Pacific Coast Tour – Day 32 – 34; Standish Hickey (Leggett) to Salt Point State Park – New Friends in Northern California

Day: 32
August 18, 2021

Distance: 43 miles (1297 total)
Standish Hickey (Leggett) to MacKerricher (Fort Bragg)

Since it was so hot the previous day we set our alarm clocks so that we could get out and conquer that Leggett hill before the heat and traffic came in. It was actually our first time this trip getting up in the dark! Everyone else was impressed when we rolled out at 7:30.

The hill, while long, wasn’t as bad as feared, most likely due to our fresh legs. Don’t get me wrong, it still took us like an hour and a half to ascend including a bathroom break, a snack break, and a photo op. But we did it!

Sadly as we elevated, the smoke seemed to thicken. It wasn’t black, but you could definitely see, smell, and feel it. We were hoping as we descended it would disappear, but it seemed to follow us for the rest of the day. The descent wasn’t even that enjoyable because it was too steep and twisty, so Andrew had to ride the brakes most of the time.

Once past the major climb, and the second very rude bonus climb, we were cruising along pretty quick. There were some CalTrans mowers working which brought one of our downhill portions down to one way traffic, but we were the only ones at our end so we had a pilot car escort us out of the forest and to the ocean! It was nice to see the Pacific again, it’s been a while, and the last couple times we had seen it it was too foggy to see much.

We stopped in Westport for, you guessed it, ice cream, and carried on a little ways before breaking for our usual bean burritos at a beach overlook. We chatted up with a fire evacuee hiding from smoke, it was interesting hearing from someone who has had to deal with this consistently.

After lunch there were a lot of annoyingly rolling hills (they did at least come with pretty views). Originally we were gonna make the 6 mile detour into Fort Bragg tonight because we need a new tire (ours is starting to go bald) but after exhausting our selves on the hills we decided to beeline to the campground and just do a short mileage day tomorrow so we can run errands in town.

Since we left early, we rolled into our campground at 2:00. We had plenty of time to explore. The waves at the beach were crazy intense and mesmerizing to watch. They also had a neat boardwalk over the cliffs, with way too friendly and chubby ground squirrels. We also opted to grab some beers from the nearby convenience store and had a very relaxing evening.

Day: 33, Errand/Restish day
August 19, 2021

Distance: 17 miles (1314 total)
MacKerricher (Fort Bragg) to Van Damme State Park

Andrew awoke with a worrisome headache. We were already planning to leave late since the bike shop in Fort Bragg didn’t open until 10, but even the 4 miles into town seemed like a challenge in the state Andrew was in. Andrew still managed to make breakfast, but I did most of the packing up this morning. Luckily Andrew’s headache did disappear. He thinks it’s from the beer we had last night, I thought it might be from all the smoke. Maybe it was both.

Our ride to Fort Bragg was pretty uneventful but it was on a nice bike path. We had a few good views of the ocean, but it was pretty foggy today (thankfully not smokey) and came with a very cold ocean breeze.

The Fort Bragg bike shop was really cool, and the owner was very friendly and helpful. We bought a new tire since our front one was balding, and some new pedals for Andrew since his were squeaking. The bike shop was located inside a small mall type building so Andrew awkwardly changed the tire and pedals in the hallway. The bike shop owner also let us borrow some oil so we could try and get rid of the rest of our squeaks. It seems to have done the trick, for today at least!

After some pastries and coffee from the shop next door. We meandered our way to the CVS then the Safeway. By the time we were done with groceries it was 1:00! So naturally we ate lunch outside the Safeway in the parking lot. Dan, one of our bike comrades we’ve run into several times now also had similar errands to run today so we kept re-meeting up with him at the various stops. He, unlike us, decided to get more miles in and carry on.

With the short mileage, we made it to camp in good moods and high energy so we decided to play on the tandem swapping positions. It’s a very wobbly contraption! We definitely need more practice if we want to swap more but it was a fun way to kill time, and we entertained some of the other park goers at least.

We thought everyone from Standish Hickey we met the other night would be long gone, but two cool kids (Tom and Shreya) rolled into our campground after taking a last minute rest day yesterday and we were happy to catch up with them and hang out chatting about various things mostly tangentially related to bikes.

Day: 34
August 20, 2021

Distance: 66 miles (1380 total)
Van Damme State Park to Salt Point State Park

Shreya and Tom who are both wanting to get to San Francisco by Sunday were planning to go a similar distance as us so we decided to all ride together today. They kept Andrew and me moving at a faster pace than our usual stroll but it did feel good to push our muscles more than normal. It was another foggy cool day but we still had decent views of the rockstacks in the ocean. We even found a decent turnoff to enjoy the views with our second breakfast.

We carried on through some pretty gnarly “rolling hills” which really just meant “go down so you can go back up again”. At least the scenery was lovely farmland up on the cliffs. We even saw an elk chilling in a field.

We had a lot more miles and a few more stops before rolling into Anchor Bay, where we ate lunch in the market parking lot. Since they didn’t have public restrooms, we had to wait until Gualala to find restrooms and of course south of Gualala there were parks with public restrooms like every 5 min; where were those in the morning!?

After Gualala the longer ride and faster pace was definitely starting to hit Andrew and me. We were crashing and still had 20 miles to go! We powered through as best we could and eventually told Shreya and Tom to go ahead without us (Tom was a machine on those hills!).

Our 11mph average dropped down to 10 in our last 8 miles. That finish was rough. The others were exhausted too by the time they got to camp. To think we were originally planning to hit up a campground 3 miles farther. At the campground we basically all scarfed down our dinners and then crashed for the night.

Tomorrow we’ll be peeling off from the coast route to visit family so it’s a little bitter sweet saying goodbye. A lot of folks are stopping in San Francisco, but several are carrying on so maybe we’ll catch back up in the future -“road magic” is a thing.

Next Post