I’m writing from a beautiful home on 20 acres of land in Piercy, CA. It’s my first rest day, and I’m enjoying the solitude and sounds of nature around me. My Warmshowers host is Sam, a high school special education teacher with a love of gardening, so I’m currently sitting in one of his gardens writing this. There is an incredibly noisy squirrel in a tree nearby!
Today is Day 5 of my bike adventure, a perfect time to summarize the trip so far:
- Day 1: Crescent City-Trinidad, CA: 61 miles
- Lodging: Warmshowers – Spare bedroom at Carol’s house
- Day 2: Trinidad-Loleta, CA: 44 miles
- Lodging: Warmshowers – Camping in a garden at Angela and Jamie’s house
- Day 3: Loleta-Burlington Campground: 38 miles
- Lodging: Hiker/Biker Campground, $5
- Day 4: Burlington Campground-Piercy, CA: 37 miles
- Lodging: Spare room at Sam & Janelle’s house
- Day 5: Rest day in Piercy: 0 miles
Total miles: ~180, average 45 miles/day
Day 1: Crescent City-Trinidad, 61 miles
My host Rachel made an amazing veggie omelette, we double-checked that my bike was in working order, then I hit the road! I’m glad Rachel and Dave were the ones to see me off; they were great hosts!
Tip: If you bike the Pacific Coast Highway, there’s an enormous hill directly south of Crescent City. Rachel warned me, and I’m glad I mentally prepared for it. That was 15 miles/1.5 hours on a hill from hell. Glad I got that over with early!
CA is hilly, but nothing else that day was particularly grueling. My disc brake started rubbing at one point, but I fixed it. Then my chain started jumping and I didn’t have enough know-how to do more than adjust the derailleur cable on the road. So…I put up with a jumping cable for the last two hours of the ride.
The views that day were amazing! From coast, to redwoods, to farmland…everything was gorgeous. Towards the end I saw lots of “Beware of elk” sign and then…a herd of elk! Luckily they did not charge.
Trinidad is sixty miles from Crescent City, quite the undertaking on day one, but I managed to pull into my host’s house just after the sun had set. Carol greeted me with an AMAZING plate of food; the best I’ve had so far! She was also fun to talk to; she lives a zero waste lifestyle, used to be a dancer, and did a Fulbright studying dance in Brazil. So cool! She recently bought an electric bike so she can keep cycling as she nears her 70s. As an added plus, she has a basket of information for cyclists, including some fun facts about Trinidad. My favorite:
- Carol’s house is just about halfway between Canada and Mexico. The exact halfway point is 40.89N latitude, and her house is 41.06N. As she wrote in the information booklet: “Each degree of latitude is approximately 69 miles or 111 kilometers apart. We are approximately 12 miles or 19 kilometers from the precise halfway point.
Day 2: Trinidad-Loleta, 44 miles
I got a late start on this day; I needed to rest after that grueling hill on day one. Luckily I had only 40 miles to ride. My first stop was a bike shop in Arcata to get my chain fixed. Carol showed me an alternate route I could take to Arcata; instead of Highway 101 I traveled through 15 gorgeous miles along the Hammock Trail, so this was quite nice despite the jumping chain.
In Arcata I’m pretty sure I got played. The mechanic used his chain wear tool to check my chain and reported that it was worn out to the point of needing to be replaced. What?! This is a brand new bike, and I hadn’t even ridden 100 miles! He explained that the chain was poor quality and that it wasn’t surprising that a low-quality chain would wear out so quickly. I spent $112 at that shop for a new chain, $80 of labor cost, and replacing four screws that had come out of my crankset (for this I am glad I went to the bike shop; I hadn’t even noticed that I’d lost them!). I’m not sure I truly needed a new chain, but my bike is running a lot smoother now and at the time I was going through small-town CA, so I didn’t want to take a chance in case I couldn’t find a bike shop in the miles ahead.
That night I stayed in the backyard of Angela and Jamie in Loleta, CA. Jamie is a musician, so we had some great conversations about music and life. I set up my tent in their yard and spent a wonderful night camped out. I am grateful that they let me hang out the following day to catch up on grading before setting out.
Day 3: Loleta-Burlington Campground, 38 miles
The ride from Loleta to Burlington was amazing. It started out with miles and miles of beautiful farmland. I love riding through farmland and saying hello to all the cows. There was also a crazy steep descent in Ferndale, but the view beforehand was gorgeous. Eventually I hit the Avenue of the Giants, an incredible paved, mostly flat ride through the Humboldt Redwood State Park. I really enjoyed this ride, and the campground itself. Cyclists can stay at Burlington for just $5! I was the only tent there; everyone else had an RV!
Day 4: Burlington Campground-Piercy, 37 miles
I had a short ride ahead, so I started with a loop trail hike across the street from the campground. I can’t get over the size of these redwoods…they are enormous!
Then I began what turned out to be the most picturesque ride of the day. I can’t even describe it, so I’ll let the photos talk. Aside from the Avenue of the Giants, most of this was along the Eel River and Highway 101. I also visited the famous Shrine Tree and took the obligatory selfie inside the tree x-D
Early in the ride I was grateful to meet my next host, Sam, on his lunch break from the school he teaches at, so I was able to put my panniers in his truck and ride 27 happy miles pannier-free. So light!
Day 5: Rest day in Piercy, 0 miles
Sam and his wife Janelle live on twenty acres in a beautiful wooden house in Piercy, CA. I decided to spend two nights here and take a rest day to catch up on work. This was such a lovely rest and I was grateful for it.
What’s Next?
Tomorrow I’ve got a big ride; 60 miles to Caspar or 55 to Fort Bragg depending on what my legs are up for. I know that possibly the steepest hill of the entire PCH is coming up on this day, so we’ll see if I make it, or have to stop at a campground. My plan is to get to Point Cabrillo Light Station State Park for their gray whale festival on Saturday, so hopefully I’ll at least make it to Fort Bragg! Adventures ahead…
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