Day 11
May 25th 2004
Some Shun Sunshine. Do You Shun Sunshine ?
Today was a big, difficult day. I was off to my usual early start and headed for the coast. In a recent article in an American motorcycle touring magazine, they mentioned that the Pacific Coast Highway between Los Angeles and San Francisco is too congested with RV's to be worth recommending. What they did recommend was the coast highway north of San Francisco. This is what I was to do today. Hélène and I had done the PC Highway south of San Francisco in 2001 and it's true that it was heavy traffic all the way. We had done a small part of the coastal highway last spring, but it was too twisty and made Hélène nauseous, so we got off of it. Perfect recipe for the bike ?
The weather was cool and foggy. This is probably the clearest it got all morning. The fog was never thick enough get the road wet or to limit road visibility, but the scenery was well hidden by the fog. That's okay, we had seen the scenery before. I was here today for the roads
When we went on our honeymoon in Europe, we visited many, many museums and churches. At first everything was awe-inspiring and exciting, but then after a few weeks of this, everything started to look the same. I desperately tried to avoid feeling the same way about the Pacific Coast Highway. After all, it's considered to be "world class" riding. But after some of the roads I'd been on during this trip, It would have to be special...
Let's start with the good stuff. It's got the beautiful scenery thing going for it. On a sunny day, the many overlooks are really something. The curves and switchbacks are pretty nice too.
On the downside, all the RV and truck travel has taken it's toll on the pavement. Especially in corners and switchbacks, it's rutted and patched, in some spots, almost as bad as we could see in New Brunswick. This road has been in existence for a long time, and putting banking in the corners wasn't invented yet. Some corners are actually off-camber. More than once I've ground the footpegs in the pavement today. Traffic was also a big issue. There are many small towns dotting the coastal highway and even though I was there bright and early in the morning, the delivery and garbage trucks were doing their rounds. It's double-yellow lines pretty much all along, but there are little turnoffs where slower traffic can momentarily pull over to let people pass. It took me 4 hours to ride the 300 km of coastal highway.
All in all, I'm glad I did this stretch of highway just to say I did it, but in terms of quality of riding, there are probably dozens of roads in California that are a lot more fun. Even today, the stretch of Highway 1 from the coast to Leggett, as well as a stretch of highway 199 between Crescent City and Grant's Pass were much more challenging and enjoyable. They were also newer, both in terms of engineering and pavement, which helps a lot. I have to give the Pacific Coast Highway a "B".
One thing I couldn't resist today was to pay the $ 4.00 and ride through the tree in Leggett
After I got to Leggett, I put in a call to the BMW dealer in Vancouver to see if I could get set-up with a new rear tire. I spoke to "Rusty", the service manager and after I told him what I was doing, he was very accommodating. The only problem was to see if he could get the tire I wanted by the time I'd be in Vancouver. I had to phone him back after half an hour to see how he made out finding the tire. No problem at all. He asked me if I could be in Vancouver tomorrow before lunch and I said "sure".
This changed my plans a little bit for the rest of the day. I wanted to get to within a few hours of Vancouver tonight to be able to get up, ride to Blaine (Checkpoint # 3) and make it to Vancouver in time for my tire change. Unfortunately, there were no quick roads for a while, until after Grant's Pass. There was much more slow going stuck behind trucks and assorted traffic.
Of course I hardly saw the sun and it rained for the last 2 hours of the day. All in all, a long, rough day, but at least I know that tomorrow I'm getting a new tire, and I only have to ride something like 250 km total. This will be a rest day in Vancouver to regroup and get ready for the little northern expedition to Alaska.
Sorry about the lack of pictures of the Pacific Coast Highway, the fog sucked and also I didn't want to stop and let by all the traffic I had worked so hard to pass.
Day Stats:
Total Distance: 1 372 km (Sebastopol, Ca to Federal Way, Wa)
Total Time: 14 h 15 minutes
Overall Average: 96 km / h