I think I might be a blog-aholic, which is unfortunate because I still hate that word...

Guys, I can't stop blogging. I don't care that we are finished with the official spirit animal spandex tour. Our bikes haven't arrived from southern California yet but we still have our absurd tan lines, American Gladiator-esque quadricep muscles, and day glow Lycra we can flaunt around Seattle, right? That seems like a reasonable way to keep the party going... right guys? Do I need to see somebody about this? Is anybody out there?
Amanda and I just got back from running around Greenlake in an attempt to maintain our sculpted legs and to my dismay, my knees are now in excruciating pain. They feel extremely disappointed in me, or maybe I am extremely disappointed in them, but regardless, they hurt. I need to ride my bike. I hate to think where MyPony is now; her limbs pulled apart, cold, alone in a box on a truck somewhere packed next to other "odd size" packages, or worse still, a mountain bike. MyPony is NOT odd size. She is perfect and I miss her. I think I might throw her a Welcome Back party upon her arrival, complete with a visit from my padded spandex ass and maybe some new handlebar streamers. If you would like to send her a gift, let me know and we can make proper arrangements and don't tell anyone because I don't want her to find out about the party...

Anyway, I am up for parading around Seattle in spandex if you are up to reading about it. Let us know.

I guess that's it

So we're done. We rode our bikes from Canada to Mexico. Crazy. I feel like it should have taken us longer. Or maybe I just wish I could keep going. My body is ready to keep going south, and My Pony is patiently waiting outside if I need her, but unfortunately my checking account needs some work so it's back to real life in Seattle for me. I will say I am extremely excited to see Seattle pals and to get sweaty on the dance floor, if my feet can remember how to step-touch. And I miss wearing shoes that don't make me look like a nerdy space alien ... my brown Vans in particular. But I am sort of disappointed that it is time to cross this one off the list.


I could take this time to go into detail about my deep and meaningful post bike tour reflections, or how in our last twenty five miles on the road we got lost in Chula Vista, or how Amanda and I got really cute haircuts today, but instead I want to share with you some of our bike tour statistics...with bullet points of course

• Total number of flat tires: 3. Amanda and I both got flats the first week in BC and then Sam suffered his second when we were getting made fun of for wearing spandex by some sexy surfers at a cliff side turnout in Malibu. A wet suit could sort of be considered spandex right?



• Fastest speed: 4o mph. Somewhere in Oregon I went down a long, big hill...




• Total number of clipless pedal related wipeouts: Three. Refer to our archives for the play-by-play and photos of the first two falls. I ate shit from complete lack of clipless pedal coordination the second to last day of the ride while Amanda and I were getting directions from some more sexy surfers in San Diego. Needless to say it was extremely embarrassing. So much so that Amanda even said she was embarrassed for me. I'm getting red in the face again just writing this. Totally not smooth.




• Total number of hotel rooms slept in: 2. After almost dying on the Astoria bridge we felt that we had at least earned a shower, and thanks to my Mom spoiling us rotten, the Lucia Lodge in Big Sur was blessed with our company after riding through the most beautiful section in California.




• Most miles in a day: 111. Duh.




• Least miles in a day: 36. This was in the beginning when we were wimps.




• Total number of days cycling: 34.




• Total number of days off: 4.




• Total number of raccoon related sleepless nights: 2. Episode 1 was in Gualala, California when the darn varmints tried to use Amanda's cell phone and Episode 2 was in San Simeon, California when I left my food out. What?




• Total number of times I accidentally ran my front tire into Amanda's panniers while riding way too close to her: 3. Sorry pal.




• Total number of my relatives I subjected Amanda to: 6. Dad in Orinda, Mom in Santa Cruz, sister Brooke in Santa Cruz, sister Blair in Huntington Beach, and grandparents Bee and Muck in Oceanside, California. She wasn't kidding about the family reunion tour thing.




• Least friendly area to ride in: North Bend, Oregon on Labor Day. This is the location of the infamous illegal bridge ride over Coos Bay and is home to dozens of unfriendly, cyclist-hating, ATV-riding, big car-driving, alarmingly loud horn-honking jerkfaces.




• Most beautiful and awesome areas to ride in: Everywhere in Oregon, except for North Bend and the Astoria Bridge, and Big Sur, California. Attention Oregon homeless people and smelly hippies: Showers in Oregon State Parks are FREE! FREE!? What are you waiting for?! Go get clean!




• Total number of times we got lost: once... less than 10 miles away from the border allowing us to have a surprise tour of beautiful Chula Vista, California. P.S. judging by the priceless looks on some of their faces, I think if Amanda and I had played soccer all the way down the coast we would have been way more popular among the Chula Vista-ians.




• Total number of Bike Posse Members: 10. Diego from Spain, Chuck and Jim from Madison, Max from San Francisco, Eli and Andrea from Seattle, Courtney and her dude (?) from Eugene, and Stephen and Pius from Swederland. We only rode near Stephen and Pius for about 20 miles, and they ride recumbent bicycles which are pretty nerdy, but they did help disperse the humiliation of exposing our horrific tan lines by exposing their own horrific tan lines with us at the beach today so they can be part of the posse.




• Total number of times we did laundry: 5.




• Total number of times people told us riding down the coast was "all downhill" and then laughed at their own joke: eighty million.




• Total number of cows that responded to Amanda mooing at them: one.

So I guess that's it. Amanda and I keep hearing that we need to come up with some way to continue posting our rants and raves on this blog now that the tour is over, so if anyone has any ideas, let us know. Until then, read all of our archived posts over and over like a crazy stalker.

My birthday was cool and all but...

TWENTY FIVE MILES TO MEXICOOOOOOOO!!!!!
That's right. We're almost done. I suppose this is the definition of bittersweet.
Thank you to everyone who left me birthday messages yesterday!
I forgot how much I love Jesse's Mickey Mouse b-day song until it reached my ears first thing in the morning. My big sister is hilarious. AND a total baller because she talked the Mayor of Louisville into giving the Committee for Public Art tons of money for making the city of my birth a better place to live. I'm so proud. I know that has nothing to do with riding from Canada to Mexico, but I spent a large part of my mental energy on my bike yesterday thinking good thoughts for her to achieve this and I'd like to think it helped, in a cosmic sense.

