The Lost Coast and Highway 1 (Oct 17.-Oct.23)

So being a typically foolish individual, I followed the advice of Paul (from Eugene) and some guys in a bike shop in Eureka and took the Lost Coast road south from Eureka. I should have known better when I saw the glazed look in their eyes and the talk of these deserted roads with spectacular views. There is only one reason why cars do not follow a road and that is because their is an easier way. However in my naivety I happily clipped into my pedals and pottered off to Ferndale, about 20 miles south, and the jump off spot for this legendary route. Knowing I was letting myself in for a bit of a climb I had a quick beer in a victorian pub in Ferndale and then went to find the road. It did not even wait to get out of the town before it began to snake skywards into the clouds, for an hour I pounded away even having to resort to my granny gear at times. Eventually the road began to flattern and I paused to take stock, this is when I came across Winnie driving in the opposite direction. We chattered and when I said I'd find any old place to camp she advised me that the locals don't take kindly to trespassing and I should ask in Cape Town (a megatropilis of 4 buildings). As I reached the top of this first climb the sun burst through the cloud and hit the mists curling up from the pine trees in the valleys below, eagles and vultures were circling overhead and to say I was euphoric is a slight understatement. I hit some beautiful switch backs descending down onto a plateau of grassland and a higher than average density of no trespassing signs (Violators WILL be prosecuted), maybe Winnie was right. As I descended into Cape Town with the sun setting over the ocean I began looking for lights in the three houses I could see, there were none. I knocked on each door, no response - shit. I looked up the road and saw another near vertical climb, I did not fancy facing it in the gloom. I had just strapped my rear light on and was preparing to pedal on, when I noticed 500 yards down a dirt road smoke and light. I headed down the dirt track (past more no trespassing signs) and began to get nervous as I heard laughing and shouting, maybe it was a lynch mob getting pissed up before heading out to find trespassers to punish? Then a dog started barking and I was committed. I headed up to the house and was greeted with "What in the hell are you doing?", I excused my interruption and asked if I could camp on their land next to the river. Jason as soon as he realised what I was after, told me it was his 30th birthday, that I'd stumbled into the middle of his party and that I should grab a plate and join in. I hesitated but as soon as I saw the food I got heavily involved. The rest of the evening past by in a flash of red wine, debate about everything from health care to which are harder Rugby or Football (American) players and a lot of laughter. Joyce and Mike (Jason's parents) couldn't have made me feel more welcome in their home and I am blown away by their kindness to a complete stranger. The next morning I woke with a splitting headache and a mouth that tasted like home to a badger. I set about punishing myself for my excess with an immediate climb out from the farm. This climb was a lot shorter than the one the day before but a lot steeper and my cold mussels screamed at me, I screamed at them to man up and they eventually complied. Then came the descent down "The Wall", my speedo was broken so I'm not sure how fast I was going but I'd topped 44 mph a couple of days before and this felt faster, I then breakfasted next to the sea before heading inland. I had two major climbs left before rejoining the highway, the first wasn't too bad but the second was relentless. For an hour and a half I climb through countless switchbacks - after 40 minutes I could still see vertically below me the place I'd had lunch, as the crow flies I had gone less than 1/2 a mile. Eventually I reached the summit and headed into my final redwood forest where I stayed that night. The next morning I awoke at 3.30 to rain falling on my face, I hadn't bothered to pitch my tent as it had been dry and warm that evening. After trying to keep as much of my stuff as dry as possible as I packed it away I headed off into the rain, I had an 110 mile day ahead of me and had to keep a good pace to achieve it before night fall. By 5.30 I had reached Fort Bragg 20 miles from my camp spot and I was confident of reaching it before it got really dark at about 7. I had not factored in the hills and after an hour had done a little over 10 miles, it was getting dark and a sea fog was rolling in. Well I was up shit creek and my paddle allowed me to see approximately 2 meters in front of me with the density of the fog. The road was hanging on to a cliff edge with lots of nooks and crannies for cars to hide in. After 45 minutes of adrenaline (brought on by utter terror) pumping through me, I eventually crossed a bridge and got off the switch backs, my pace had slackened to a crawl so that I could see the edge of the road ahead and when I turned up after 8 having finished my mileage I was utterly exhausted. At this point the author would like to recommend not to cycle at night, in a dense sea fog along a cliff face with an under powered head torch, it is a rapid route to gray hair and stomach ulcers and I for one will not be repeating this experiment. The next three days took me down highway 1 and into San Fransisco, parts of this road were some of the best cycling I've ever had the pleasure of doing: beautiful views across the pacific, with descents that felt like they were going to throw you into the ocean before curling round themselves into a tight hairpin and always a gusting tailwind to help ease you up those climbs, I would like to give particular praise to the section between Fort Ross and Bodega Bay, during which I couldn't wipe the grin off my face...More pictures to follow!

