Day's run: 67.8 miles
Total elapsed miles: 665.4
July 13, 1961 - Standish-Hickey S.P. - Anchor Bay
Got an 8:30 start after breakfast of Grape Nuts. Climbed over Coast Range - roads are uh-troshus, full of vertical and lateral curves and rough. Bought honey spread, loaf of sourdough bread and margarine in Ft. Bragg and lunched and dined on it (some left!). High fogginess and cool here. Replaced one spoke. NW tail winds should be with me from now on. Made 97 miles. Bought Raisin Bran for breakfasts to come. Am in private camp area in Anchor Bay. Sign says $1.50 per car. They haven't tried to make me pay yet.
Should camp at Stinson Beach S.P. tomorrow. About 15 miles from Golden Gate. Very mountainous route, they tell me.
P.S. Rear brake out of it. The cable slipped or was broken in mountains. Front one doing nicely. Maybe I will get it fixed in Frisco or just let it go 'til I get home.
Joined Sean for a breakfast burrito at 9:00 AM and got under way at about 9:40. Weather sunny but cool, breeze still favorable as we hit the freeway again. Bob joined us twice, once on the open road shortly after we stopped to talk to two heavily-laden German men, Stephan and a younger one, possibly his son, en route to Los Angeles. They wanted to know if it would be more advisable to continue south on 101 or to take Hwy 1 over to the coast. I suggested that if they were truly touring and not just eating up miles, then go to the coast. We did not see them again, so I don't know what they chose to do.
We caught up with Bob again at Leggett, where Hwy 1 begins, and topped up fluids. Sean and I took a little detour to see the famous drive-through redwood tree and photograph each other going through it. Then we hit the road in earnest, summiting the coast range at 1:45 and reveling in roughly 50 minutes of fast downhill work before hitting the last rise before the coast. After about 25 minutes, we were on top of it and in 10 more, back on the shores of the Pacific. The road is still full of vertical and lateeral curves, but no longer rough at all.
The next hour or so was of serious up-and-downhill work and then we pulled into the only country store on the coast before Fort Bragg, in a wide place in the road called Westport. There on the porch, resting and enjoying cool drinks and pizza, were three men already known to Sean from farther up the coast. Two were young middle-aged touring bike riders (both on Surleys, a very popular brand, from what I've seen) and the third, to my surprise, was a 18 year-old named Chandler, my surprise both because he was going down the coast from Seattle to San Diego on a four-foot long skateboard, with pack on back, and because the road repair traffic control man who I spoke to while waiting on 101 on approach to Crescent City had told me about him. Chandler told me he will be written up in "Cement Wave," a skateboarding magazine. I am not surprised about that part, at least.
Sean told Chandler he thought he was crazy. Chandler said he thought we were crazy. Sean countered, "But we're on bikes," to which Chandler replied, "But you guys are OLD!"
We pulled into Fort Bragg at about 5:30 and I found Bob in a comfortable room at the Best Western on the northern edge of town. Sean also checked in and we'll make space for him in the Jeep to drive to the eating, drinking and shopping venues a little bit south.
It's good to be on Rte 1 again. Part of the inspiration for my 1961 trip was a National Geographic article of that or an earlier year named "California's Wonderful One," memorable to this day for its deeply saturated Kodacolor prints of the great scenery that makes the route wonderful. The day's run also puts us at about the halfway point between the Oregon state line and San Francisco. This also came as a bit of a surprise to me because I have been working from detailed Adventure Cycling maps of sections of the coast only, not seeing the big picture. Also, getting over the coast range from Legget to the Pacific is a kind of watershed, in that it is physically the highest point on the whole route as well as some distance into the second, "downhill" portion of my ride. Day 11 is winding down; 9 to go.
Until tomorrow, in the neighborhood of Ft. Ross.
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