As far as bike riding goes... Here is a video of where our skillz are at this point in our trip (just imagine a SoCal landscape instead of cold NYC):
http://youtube.com/watch?v=nR2ygFn-yR8

I think Tina is currently covering all of the important points of the trip since my last post whilst sitting next to me in this silly San Diego caffe... so I'm just gonna say that I plan on listing the top 5 scariest things that have happened on this trip once we finish this thing... I think the parental units checking this here blog will be able to handle it in retrospect.

I currently seem to overwhelmed by being as close as we are to clearly be able to log my thoughts/feelings at the moment... So stay tuned for my final reflection posts and descriptions of the celebration going down in Huntington Beach this weekend!!!

PCWha?

Twenty five measly little miles left people! Amanda and I are consuming but not enjoying weak americanos and cold Costco muffins at a cafe right outside San Diego. We've already gone about half of the day's ride and it's not even 11 am, mostly because we were camped in some dirt right off of Highway 1 which conveniently is also the same route the Amtrack takes south of L.A. So in addition to the wet sea air that mysteriously saturated both our sleeping bags and tent throughout the night, Amanda and I were woken at 45 minute intervals by the melodious cacophony of the train. Needless to say we are a bit sleepy, but thoughts of tequila shots and kissing Mexican border patrolmen will keep us going strong.
As this is our last official day of riding the Pacific Coast Bike Route, I thought I would share a little something with you non-California natives about good ol' So-Cal. They have this highway. It's actually Highway 1, but since this is southern California they call it the Pacific Coast Highway or the PCH. Sounds beautiful right? You're thinking beaches, sun, surfers, convertibles. We were thinking beaches, sun, surfers, convertibles, and kids from 90210 high-fiving us along the way... Well folks, think again. The PCH, our guide book's chosen route for a good 100+ miles through this part of the state, is the most awful thoroughfare on Earth. It sucks. Everyone in the west Los Angeles area uses this highway to get around because LA traffic is terrible and it's a fast north-south artery. Riding a bike on it is just stupid, even if you are wearing fluorescent clothes. In fact, I think I may have even gotten singled out just because I looked like a highlighter. Between episodes of clenching my teeth so hard my jaw hurt and yelling at celebrities that got too close to me and My Pony, I came up with a couple of my own acronyms that are far more appropriate for this Pacific Coast Highway (and for your enjoyment I will use hyphens and 'n's where I please, thank you very much) ...

• Pretty Crappy Highway
• Potholes 'n' Cracks Highway
• People Crusher Highway
• Phoning Cellularly Highway
• Pricks 'n' Cars Highway

These are more descriptive of what I was thinking while riding (creative license with hyphens still applies)...

• Probably Cyclist Hell
• Passive Carbon Huffing
• Pedal Cranks Hurriedly
• Pony Can't Hang
• Prefer Cyclonic Headwind
• Please Cease Honking
• Put Car-bomb Here

So that should give you a better picture of what the PCH really is. All of you So-Cal people are living a lie! It's blasphemy really. Thankfully, we finished our last battle with that highway of which I shall no longer speak of this morning, which is good because I want to live to see the border today and I still look like a highlighter.

Next time I post something we will be done! Hurray!

San Luis Obispo to Santa Barbara = 111 miles

So we did it. We rode 111 miles yesterday from the doorstep of Greg Dudley's apartment in SLO to my awesome friend Devon Hay's house in Santa Barbara. You know I love bullet points so here are some memorable moments of yesterday's journey :

• the 13 mile gradual uphill section that we found ourselves doing during the hottest part of the day,
• eating lunch in an awful little city called Lompoc where there are no parks or benches anywhere so sandwiches must be enjoyed on patches of grass in front of dilapidated, highway-side apartments. From the looks on people's faces, this kind of picnicking isn't very popular in Lompoc.
• getting yelled at through the window by an angry driver of a turquoise truck as he got far too close to me while crossing a bridge ( just so you all know, when you yell at cyclists through your car, they can't hear you),
• as yesterdays mileage was about twice what we would normally do, naturally the number of wedgies doubled,
• getting a 'where'd you go?' phone call while riding from Amanda who had somehow missed the on-ramp for the highway when she was only about 50 yards behind me,
• stopping at a rest stop off highway 101 and looking at everyone and thinking 'why do you need to rest?'

In other news, our new Swiss recumbent cyclist friends Pius and Stephen are also in Santa Barbara, so once again Amanda and I have found ourselves biking with foreigners. They are traveling from Alaska down to Panama and are taking their time in the process so our travel schedules are not quite the same. However, we have made tentative plans to expose them to America at its finest and to reunite at Disneyland. times up!

San Luis Obispo is our bike tour version of Crater Lake...