Pick up's, RV's and other road considerations

As you might imagine i've had a fair amount of thinking time on the road and I would like to share with you some of my ponderings about my fellow road users. Firstly the pick up, that great American institution, they come in all shapes and sizes from the standard European size to the monolithic giants (standard American ones). More importantly i've identified four different types of driver: Gents, Lads, Shitheads and Rednecks. The gents are great: they see you on a road and slow down, if there is a hint of a corner or the meerest suggestion of oncoming traffic they wait patiently behind you, give a wave and maybe a friendly toot of their horn as they ease pass. The gents all live long happy lives and are going straight to heaven, no messing about at the pearly gates. The Lads: first of all it is neccessary to explain that the average width of your American pick up is about 9/10ths the width of a lane and a Herbert on bike is about 1/10th the width a lane. The Lads, who make up the vast majority of your pick up driver, know this. They are not malicious but equally there is no way that some snot nosed cyclist is going to slow them down. So if there is no oncoming traffic they just carry on past, if there is oncoming traffic they just carry on past and you get at least an inch of breathing room, very generous some might say. This is where the Shithead comes in. He's had a good look at his pick up and in general he likes what he sees, a fine ve-hi-cle that demonstrates his manliness in spades, with plenty of room for all the guns, dogs, dead deer, barbed wire, beer and jerky a man could use in a lifetime. But there is something troubling him: his pick up is taking up 9/10ths a lane of road, this means that for every dollar of tax he pays on road building and maintenance he's only getting 90 cents worth. Like every hard working man he wants his money worth but as mentioned his pick up is plenty big enough, then comes the eureka moment: he extends his rear axel by a foot, each wheel arch by six inches but leaves the rest of the pick up the same. Genious, now he's taking up the whole lane without a bigger load space and at the same time making it a lot easier to run those free-loading, hippy cyclists off his beloved tarmac. Lastly comes that special breed, the Redneck, with hate in his heart. I have had three run ins with Rednecks and so far i'd say i've had a win, a loss and a draw, so about par for the course. The draw: I am cycling into town along a wide road when I get a loud blast of horn from behind me and an encourgement to get the f*** off the road. 50 yards later I join my fellow motorist at a red light thus giving a perfect opportunity to exchange our philosophies on road use. The loss: I am cycling along a section of road with no hard shoulder, from behind I hear a series of loud honking and the hearty reving of an engine, tuned to vibrate at the resonant frequency of a cyclist's guts, I am in their cross hairs. I squeeze over, cycling on top of the white line seperating the road from the ditch, this is not going to be fun I think. I am not wrong, a green blur flashes past my left ear so close that I can almost smell the dog turds the driver uses as soap. The win: I am out my sadle climbing a short, sharp rise I feel a pick up behind approaching pretty close, weird I think: there is no oncoming traffic. Never mind he won't hit me, he does. I get clipped on the elbow by his wing mirror. My elbow is fine not even a bruise, his mirror is shattered and is now decorating the tarmac, you've got to love karma.

