Pacific Coast Tour – Day 54 – 57; Newport Beach to Mexico to San Diego -We did it!

Day: 54
September 9, 2021

Distance: 56 miles (2162 total)
Newport Beach to Carlsbad

Today was our first real day experiencing that famous LA traffic. We rolled out of our hotel at our usual time, around 9am, and the streets were filled with cars. Luckily we had a decent shoulder or bike lane for the most part, although we did experience some more of the cars parked in the shoulder forcing us into the lane, but not as bad as Malibu.

Most of the morning was suburban riding. We saw a lot of houses, and not much else- although the majority were super fancy houses making it at least a little interesting to ride by.

After San Clemente we started getting away from civilization and it was mostly desert views. They were pretty, but also hot. Our weather app said it was 75ish, but with that full sun I swear it felt more like 90s. We ended up crashing on some shady picnic tables at San Onofre Campground. Usually Andrew struggles with heat more, but today I was the one suffering. I had to force my lunch down, knowing I would need the energy, but not having the appetite due to the heat. I guess the super slow extended lunch in the shade was enough to cool me off, because the rest of the ride was still hot, but no longer a struggle.

After lunch we had a weird stretch of abandoned highway that is now a super wide quiet bike lane. It went past a portion of Camp Pendleton, so we got to gawk at a tank doing donuts to our left and some crazy shaped helicopters to our right.

Because Camp Pendleton is a military base, it’s basically impossible for tourers to go through it. That means we had to hop on the big highway, I-5, for about 8 miles. Luckily there was a rest stop partway in with bathrooms, and overpriced yet wonderfully cold vending machine beverages. After refreshing ourselves with sugar drinks we were back on the interstate. Riding on I-5 really wasn’t bad. The shoulder was extra wide, although there was more debris in it than we’ve encountered on the other US and State highways. It was also a lot louder, we had to yell to talk to each other, and even then could barely hear the other.

Just after our interstate experience we hit Oceanside. This was a super cute looking beach town. So cute in fact that our bike friend Shreya, who had made it to the border already and was on her way back up to LA for a flight home, had decided to stop for a beach rest day. She saw us riding along the boardwalk and flagged us down. It was great to see her again and really makes that whole road magic thing seem real.

So a couple days ago back in Carpinteria we had met two tourers, Cori and Ron. They live in Carlsbad and were on a labor day weekend ride. After chatting with them at camp, Cori had invited us to stay with her when we came through Carlsbad. Not wanting to pass up such a great offer, that’s what we decided to do tonight. They treated us to eggplant parmesan, salad, and homemade pizzas. And to top it off, lemon pound cake! (They wanted to make sure we left with full stomachs and I’d say they met their goal).

After dinner we had some good conversations about our backgrounds, places we have been, bicycles, and every tourer’s favorite topic, food! Cori was curious about how we eat vegetarian on tour, so Andrew shared some information about what we’ve been eating and how that’s different than what we have at home. They didn’t keep us up too late though and graciously let us get into a real bed at our usual 9 pm bedtime.

Day: 55
September 10, 2021

Distance: 60 miles (2222 total)
Carlsbad to Tijuana River Valley

We did it! We made it to the US/Mexico border! …but I’m getting ahead of myself. The morning started off like any other, except with a much better breakfast thanks to Cori and Ron. After more chit chatting we took a picture all together and then hit the road.

Before we made much progress we had to swing by the grocery store for snacks, so we didn’t make it out of Carlsbad until 10ish. Luckily today’s ride was pleasant and mostly flat. As we rode through the various beach areas, several cyclists chatted with us and gave us preemptive congratulations.

I said mostly flat right? The Torrey Pines hill into La Jolla was surprisedly hard. We knew it was there and that it would be a hot ride, but I guess we were overconfident after all our Northern California hills. We made it into La Jolla sweaty and tired. Luckily we found a park with some shade and an ocean view to eat our last canned bean burritos. We bought Amy’s Beans as a celebration, but mostly because we just couldn’t look at a can of Rosarita’s right now (Amy’s is by far the best refried bean on the standard grocery store shelves – 10/10).