For those of you not familiar with what I am referencing, I'll give you a brief synopsis and you will surely understand what has happened to us the last day and a half:
Crater Lake on the PCT became an unexpected detour we arrived at TWICE while avoiding the treacherous snows that had hit both the Sierras and Oregon in '05. This is not a place the hikers spend a lot of extra time in. Understandably so, as the campsites are absurdly expensive and there isn't really anything to do. At all. Despite this, I believe the most collective zero days on our trip (besides maybe Seattle) were spent here. A combination of making new friends, getting sidetracked and losing momentum, and well, ok... getting drunk and not wanting to exert ourselves the following day turned into unplanned days of apparent laziness.
This time, however, I did get to fulfill one of my bike tour goals: find a movie theater playing Superbad and see it. Check! Hilarious. Now I can stop getting bummed when every single person I talk to who has seen it tells me I should too. I'm in the club. After getting to see some of the greatest insult rants I've laughed over in a while, I was well prepared for the scene of departing the theater, heading towards Sam to unlock him from the bike rack, and realizing that some fucking @#$#%$@!&*@! had locked his bike to the rack AND SAM. So I stood there and put the last 2 hours of cussing I had absorbed to use. (After walking home, then walking back hours later, Sam had been released... however I think he is still shaking the humiliation of being associated with a crackhead's mountain bike in the middle of downtown all night.)
Another interesting parallel to this Crater Lake phenomenon is our attempt at a longest day coming into close proximity to our lapse in movement. Like our legendary Mt. Jefferson to Mt. Hood day (40 miles... wha? wha?!), today as we depart SLO our final goal is Santa Barbara, some 100+ miles away.
So that is where I will leave you. Tina and I are geared up, bikes ready, and it is still a reasonably early hour for us to achieve our longest day of the spirit animal spandex tour.
After Big Sur turned out to be a cake walk (beautiful though! drive that some time... that means you!), I think we'll probably chew today up and spit it out.

Tan Lines

Just sitting here at the afore mentioned butt crack waiting for mama Tracy to pick us up for our big day... so I thought I'd document one of my favorite side affects...

Jealous of this glove tan? Well, just wait till we get pics of the tan on our thighs up here. Soooo sweet.

(And thanks for your posi-thoughts thommy! Downhill is my favorite toooooooooooooooo!!!!!!)

Tomorrow, the BIG Big Sur...

Supposedly today was an easy day in our guide book. Flat terrain, only 50 miles, a good portion of it included bike paths. However, the dynamic duo struggled towards the end and admitted to being more fatigued than seemed appropriate. Which is what makes me some what apprehensive about the road ahead. It's a "difficult" day according to the pacific coast biking bible (which, like the real bible, contains a lot of questionable material)... meaning some serious elevation gain and loss all damned day.
We'll take it slow if we have to! Not cycling for three days seems to render one immediately out of shape so we'll probably need to take our time. Our truly excellent bike tour angel of the moment, mama Tracy, (who has already taken us out to sushi, slack packed us to Carmel, allowed us to make it to Brooke's boyfriend's b-day party, and is now threatening to treat us to a hotel tomorrow night!) will be driving us back to our starting point tomorrow morning at the butt crack of dawn. Giving us plenty of time to stop halfway up these hills and weeze until we can give them a second go. (I could be only speaking for myself, so as long as that's what I'm doing, I'll probably have to take nose bleed breaks as well.)
If anyone reads this tomorrow, think posi-thoughts for us (some suggestions: "strong knees!" "no traffic!" "lots of downhill!")

It's been a while since I've gone into list mode so I'll leave you with this:

Most Memorable Roadkill to Date:
1. Today: a white snowy owl with tan markings... and i'll admit that the first thing that went through my head was "Oh man, Hedwig!"
2. An entire family of raccoons strewn across the highway. It was a massacre, and seeing as it was pre-raccoon theft night, it made me the saddest of any roadkill scene yet.
3. Post raccoon theft night, a comically posed raccoon that Chuck gave a celebratory fist in the air as he passed it.
4. A weird baby ferret-ish looking thing that even Christina could not identify... as I rode by it I thought it looked like something from Ren & Stimpy.
5. A fox. That's it. They're just kind of cool, so I was bummed it was dead.

I'm changing the name of this thing to: The Spittler Family Tour

So... our vacation from vacation is over (I thought that that was well put Tina)... three awesome days in San Francisco have finally come to an end and we were dropped with our bikes back on the road by dad Spittler this morning.
It felt a bit weird, admittedly, to be back in the saddle again after wearing jeans and staying up late all weekend. However, both the road and the weather were forgiving of our Bambi legs and gave us a really easy re-introduction to our tour.
Our 56 mile day ended in good ole Santa Cruz and now that I am lounging on sister Spittler's couch, watching t.v. and eating ice cream, I'm realizing that things are getting pretty luxurious on this journey of ours. I'm not sure if I'm going to be able to go back to roughing it with the thieving raccoons, mosquitoes, and sleep without pillows.
In other news, Tina and I are finally starting to successfully morph into one being, and I am excited to be able to post a picture of our progress. This is going to make these ridiculous long distance trips of ours so much easier. That nickname of "two-headed monster" can finally be a reality!
Now that the countdown to San Francisco is over, it has officially become the countdown to Mexico. Which is quickly approaching... and will possibly be achieved on the 26th anniversary of my birth. (That's just a heads up for anyone who may have forgotten to pencil it in on their calenders...)
Thanks Kate and Kevin for putting me up in the city, and papa Spittler and Noel for putting us up in the east bay! It was near impossible to leave... I almost put down roots in the bay again.

San Francisco hiatus

So we did it. We made it to the Golden Gate bridge. I realize we still have a long way to go, but reaching the Bay Area is something I have definitely been looking forward to for a while. It's like I rode home! Well, actually that's exactly what it's like... Anyway, after riding our bikes for twenty-four consecutive days, I think the two of us most definitely deserved the weekend off. On this brief vacation from vacation we were lucky enough to enjoy some homecooked meals with my dad, hit up San Francisco for some drinking and dancing, hang out with friends, sleep in real beds, wear jeans, and brag to everyone about how much ice cream we can eat. We are planning to leave my Dad's house in the east bay tomorrow morning and conveniently arrive hours later at my sister's dinner table in Santa Cruz. Amanda has also requested we stroll down to the Boardwalk and hop on a rollercoaster, or two, or eight. I also think the Santa Cruz locals will really appreciate the sweet tan lines Amanda and I have accquired so I am hoping at some point we will have the opportunity to show those off. I do intend on documenting these epic tan lines just because I would get a kick out of grossing you all out, however I want to ensure that they are at their peak state of ridiculousness before we share them with you, so stay tuned for those. In the meantime, check these out...

San Francisco!!!!

When Amanda Fell.

When I Fell.