Now I've said some nasty things about pick up drivers but the truth is the vast majority are great, the opposite is true of RV (recreational ve-hi-cle) drivers. These monsters as tall as a house and wide as a Hull native on a deep fried mars bar diet are a curse to the roads. They are piloted by senile, half-blind, half-deaf fossils, whose sole remaining purpose in life is to cover every inch of road in the US, in the comfort of their air conditioned, aluminium fortresses on wheels. There are two real reasons why I reserve a special pool of loathing for them: firstly they drive like the Lads, they have many miles to cover after all and they will not be kept waiting. Secondly they choose, for the same reasons as me, the same roads as me. This point is infuriating because they can't enjoy the views from their tin cans and the invariably winding road makes them a big hazard. But that tarmac must be driven and that road smote from their list.

Finally a note on two wheeled etiquette: My first encounter in the US with another cyclist began with me getting a little over excited to see a fellow biker, a huge grin cracked across my face and I waved furiously across the two lanes of traffic at him. A huge grin cracked across his face and he gives me the two fingered salute. The grin is wiped off my face I am shocked by his wanton cruelty and rejection. Since I have learnt that on this side of the Atlantic the raised two fingers, far from being a medieval taunt at the French boys, is in actuallity the sign for peace. Ever since I have been giving pretty much everyone the two fingers and my inner child giggles everytime. The middle finger retains its meaning and I reserve it for the RV's and Shitheads.

...Where the Giants live (Oct. 12 - Oct 16)

The descent down from crater lake was epic, I averaged 25mph for 50 minutes, but due to a slightly late leave and more climbing in the morning I missed my campsite by ten miles and did some dodgy camping. The rain started that night but wasn't too bad, it gave me a preview the next day between Rouge river and Grants pass, where I got a flat and very wet. Then I hit the road hard, knowing that I was going into bad weather but naively asumming that once I got the far side of the coastal range and into California it would be all sunshine and roses, I was very wrong. I cycled 94 miles into the storm which turned out to be the tail end of a typhoon. It felt like the Pacific had got bored and decided it was going to hop a few hundred feet up and about 100 miles East. I kept going and eventually in a canyon, on the way down to the coast and about 20 miles into California play was suspended due to bad light. I got a wet nights sleep and an even wetter time packing up in the morning. The canyon continued a little further and then got into the redwoods. These trees are truelly unbelievable, I mean epic. One of the photos shows a car going past one so you can get an idea of their width (this was an average sized tree). The next day cycling through them with the mists curling through the trees was very special . The night after I got wet I stayed in a youth hostel overlooking the pacific (not that you could see it through the rain), I found it by chance and dived into it out the weather. Staying at the hostel where 5 other cyclists all sheltering from the storm. It was great to chat to them and hear their stories. Particularly interesting was Barry, an irish guy who decided to go to anchorage (alaska) buy a mountain bike and head down to San Francisco. The last 2 days have been beautifully sunny and at the moment I'm in a town called Eureka, I think i've done about 1,200 miles but my speedo broke on me yesterday so it's hard to be precise. I'm going to try to make it down to SF for halloween, apparently its one hell of a party. Take care all.

Into the Hills...(Oct. 5 - Oct. 11)

Hello boys and girls, first off I want to apologise for taking so long to update but as Mike and Eric, two engineers/hunters I met at the top of a 6000ft mountain up a dirt track, put it i've been spending a lot of time "in the buttf*** middle of nowhere". To make up for it you are getting 2 posts, the first is about my journey up to crater lake.

