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...)