Amanda bloodies herself, again

But then she finds her spirit animal in Raymond, WA

Coos Bay, Oregon

(The bridge in the background is where we were stopped by the police officer...)

Cannon Beach, Oregon

Tired in Oregon

Our first tunnel

Our first T-rex

Californiaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!

Senior portrait in a tree near Scotia, CA

Sweet shades in Scotia, CA

Paul Bunyan axed his own head off

Bike graveyard at the Yellow House in Arcata, CA

This is what I look like most days

Bike Posse Member: Diego Martinez,

awesome Spanish windshield

Bike Posse Member: Max,

rides shirtless with a construction vest

Bike Posse Member: Chuck,

dad, lawyer, homey

Bike posse lunch break

Add Another Near Death Experience to the Biography of my Life...

It's still too recent for me to go in depth on this... and the internet is INCREDIBLY expensive in this weird sort of Mexican restaurant... but I will say that a semi-truck brushed my arm yesterday. No shoulder, nowhere to go, two lane forested "highway", and it brushed my arm quickly followed by it's rear tire which almost took me under.

Moral of the story is: I survived. I'm a road warrior. The semi truck decepticons WILL NOT win this one.

Three days till we ride across the Golden Gate bridge carrying forever burning torches...

Riding post Diego...

Yes, he's gone. Abruptly ripped away from us in the back yard of a dirty hippy house in Arcata a few days ago. We were left to sleep in the yard with the chickens lamenting the loss of a key member of our bike family. (I am definitely not a fan of those chickens. I can't let go of the horrifying image of those legs about 8 inches from my face first thing in the morning.)

So we now live in a state of "the race to San Francisco". Immediately upon entering California a couple days ago, we started getting hit by those ridiculous signs every 15 miles or so: "San Francisco 360 miles" "San Francisco 347 miles" "San Francisco 330 miles"... ummm... you get the picture.
It makes it tough when guys in small towns like the one we're in right now offer to give us a ride that we know will result in us being there by tonight! We're gonna suck it up and ride this bitch though... so don't worry about any bailing going on. We're in it for the glory now that Diego is gone. He's not here to remind us to slow down anymore so we are already back to our 30 miles before 11 a.m. mentality. It's funny how amazed people are by how quickly we can pack up and leave camp... because for us it's like second nature. (see "PCT '05" for reference.)

Jim, Chuck, and Tina are currently watching a Packers game across the street at the Blue Room Lounge (we are in Garberville? i think?), meanwhile, Max is braving those hot California hills already as he got promptly kicked out of the bar for his license admitting he is only 19. (Jim offered to pretend to be his dad... to no avail.) I feel like if it is still before noon you should let it slide. But that's just me.

We have some MASSIVE hills to conquer in the next few days, but i am rather looking forward to tackling some serious shit before taking it easy in S.F. We're hoping to be there Thursday evening, and plan on spending the whole weekend relaxing and NOT riding our bikes. Come this Tuesday we will be celebrating our third week anniversary of this trip, and somehow we have not had a single day of less than 40 miles of riding so far.

Speaking of hills, we tackled our first "difficult" rated day right before Diego's departure... which resulted in my first bike-riding induced puking sesh to date. The hill was hot, smelled of new pavement, about 1100 ft straight up, and apparently didn't agree with the 16 oz. mocha i had recently inhaled. So I got off my bike (i know, i'm a wuss) let the mocha go, and continued to climb. Awesome! It was even more extreme than my pants peeing episode on that beach run with my dad a month ago.

Well... I guess I should go pretend to support this silly midwest football team with the dudes... until next tiny overpriced pay computer in a cafe!

San Francisco or bust!

California, Here We Come!

Hi! Amanda and I are at the Gold Beach Library right now in southern Oregon. We are about 35 miles north of the California border and I am almost disappointed to leave Oregon. Why is Oregon so great you ask, well let me tell you:

1. Hot showers at the camp sites are FREE!



2. The bike camp sites are $4.00... this is cheap.



3. Riding your bike on the edge of a nicely paved cliff overlooking a massive expanse of beautiful beach is really awesome.



4. Diego Martinez will be departing from our bike posse once we reach California. This means no more awesome Spanglish conversations, dinner time serenades, hilarious Diego vocabulary mix-ups (calling a yellow jacket a black jack, etc.), night time or morning tea (he always makes both), I will have to get my own spoon (I have been stealing his), and I will not have a wind shield anymore as Diego typically rides in front of me, making my day far less taxing.



5. The Oregon Coast Bike Route, duh!

It is very exciting that we are about to enter my home state. I have my entire family to visit plus many old friends. However, California is going to be hard. I am a little nervous about the hills/mountains, but I trust that Amanda and I will be ok. We have the Avenue of the Giants to look forward to tomorrow and the fat librarian is kicking me off the computer now so the remainder of my ramblings will have to wait.

Bike Posse

We have been slacking on our blogging... I realize this. Public internet access seems to be a much more difficult thing to find in the small towns of the good ole U.S. as compared to Canada. (Another argument for Canada... Kate, I hope you're reading this.)
So, as the title of this blog suggests, we are now riding with a whole crew of characters... and have been for about four or five days. We camp together, eat dinner together, sleepily get ready in the morning together... and then pass each other throughout the day until the next glorious Oregon State Park.
This crew includes:
Diego: obviously. He is our resident Spanish Roberto Bernini and is the sunshine in our days. (Tina is already lamenting his fast approaching departure from our trip.) My Spanish lessons aren't going to well, however, because I am too indoctrinated by my Italian training. My pronunciation of any word he teaches me is decidedly Italian, for instance El Pinguino... try it Italian style. I can't do any better. My one Spanish word I am good at is La Biblioteca... which I got to use today before arriving at our current location, the library in Golden Beach, Oregon.

Maxwell: a 19 year old surfer dude from Santa Cruz. He likes apples and peanut butter, a lot. He gets razzed by Diego for not knowing what "Guernica" is while claiming to be studying art history. He also looks good in a neon construction workers penny with no shirt underneath.