From Astoria I headed south along the coast and stayed in a town called Seaside, I have been struggling ever since to get the Kooks song out of my head. Here I stayed with the Lathams. A couple of days previously I met a lady on the roadside, we got chatting and she said she'd hook me up with someone to stay with, this was the Lathams: Roy, Terry and their son Pat. They took me in, a complete stranger with no reference, fed me and gave me a bed as well a shower and their great company. This generousity has been repeated twice since but through a tourist cyclers website. The next people to take me in were Bob and Vickie, 80 miles down the coast in a town called Pacific city with a beautiful location right on the beach. They and their nephew Jason made me feel very welcome and gave me an amazing supper and breakfast and washed my clothes for me, epic hospitality. Two nights later I stayed with Paul and Monica and their 4 kids: Rainy, Torrent, Dare and Sanguine, in Eugene for two nights. Through games of cops and robbers, sardines and kickball with the kids, Monica's conversation and Paul's help with my bike, his advice and pro pizza I couldn't have felt more at home and I was sad to leave them. Between these amazing people I had biked up from the coast up the wooded Nestucca valley, into the rolling hills towards Salem and south across a broad flat plain through Corvallis to Eugene. Now it was time to hit some proper hills. It took me a day to get into the Casscade mountains from Eugene and that night I found a great camp spot about 20 miles after Oakridge, I swam in the cold river and cooked myself supper next to a camp fire before setting my lycra on fire which i'd put up to wash, clever herbie: clerbie. The next day I only managed 30 miles but 4500 ft of climb mainly up dirt roads (the third photo shows the valley I came up but I still had half the climb left), past snow by the roadside and smoke from a forest fire. This is the day I met Mike and Eric and without them I would have had a miserable night. I was elated after my climb but very short on water, without which I wouldn't have been able to eat. The guys gave me water, Jerky and even a beer, as well as a brief bit of company for which I was very grateful. The next day I mounted my assault on Crater lake. First I headed down hill and back onto paved road, which I followed to Diamond lake and then to the Park entrance. I arrived at the park entrance at 2.30 and it took me till 4.30 to cycle the 10 miles to the crater rim, by this point I had got to 8,000 ft up a relentless climb, a savagely gusty headwind and thinning air. The views at the top sorted me out though, the lake in the crater (second picture, with Wizard island) was mindblowingly stunning, I definitaley don't have the words to describe how beautiful it looked with the sun slanting down. Hopefully my pictures give a hint, and the satisfaction (maybe a little smugness) of having cycled up there, feeling I deserved to see this, whereas those coming by cars (passing by pretty frequently) had no appreciation of the scale of this place.

Towns Visited

Blaine* (x2), Ferndale (x2), Bellingham*, Oak Harbour, Port Townsend*, Sequim, Dungeness, Port Angeles*, Lake cresent (north shore), Forks*, Kalaloch, South Beach*, Queets, Neilton, Humptulips, Aberdeen*, Grayland, Raymond, Bruceport*, Naselle, Astoria

First 9 days (Sep. 26 - Oct 4)

Hi all, so 9 days in and exactly 500 miles done. I have literally just crossed into Oregon so that is also my first state ticked off the list. Washington was Fit (capital F necessary) but had possibly a little cellulite in some areas (Aberdeen AKA. shitsville). I spent most of my time circling round to the north of the Olympic national park, which was truly stunning and was definitely worth the effort to go see. It also provided me with plenty of opportunity for a little camping of questionable legality, and some pleasant skinny-dipping, to try and make me feel vaguely clean. Nicest person award goes to Mike just south of Bellingham, who gave me a basement to sleep in, and a bathroom and kitchen to use. My first few days have not been without mishap, I lost my wallet on day 2 and spent a frantic 3 hours and 25 miles of backtracking to find it again, big big relief. I've also had to re-true my wheels twice already, had my first puncture, already burnt through a set of brakes and lost my towel. Despite this I've had a great time: one day I cycled with a guy called Steve, who runs a custom brass instrument shop in LA, ************************************************* [edited at the request of Mrs Alicia Herbert]. I've had a couple of great camping spots a few nights ago I had a 4 mile beach on the Pacific in the National forest to myself but the prize has to go to last night (in the pretty picture), which was an abandoned campsite just west of South Bend, I also got the moon setting over the same view this morning. Although I've been alone a fair bit of the time its difficult to be lonely with views like this, I'm only lonely when on a boring, straight road with trucks whizzing past my left ear. The other blemmish so far has been seeing the logging taking place in around the national park, whole hillsides are completely ripped down and left covered in a brown mess. It seems incredible to me that a government could sanction this destruction, let alone gloat about the benefits it brings. I'm looking forward to my next section through Oregon, where I hope i'll be doing some surfing and head inland to see Crater lake. Keep well all of you and please send me knews you have (but only if its exciting).