We really liked the vibe of San Diego at least the portion we rode through. As part of the ACA route we had one last ferry to ride to get over to Coronado, and a sweet bike path. Sadly as we rolled up to the pier we heard the horn blow and the ferry pull off. We hadn’t realized it was OUR ferry at the time, but still. We bought our tickets from the teller, and they told us we had just missed it, but there was another one that leaves in 20 minutes up the way. Glad to not have to wait an hour for the next ferry, we rushed to the other dock, only to realize it was a water taxi that would involve lifting our fully loaded tandem up into the boat (not to mention that it was tiny!) That wasn’t gonna happen. (Back in Oceanside Shreya had warned us about the water taxi boat, but it hadn’t clicked until that moment.) So upon seeing the tiny boat, we turned around and went back to the main pier to wait for the actual ferry with a ramp on board. Bonus miles! At least we got a smoothie to enjoy while we waited.

It’s about 20 miles to the border once in Coronado. We had a sweet bike path down the strand, and a lot of motivation to finish so we were moving pretty fast.

We went to the Friendship Circle portion of the border rather than the actual crossing. Due to the time of day, the park was closed to cars so it would be a 2 mile walk for any people hoping to visit, but it still felt really sad and empty. There’s a giant wetland area on the US side, so it makes sense that there’s not much here, but the stark comparison of the emptiness on the US side with the crowded beach on the Mexican side felt a little unsettling. Honestly it was kind of let down of a finish location, but c’est la vie. After taking a bunch of pictures and still not seeing anybody but the bored border patrol agent we reluctantly turned around and headed to our campground.

For our last night of camping we’re staying at the Tijuana River Valley campground. It’s relatively new (I think it opened this year) so all the trees are still babies. But it will be a really cool campground one day – hopefully they add hiker biker sites after they get popular and the campground fills up; being so new we didn’t have to worry about them not having enough space for us though. The campground even has a cute educational obstacle course, which of course we did. Despite a brief thunderstorm last night, we decided to risk it and go without the rainfly. That way we have a nice night sky for our last night out.

We decided not to cross the border simply because it didn’t seem worth it. We haven’t been the hugest fan of cities on this trip just because it’s harder to maneuver and keep track of our bike. Also it’s a 2 hour minimum wait at customs to get back in to the US. It’s also nice to bookend our trip- we didn’t cross either border, we just did the whole US coast, border to border. How cool!

Day: 56
September 11, 2021

Distance: 18 miles (2240 total)
Tijuana River Valley to San Diego

So we have to get home somehow right? Andrew’s mom Sally is going to be picking us up from San Diego and taking us as far as Denver, where she lives and we’ll have to figure out our way back to Portland from there. But before making the drive up to Colorado, we decided we should spend a couple days in San Diego- I mean we did ride a long way to get there right?

On our ride back into the city we stopped at a car wash to clean off the eight weeks of road filth we’ve collected. It felt good to have a not gross bike again.

We went back through the strand, so we decided to enjoy lunch in Coronado before catching a ferry to San Diego and our hotel. It’s gonna be hard weaning ourselves off our ice cream and other goodies we’ve been enjoying.

The rest of the day was pretty chill. Sally joined us after we checked into the hotel and we rested after our arduous 18 mile ride. Sometimes it’s nice to just sit in a hotel watching TV. We did venture out and explore Little Italy to stretch our legs and eat dinner at some point as well.

Day: 57 final day on the coast
September 12, 2021

Distance: (2240 total)
San Diego

We started with a rest day, so we’ll end with a rest day. We spent the morning exploring Balboa Park including the Museum of Us. For lunch we had tacos, but after our afternoon coffees we had to get to work to fold up and load the bike. We had a chill evening, and are excited to close out this crazy adventure so that we can start thinking up the next one!

We did it! Wooh. Now for the numbers

Average Daily Budget: $83.43

Average Daily Miles: 44.8 miles (not including the 7 rest days, counting our last day in San Diego)

Southern California (Total Trip)

Nights Camping: 2 (37)

Nights with WarmShowers Hosts: 2 (8)…counting our stay with Cori and Ron here

Nights with Friends/Family: 0 (7)

Nights in a Hotel: 3 (5)

Whale sighting: 0 (10+)

Horned owl: 1 (1)

Other tandems in action: 23 (26)

Outlets used: 6 (22+)…we got real lazy with battery conservation here at the end.

Chain drops: 1 (30)

Flats: 0 (0)! …I can finally put this count on here, didn’t want to jinx it!

Crashes: 0 (1)

Showers: Andrew, Angela: 6, 6 (32, 30)