Chuck: a 50 year old lawyer from Madison, Wisconsin. He looks like the guy from Lord of the Rings who tries to take the ring from Frodo and then dies protecting him with like 50 arrows in his chest. I imagine him protecting us from something dangerous sometime in the near future. His final destination is SF.

Jim: around 50? Chuck's traveling partner, Jim is very neon and easy to spot from far away. He has some sort of environmentally job and also lives in Madison. He is a soldier on the bicycle. He also complains about the same upper left back problem I have.

Mystery hipster couple from Seattle: These guys are headed to SF too, but have remained aloof thus far. Diego tried to flag them down this morning to share a caffe with us but to no avail. I'm sure they will warm up to us once they realize how awesome we are.

The ride down the Oregon coast remains beautiful. Beaches, windswept trees, sunshine (mostly), and huge statues of t-rex's. What more could we ask for?
The cars were super mean yesterday, however, and we actually got pulled over by the cops on Monday for illegally riding our bikes across a bridge. The cop was there because someone had CALLED IN on their STUPID CELL PHONE that there were bicycles on the MAYBE a mile long bridge holding up traffic. God forbid! We got away fine-free however, mostly because of how hot tina and I look in our spandex. (We think.)

We will be camping about 8 miles from the boarder of California tonight, because there is nowhere to stay right on the other side, and Diego vehemently denied the suggestion of doing an 80+ mile day. "To travel is about the fun! Not about the bike a-riding!" 80+ miles does not equal fun?!

So California here we come... I think I am scared of those redwood filled mountains. Yikes! I don't know if i can handle these quads of mine growing any bigger!!

(Cue the Phantom Planet theme song from the O.C...)

Pictures!

So here are some photos. Thank you Kodak Funsaver!

Amanda and Christina depart for their adventure!
Vancouver, British Columbia, Tuesday August 21st, 2007

Us on one of the numerous ferry rides through British Columbia

The Sunshine Coast, British Columbia



Amanda relaxing on another B.C. ferry




Matching grease tattoos

Cyclist? Really?

Oh wow. Oregon is beautiful. I feel like every time we climb a mountain or go around a corner I should see a pirate ship sailing on the horizon and I am in a scene from Peter Pan or something. Rocky cliffs, green conifers, huge ocean, the sky tossing clouds and fog and sun all down the coast... I have been down the 101 through this area before, but it feels a lot different this time around.

But enough of the touchy- feely stuff. Today I would like to address the topic of what makes a cyclist a cyclist. I am wondering because I do not feel like a cyclist, but I am constantly being referred to as one in street signs, our route guide, and by other bike riders. Is it our spandex? Is it the clipless pedal thing? Is it because we look like huge idiots in our helmets? For the record, I would like to say I do not consider myself a cyclist because in my expert non-cyclist opinion a true cyclist would

• not be too lazy to change gears
• be able to successfully blow a snot rocket while riding and avoid splattering snot all over their own thigh, cheek, or shoulder
• be able to drink water through a camel back hose and breathe simultaneously without, again, splattering snot all over their own thigh, cheek, or shoulder
• take their fingerless gloves off while not riding instead of keeping them on because when else, aside from being Cyndi Lauper for Halloween, do you get to wear fingerless gloves?
  

• never look like I do in this photo

• probably not talk to themselves on long downhills

• have used their clipless pedals for longer than a week before they embarked on a 2,000 mile tour of the Pacific Coast
• most likely not eat sour patch kids at every possible break in a day

Don't get me wrong, I would like to one day be able to call myself a cyclist, but for now I prefer... bike rider? Yeah, Christina the bike rider. Glad we cleared that up.

Oregon = Epic

So we have finished Washington... blew through it in about two days?! And entered Oregon via the Astoria bridge the day before yesterday.
Which marks the first official time I have been truly scared on this trip thus far. The journey across this monster of human ingenuity (in bridge building), was harrowing... and cannot be described to it's fullest by a mere blog.
I will try to give you highlights:
You have about two feet of shoulder, barred on one side by a concrete wall and the other by incredibly fast cars AND semis (often towing trees of awe-inspiring sizes). The bridge is 4.2 miles long, and stopping is not an option (unless you are fucking crazy and your name is Diego). The last mile or so of this crazy adventure is a straight uphill test of your endurance with your two foot space strewn with dead seagulls who look up at you and plead for you not to run over their carcasses and instead risk your life by swerving into traffic every time. At the end of the uphill ride of possible death, you are rewarded by a rollercoaster-esque downhill curving off ramp that towers over the town of Astoria and is not as fun as it should be.
My hands were killing me at the end from having gripped my handlebars till my knuckles were white for the entirety of those 4.2 miles. At the bottom, Tina was waiting patiently, with the same look of "oh my god i can't believe we just did that i'm so glad we're alive and i'm pumped up with adrenaline" I most surely had on my face.
So we treated ourselves to a motel and a mexican dinner. The motel being a place where "sleeping under the bridge is not a bad thing". We got to wash our clothes (thank god, we STANK), and watch a relaxing "Top Chef" marathon as we laid there in a sort of comatose exhaustion.
(This is similar to many scenes of the two of us from the PCT... watching shows about either food or nature every time there was a t.v. in our midst.)

Now we are in Nehalem, Oregon... staying at our first "road angel's" house. He (his name is David) found us in Cannon Beach, outside the bike shop where he works, and invited us to stay with him when we felt up to the 16 mile mountainous terrain between Cannon and Nehalem.
The kindness of strangers we encounter on these journeys is so inspiring. I love it.

Squatch, of PCT documentary film making fame, joined us for lunch and ice cream on the beach in Cannon and sat across from me as I chipped a large chunk of one of my molars whilst biting down agressively on a rock in my salad. FUCK. Hope that doesn't become a problem. Eating is important on excursions such as these.

