Day 52

Miles 56.5 Total for trip 1935.43
Avg spd 7.73
Max spd 36.74
Climb 4650
Atl chng ++2748 Today was the day. I had a climb of over 3500 feet. I was looking forward to getting off the coast and back into mountain country. It is different knowing there is a climb of 3500 feet to do and doing 300-500 feet multiple times a day. The great thing about doing a 3500 foot climb is that you get to go down. Today would almost all be uphill until the last few miles into my camp.

I got lost getting out of San Diego. I was going to right way and got to where I needed to be, unfortunately there was a sign saying no bicycles allowed and the entrance looked bad for a bike. I turned around to look for another way. I found what I thought would be a way to get around Hwy 8 to get to where I needed to be. I was wrong and ended up in the suburb of Spring Valley which was not anywhere on my maps. I stopped at an AM/PM and got a map. After plotting my escape from San Diego I told myself not to deviate from my route.

After a few miles I saw a great bike route going to the right so I took another look at the map and showed the bike route would get me where I wanted to go. Wrong. Again never deviate from your original route. After riding around the great Grossmont College I again checked out the map and found a road that would get me back to my route. Back on my route finally and I saw a great store, Target. I was needing to get a phone to replace the one that bit the dust. As an ex-Tmobile employee I know a little secret about prepaid phones. I got a prepaid phone with no new contract for only $20. I just put my SIM card in it and get to keep my phone # and now have a working phone.

The climb went better today then I expected. I walked my bike for only around a mile or so. The great thing about today is that I knew I would get a nice down hill into my campsite. I took the nice downhill, got to the campground and saw a closed sign. Normally this would not be a big deal because I would just ride in. There was a vehicle at the entrance so I thought I would have to keep on riding. I stopped to talk with the people in the rig. They were biologist contracted with the USFS and they didn't think it would be any trouble if I stayed there the night. So I had the whole campsite to myself, it was a great night. Looking forward to many miles of downhill tomorrow.

Day 51

Miles 27.53 Total for trip 1878.93
Avg spd 9.94
Max spd 36.74
Climb 1896
Alt chng ++363 Today I was riding to San Diego. I was going to see someone I had not seen for many years. I was going to stay the night and go see Glen Beck.

I had copied the directions from Google maps a couple nights ago. It was a good thing because my phone finally broke down. I was lucky that the directions I took down were correct. The directions took me right to the front door.

I had a great dinner and the show was good. Thanks Caroline, Walter, and family.

Day 50

Miles 35.07 Total for trip 1851.40
Avg spd 11.58
Max spd 32.69
Climb 1032
Alt chng --36 This was a really good spot for the last night on the beach. San Elijo State Beach was my campsite for the day. I got there around 1.30 pm and was informed they no longer had hiker/biker camps. I was told to ask the ranger if I could stay for the hiker/biker price of $3 instead of $25. The ranger said I could but could not check in until 4 pm.

I found the best buy in CA while I was waiting to check in. I saw a sign saying .99 for fish tacos. I ordered 2 tacos and a burger thinking the tacos would be small. I received my order and was pleasantly surprised the tacos were good sized and great.

This beach had the best surfing I have seen. The surfers are die hards. They stayed until around 9 pm and they were out there when I got up at 7 am. I am riding through San Deigo tomorrow , hopefully my directions will lead me to the right place.

Day 49

Miles 8.12 Total for trip 1816.33
Avg spd 9.56
Max spd 23.72
Climb 377
Alt chng ++6
Looks like summer has officially started now that school is out in Twin Falls. Have a fun summer.


I wanted to stay at Doheny for another night, but it is against the rules. It was ok San Clemente State Beach Park was less then 10 miles away. So I got out of camp around 8ish and found a laundry mat for some serious washing.


I made it to the San Clemente Park around 10.30, you guessed it I could not check in until 4 pm. I thought about riding to the next park which is 32 miles away, but would have to stay there 2 nights. Since I did not know if my next campsite San Elijo went by the rules (when I call the number for the parks I just get a recording and no info about the hiker/biker sites) I decided to wait it out in San Clemente. I rode around and checked out the city. Went to the pier and typed up my blog for the last few days, not a bad day.

Day 48

Miles 101.20 Total for trip 1808.21
Avg spd 12.23
Max spd 35.58
Climb 2244
Alt chng ++3

Today was about riding many miles, so I did not take any pictures.


Today is the day. I will try to ride farther then I have ever ridden in a day. I woke up at 5.30 and was out of the campsite right at 6.00 am. My goal was to get to the beach paths of LA before they got busy. I have had a couple riders tell me it is really slow going in LA. I made it to the first path in Santa Monica at 8.15 on Sunday. It was an overcast day so there were not many people out yet. The 17 miles of path through Santa Monica, Venice, and Manhattan Beach went really smooth. My next leg of the journey went through city streets of Redondo Beach, Torrance, and Carson. I missed the street from the bike path and had to backtrack a mile or so to get to Torrance Blvd. The streets were not very busy on a Sunday, I am sure they are very busy mon-fri. The next path was along the great Los Angeles River. Not so great, it is basically a big canal with very little water in it, but the path was nice. The busiest path was through Huntington Beach, but the path was as big as a two lane road so I was able to make good time through there. The toughest part of today was through Laguna Beach. It was tough because it was at the end of the day and it was the only city with any hills, plus through the main part of town there were no bike lanes and a lot of traffic, but after Laguna Beach it was only a few more miles to my campsite for the night Doheny State Beach.


All in all it was a good day considering how many miles I travelled.

Day 47

Got a serious flat tire in Ventura. I had a spare tube and found a nice place to change my tire so it was no problem.

Day off. Gearing up for the 100 mile ride through LA.

I meet another rider from Portland. He does the coast a week at a time. This week he is going to Disneyland and take advantage of getting birthdays free. He went on a cross country trip years back and was caught in a snow storm in South Dakota. He found a house he could buy for only 5,000 so he bought it and spent a year in South Dakota.

Day 46

Miles 52.64 Total for trip 1707.01
Avg spd 12.58
Max spd 32.58
Climb 847
Alt chng --19
I saw the neatest dog of the trip. His name is Wizard and he was rescued from a greyhound track.

I rode by RV row today. This is a road that has 100s of RV lined up on the right side camping. There were old RVs that looked like there were going to fall apart, and there were brand new RVs that ran around 300k. It was quite a site.

Yesterday while I was wandering around until 4.00 to get into camp I ran into Michael. He started hiking the coast 7 years ago each summer. The last 3 years he has been biking the coast. He rides around the same 250 miles and stops at the state parks. Last year he put around 5000 miles on his bike doing it. He was a talker (it seems like many of the bike tourers are talkers). He was telling me the best routes to take where I am headed and told me where some .99 stores were located. I ended up making it up until around 10 pm which is late for me.

Today my ride is around 50 miles. I am stopping at Leo Carrillo State Beach. I am stopping there for a couple reasons. They let bikers in before 4 pm and I am allowed to stay 2 nights to rest up for my long ride trough LA. The ride today was very flat with no wind so I had my highest average speed of the trip at 12.58. I went farther then I had to since I took a turn at Victoria instead of the road I needed which was Ventura. I saw the V and figured it had to be the road I needed. I had about a 3 mile detour through the coastal town of Channel Islands.

I got into camp around 3.30 and went to the beach. There were a couple surfers trying to surf, but the waves weren't big enough so they could not stand up on their boards without sinking. It was kinda funny to watch them.