330: PDX-SF2x Tour Preview

The wait is over, it's time to talk about the big 2023 summer bike tour... and it's an established route, but with a brand new twist! Normally, cycling the Oregon and California coasts between Tillamook and San Francisco takes about 16 days. What if we leveraged the fantastic (and sometimes surprising) transit opportunities and made this tour like listening to some of your favorite podcasts... at 2x speed?

PDX-SF2x Tour Preview

The route

 

My classic favorite... PDX-SF via the Oregon coast

 

The twist

 

Heavy. transit. help.

 

I'm able to get this ride done in half the time with the help of a series of transit agencies starting in Portland and ending in Santa Rosa, CA. What normall takes 16 days is going to take me 8. Assuming it all works.

 

The gear

 

We're going fully loaded

Going to try to minimize the weight within that load

Going to fly the big bike, so that means a measurable portion of a pannier will hold my Dogsbody Ground Effects bike bag.

Flying back and forth on Alaska Airlines, which means the bike is free to fly (I'm MVP and get two free checked bags)

Big duffel handles the rest of the gear and will be critical for the transit fast forwards

I have to figure out when the last time I had the Safari out west... it's been more than a few years, so this is exciting.

 

The weather

 

Likely a bit of a chill in the air, except for one notable portion

Rain is possible, but reasonably unikely this time of year

 

The basics on schedule

 

Fly into Portland on a Saturday night

Bus out to Tillamook Sunday late AM

Bike and camp at Cape Lookout SP

Combination of bike and bus

to Newport day 2

to North Bend day 3

to Brookings day 4

to Avenue of the Giants day 5

to Fort Bragg day 6

to Samuel P Taylor SP day 7

All bike to SF day 8

 

Transit agencies - 8 different ones!

Contiguous opportunities all the way to Benbow, CA and then you need to bike

Technically only about 66 miles of this route is completely uncovered by transit - and it's up and over Leggett Hill

The timing of this is critical because many agencies don't run on some or all of the weekend... to avoid a forced zero, this has to go as is.

 

 

The compromises

 

Some stellar parts of OR coast

South Crescent City Hills + Elk Prairie CG

Major chunk of Mendocino coast

 

What I still get

Much of the best of OR coast

Favorite 2 campsites in OR

Brewers on the Bay

Seven Devils

Bandon

Harris Beach - maybe 3rd fave campsite?

Eel River Brewing

Burlington

FF past Garberville

Leggett

Hotel in Fort Bragg - North Coast Brewing

Samuel P Taylor

Golden Gate Bridge

SF

 

So much fun, looking forward to sharing this with you!

Programming reminder - next week we're slotting in the August best of a few days early

The following week... we'll start the tour journal!