Anyways... the Oregon coast is too beautiful to describe, so just visit it. Especially the stretch we did yesterday. Literally awe-inspiring... i kid you not. Apocalyptic beauty.

Diego is riding with us to California, and is a welcome addition to our tour. The three of us conquered our first tunnel together yesterday with Diego leading the charge singing loud Spanish songs that echoed off the rocky ceiling. It was pretty cute. Slightly scary, but i am hoping that my scary level as reached it's peak with the above mentioned bridge crossing experience.

Things are good. I am still sick, but it doesn't seem to matter. As long as Diego keeps giving me those weird Spanish drugs.

Can't wait to see what is around the next corner or over the next mountain.

my mouth is full of chocolateness so i don't want to put it on your hose...

I can't remember all of the brilliant things we've said in the past couple of days that makes us laugh in the midst of our exhaustion and endless hunger... but i believe the above was one of them. You wish you were a fly in the air on this trip... we are funny.

Anyways... so much happens in a day on this trip (i think) that i am completely overwhelmed to try to sum up the last day and a half.

We got lost... i cried. a little bit. (i though i was lost alone, but thank god tina was the one who messed up and was lost too.)

The falling stories i think tina has covered.

We have also entered into a race with too very intense looking German women. After a long day of leap-frogging each other, we joined them last night at a campsite when a Spanish man also rolled in on a bike and suddenly we were an international crew. Amazing conversations are always had with people who don't completely know your language. As i was describing my sick symptoms (oh yeah, i'm sick... it sucks) Diego, the Spanish man, asked "what is the green that come out of your nose?" My response: "Booger." Laughter all around. We also learned that the Spanish term for a nutmeg in soccer is a "tricky". Apparently in German it is maybe something called "mine-shoe"?

Now we are headed towards the Oregon coast at a break-neck speed and hopefully will be there tomorrow night. Another section bites the dust!

And, it is possible that old buddies might meet us at the border. Fireworks!!!!

I will finish this entry with my top five signs so far:
1. Never Give Up Rd.

2. Lois Lane

3. Nip Lee Rd.

4. "drive hammered, get nailed."

5. Boys (rd.) Ahead (the rd. part was obscured by trees.)

Falling is Funny

Hi!
Amanda and I are taking a break from the heat of the highway in a place called Montesano off highway 12 in Washington, at the public library of course. Despite the fact that we finally showered on Sunday night, our clothes weren't so lucky, so unfortunately we still stink. We stink a stink that even the weird old lady smell of old books cannot cover up. In fact our stink blasts right through that old lady/book smell and rips it to peices. My apologies to the 13 year old girl next to me.

Anyway, two very amazing things happened in the last three days since we've been able to update the blog. Both Amanda and myself fell. Don't worry, we didn't trip while walking or crash on our bikes or anything. We just fell. Upright on the bike one second to horizontal, on the road, underneath the bike the next. The culprit both times: clipless pedals. They do help me feel connected to my bike in a good way most days. I know the transfer of energy from my legs to my pedals is more efficient with a rigid sole...blah blah blah. But there are moments of extreme fatigue, for example, when I wish my feet were not connected to my pedals. Or maybe when I drop my camera while trying to take pictures and ride simultaneously and I want to turn around and pick it up and I can't un-clip in time and I know I am about to fall on the road and my bike is going to fall on top of me in slow motion, in that moment, I don't want clipless pedals anymore. Or when Amanda is on the sidewalk, not even moving, and she clips in and her pannier hits a beautifully maintained planter box full of flowers and she falls over, bike coming down on top of her... At that moment, I am thankful Amanda has clipless pedal because I am laughing so hard I am crying. But really, it's quite humiliating.

So I am considering this another right of passage for this trip. The first being changing a tire. The second, totally eating it when not even moving because of your stupid clipless pedals. PS we totally have pictures.

We're comin' to America!

holy crap i have 13 minutes to write something!
phew...
in honor of thomas wolfe and his aversion to reading long blogs (we can't do pics yet because we don't have a stupid digital camera, bogus... but we are working on that for sure), i think i will provide some top 5 lists:

top 5 things i love on this trip so far:
1. bombing huge hills... no brakes!
2. eating ice cream... no guilt! (it's no mocha chip, but it'll suffice, for now.)
3. looking so f-ing cool all the time... helmets and spandex!
4. canadians... the rumors are true!
5. the romantic walks on the beach with christanka.

top 5 things i hate on this trip so far:
1. the pain in my upper left shoulder blade that won't go away.
2. nervousness about the health of my vagina.
3. semi trucks on highways.
4. flat tires + shards of glass.
5. every time stanka denies my advances on our beach walks.

top 5 thoughts i think while riding:
1. "gonna make it, gonna make it..."
2. "ow ow ow ow"
3. justin timberlake songs
4. playing the pebble dodge game
5. "hello christina's ass!"

top 5 people we've met so far:
1. giovanni the mexican dude with the italian name who lives in vancouver but has carried a backpack everywhere you wish you could go. i wish we were still in a hitchhike vs. bike race with him.
2. thomas the desk guy at the cambie
3. the newfindland lady from denman island
4. the guy who rode next to us on a busy highway for about 5-10 minutes about an hour ago and freaked me out really bad. what the fuck is he thinking? (i'm glad he didn't die.)
5. all the 12 year olds who have jobs already in Canada. it's good for them.

We'll be in America tomorrow night!!!
Thank you everyone so much for the comments and encouragement... it's awesome to take these little breaks and get sweet little messages. Hopefully pics will be coming along shortly...

my 10 reasons

Amanda and I are in a library in the lovely town of Ladysmith on Vancouver Island B.C. She is typing furiously to my right to publish a post on our blog and I guess I am doing the same (but I will say somewhat less furiously). What is she typing? I have no idea but we have gotten into this habit of not telling the other person what we are typing and then just reading the other person's post after they have published it. We like to keep things interesting. Or I think Amanda just gets annoyed when I ask so I have stopped asking. I will try to peer over and read what she is writing... that doesn't work either! Library partitions sure are efficient at maintaining your privacy. Anyway, things are awesome and here are 10 reasons why:

1. My bike is amazing and named her My Pony,
   
2. Amanda is a stupendous traveling partner, mostly because her sunglasses change color in sun and shade and her helmet hair never ceases to amaze me,
   
3. Canadians are still awesome,
4. Our legs are so dirty we look like we've been in Cancun the last week,
5. Amanda can't finish any of her food so that means more for me,
   
6. My shirt matches my earrings which match my pants which match my socks which match my grip tape,
7. This internet time is free,
8. Despite the incredibley loud and long horn, that logging truck didn't hit me and thanks to Amanda's cat-like reflexes, she was successfully able to avoid running into that dumb lady that pulled out in front of her,
9. Sleeping bag dance parties to Justin Timberlake in the morning make anyday a great one, and
10. I think I get to eat again really soon.

We are headed to McDonald Provincial Park tonight, about 20 miles away from where we are right now. Amanda and I have already gone 35 miles today and its not even 1 pm. This, my friends, is a new personal best. We plan on heading back to the U.S. tomorrow via ferry from Sidney B.C. to Anacortes. Then it's 101 all the way to Mexico! Hurray!
p.s. we still have not showered...

Canadians are awesome

Amanda and I are in a library in Courtenay on Vancouver Island B.C. We finally made it to an island! Why is this a significant feat you ask? Well, yesterday while we were blogging ( I really do hate using blog as a verb. In fact I think I just plain hate the term altogether. Someone come up with a less lame term for what I am doing right now and I will give you a dollar.) Amanda, wondering where exactly we were in B.C., peered over to a woman at a table next to us and sincerely asked, 'Excuse me. What island are we on?'. To this the woman replied, ' We are not on an island. This is the Sunshine Coast.' Those tricky Canadians had us thinking we were on an island! Can you imagine that! So really it is very exciting that we have made it to an island so as not to be completely embarrassed and humiliated in a coffee shop full of locals this time around. I can feel you all patting us on the back.

Yesterday was beautiful and we made it to camp at the Saltery Bay Provincial Park in one piece. Some highlights of the day include:

• wishing our spandex weren't spandex,
  
• Amanda being stalked up a narrow incline by a large semi-truck waiting to pass,
• seeing roadkill, like really too close (even though we only saw dead snakes, they were still pretty gross),
• having a mid-ascent pow-wow to pee, talk about our crotches, and pump ourselves up for the remainder of the gnarly ascent only to quickly learn that it was pretty much over a minute after we hit the road again,
• meeting nice Canadians on the ferry (surprise surprise!),
  
• watching Amanda eat her dinner in the tent like a prisoner because she hates mosquitoes like I hate the word blog.

Today has been quite the adventure as well. We had to get up at 6 am and race 19 miles to the ferry this morning and just as we are about to shoot down the hill to catch it, Amanda's back tire goes flat. Luckily the ferry was 15 minutes late and we were able to go aboard. On the ferry we met more nice Canadians (!?!?) who were extremely interested in our trip. One even requested our blog address and I tried to keep a straight face writing down the url for him... Another woman told us about a bike shop and a great place to get a bite on the other side of the passage. So here we are, in a library, bellies full with abnormally tight spandex cutting off the circulation around our waists , the tire is fixed and now we want ice cream. Did I mention I am wearing spandex? Ok good.
PS. The picture is just to give you all a rough idea of what I look like in my sweet gear. It's not exactly that awesome, but definitely yellow and I definitely blend in with people here. They are Canadian after all.

Official Day 3...

So now we find ourselves on the brink of actually heading south... in our intended direction! It will be a relief to not tell people we are trying to go to Mexico and have to answer to why we are biking north anymore.
I believe there were jokes made before our departure of the nature of our journey being a race of some sorts, and that Christina would try such dasterdly means to beat me as throw banana peels behind her as she rode. So I just wanted to state, for the record, that while tailing Tina I have had to dodge 3 banana peels thus far. This is no joke.

I'm not sure we've done a very good job of logging our mileage or location thus far... So for those of you who care, we are now in the town of Courtenay on Vancouver Island in British Columbia. We are (supposedly) riding 55 more miles today?
This morning began with a crazy 18 mile race to catch an 8:00 ferry , ending in barely making the damn boat and a flat tire about a 1/4 mile before the dock.
According to the ticket man we "were lucky".
After arriving at the ferry dock for Comox, we were forced to take a bus into town as we assumed our bike pump was too big a piece of shit to do the job. (We were wrong... sorry bike pump.)
Now we have been well fed, gotten the flat tire fixed, found us a nice little library, and have an ice cream sundae plus a lot more riding left on our agenda.

The days are already blending together. (And it's been three!?) When I mentioned that the phenomenon of days being really long again (like on the trail), christina looked up at me with glazed eyes and said "why is that again?"
It was amazing.
Where has she been?

There are so many stupid questions that goes through ones head while totally physically exhausted. Like: "why do slugs insist on travelling out into the road, only to get turned to yellow goo?"
"what would make a christmas tree farm smell like a pot field was on fire?" "Can I make it up this hill without being a wuss and changing gears again?" "If I ride in the middle of the rode for a little while will it be more fun because of the adrenaline rush?" "Will my vagina look the same when this is all over?" "Will my quads be too big for my jeans?"

You get the picture... hours and hours of soothing intellectual searching. Deep into the soul.
A meditation on wheels.

If we don't get going soon we might have to ride 150 miles tomorrow... so until the next computer...

I'll tell you what happened yesterday...

First, hello everybody. My name is Christina and I haven't contributed anything to this blog yet so I feel the need to introduce myself. And, for the record, my real spirit animal is actually a unicorn but fearing relentless scrutiny over the legitimacy of this amazing creature, I am channeling my spirit animal chi with my other good friend, the wolf. For those of you doubting that unicorns do in fact bless us with their presence on this planet, I urge you to check out www.unicornmuseum.org.
Now that we cleared that up, on to the minutes:
Yesterday, Tuesday August 21, 2007
8:30 wake up. alone. sniff.
10:00 enjoy scrambled eggs and potatoes with some English boys who thought we would be cooler if we were riding motorcycles down to Mexico and who think soccer is gay and curiously become embarrassed and quiet when Amanda and I reveal that we play soccer. Awesome.
11:30 ride down to bike shop to get extra clips for shoes.
12:30 load up and employ friendly Cambie Hostel line cook to take pictures of us in a dirty and smelly alley that is sparkling with shards of glass. He then invites us to stay at his mother's B&B in Banff next summer. Then he gave us oranges. A truly Canadian experience.
1:00 the journey begins!
1:01 we get honked at.
1:15 ride through Stanley Park (awesome) and over Lions Gate Bridge (totally awesome).
2:00 one of Amanda's panniers comes loose and starts dragging on the ground. She unknowingy donates her wallet to the streets of North Vancouver.
3:00 Marine Drive becomes increasingly narrow but is beautiful and smells like blackberries.
3:10 arrive at Horseshoe Bay ferry terminal and Amanda realizes her wallet fell out of the outside pocket of her road worn pannier. Minor freak out ensues.
3:20 Baskin Robbins 14 year olds have never seen a Camelback and it takes three of them to fill one up.
3:30 Amanda finds wallet. Crisis averted. Apparently she put it in the small pocket of her Camelback... who ever uses that pocket?! Assholes. That's who.
4:10 luxurious ferry ride from Horseshoe Bay to Langdale. B.C. Ferries have a gift shop, like with perfume and back massagey-thingys?! Who knew? Amanda begins to read Harry Potter.
5:20 exit ferry. Someone has already died in Harry Potter.
5:30 begin the most epic uphill we encountered all day where I realize I left my sweet royal blue fingerless gloves on the ferry. Sweaty hands and all, we make it up (but we took a break halfway, shhh).
7:00 wind up at Roberts Creek Campground where we enjoy numerous hi-fives and bellyrubs, set up the tent for the first time, force down some less than appetizing navy bean soup, compare injuries given to ourselves by our bikes, and re-enact noises we made while getting up the last hill.
8:00 totally gay stretching session.
9:00 it's dark. That means it's bedtime.

What HAPPENED yesterday?

ummm... so i think tina is going to blog the minutes of yesterday, for you avid fans of ours who want to know where we pee and how often, which means i am going to recount a stream of conciousness of general impressions:
finally leave the city at 1:00pm
(after learning from two british boys at breakfast- who don't play soccer?- that there is a law in their town still in the books from the old days that at a certain time of day if you catch a welsh man within the city walls you can legally kill him with a crossbow. not a regular bow and arrow mind you. solomente a crossbow. wow.)
kelly green golden gate bridge
gorgeous goodbye views of vancouver
panniers create terrifying speed wobbles
marine drive = totally scary and totally sweet views
the ferry ride = first harry potter death and quick nap
post ferry hill was like riding heavy bikes up everest (holy shit i can't believe my legs did that)
my crotch hurts a bit
my back hurts the most? (what's up with that?!)
somebody at our campsite had a bass guitar and sent us to sleep with "sweet chid o mine"

today we have twice as many miles to cover and three times as many ugly hills... it's a race to a ferry as well.
i'm stoked about how positive i am this is going to whip me into the best shape of my life in no time. faster than that wussy pct.

you are all still jealous.

i miss everyone!
till next time...

We made it to Canada... barely.

It's been a rough start. And by rough, i mean that the universe is totally on our side.
A quick synopses of the day:
11:28 spraypainted my helmet gold.
12:00 christina locks us out of her apartment.
12:30 we make it out of tina's apartment under the gun and almost leaving behind such insignificant things as... my passport.
12:46 my shoe breaks in the middle of downtown seattle, in the rain, in the middle of a business day, and i am now stuck to my bike with 60 + lbs strapped on the back.
1:08 we arrive at the bus station where we are told that there are, in fact, no bike racks on amtrack buses. (this feature has not been offered in the last decade.) bus is to depart at 1:15.
2:02 we make the bus driver, and everyone on it the bus, wait for us while we are forced to pack our bikes into boxes. in a hurry. aaahhh!
4:10 christina coaxes me into saying "tricky jesus" somehow. i will not recount the conversation here.
5:34 we arrive in vancouver. assemble our bikes. buy some gold medal winning maple syrup and postcards with wolves on the front (spirit animal!) and leave the bus station.
5:55 asked by two boys to hang out on the waterfront and smoke a fatty blunt. (denied.)
5:58 welcomed to canada by a boy on a black and white striped bike.
6:04 asked where we're going on our bikes and have our breaks checked by a canadian man who likes bikes.
6:20 meet thomas (the desk guy at the cambie hostel where we are now interwebbing and staying in top bunks in separate rooms on different floors) who puts our bikes in a secret bike storage room and points us in the direction of the towns best bike shop.
7:30 we find the coin operated interweb station!

who knows what shenanigry we will encounter tonight!
canada is awesome.

things to do:
find a camera (for blogging! thanks for nothing ginny)
fix my shoe
go to a hockey game
drink lots of molson ice
kiss boys with accents
treat hangovers with kraft dinner and ketchup chips

tomorrow we ride!!!!!

Amtrak Tickets: arriving in Vancouver B.C. Aug 20th

who knows if we'll actually get on our bikes on monday... but i'd still say this journey officially begins then. we are going to have little to no cell phone contact with all you americans we know and love for our first couple weeks, but i'm pretty sure the canucks will live up to their reputation and we'll be in good hands.
welcome to tina and amanda's crazy journey take 2. (four times as fast this time?)
i've never ridden on a bike with clipless pedals before. hooray! i'm going to fall down a lot!