Category Archives: roadtrip

bikes, city, GPS, MTB, roadtrip, travel, USA, vehicles

Soquel Demo & San Fran

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Quite a few people (real & internet) had been raving about the riding just north of Santa Cruz – so I decided to check out the Soquel Demonstration Forest on our way north to San Francisco yesterday. Ducking off the highway onto Summit Rd, it was a long winding drive through some quite dense forest to the trailhead. I was fortunate to have Valerie drop me at the start of the fireroad (generally, you park at the bottom & ride up the road & then a fireroad until you get to the top of the ridge – then taking one of a number of singletracks back down to more fireroad to get back up to the parking lot).

The forest was beautiful – I haven’t seen such big (girth) trees for many, many months. There were quite a few redwoods around. It was a long monotonous ride up & a very fast looking local pointed me in the direction of the singletrack down. He told me that the famous Tractor trail would be logged (& therefore closed) on Monday & recommended I did it. It was a while along the Ridge trail before hitting Tractor. It was great fun down, with some quite fast bits & some nice banked corners. I remembered having a big smile on my face for that part. Then I hit the fireroad back up to the parking lot. Maybe I’ve been spoilt with all the riding (hope I’m not becoming a singletrack snob), maybe I’m a little worn out or maybe the lack of a big American sized meal the night before did it – but this part was exceedingly boring & long. In the end, I didn’t think all the boring fireroad climbing (over 800m in just over ninety minutes) was worth it for such descents. I had planned to go around the loop twice more, but just couldn’t face it. Can you believe my apathy was so great, I didn’t even bother to take a single photo all day?!

As Valerie hadn’t been to San Fran before, we pretty much spent the day wandering around the waterfront (Ferry Building, Pier 39, Fisherman’s Wharf, Maritime National Historic Area) & then up in to the suburbs a bit. It was much as I remember it – beautiful, touristy, busy (great markets around), sunny, foggy, windy, cold. We walked up a few steep hills & managed to walk down the Crookedest Street in the World part of Lombard St & marvel at the chaos as so many tourists drove down. We stumbled across the vibrant North Beach Fair (one of the city’s largest, apparently) on our way to the very large Chinatown. One of the highlights of me just strolling around letting Valerie explore was the many vintage streetcars that are still rolling around the city streets – they are great looking machines.

bikes, friends, GPS, MTB, roadtrip, travel, USA

Montana de Oro (again!) & Monterey Aquarium

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After trading Facebook messages with Emma for a couple of weeks, coincidentally we all ended up in San Luis Obispo on the same night. I met Emma & Brent at Easter two years ago (just before I left NZ) on what I still maintain is perhaps the best riding trip I’ve ever been on. We (a group of about thirteen – all from Napier/Hastings, except me) rode the Queen Charlotte Walkway at the top of the South Island over the long weekend. With big climbs, fantastic downhills, spectacular scenery, wonderful autumn/fall weather & a great group (I only knew one guy before the trip) – it’s a ride I’ll remember for a long time. Brent & Emma have quit their jobs back home, rented out houses & are now planning on taking four to five months to do a similar loop to what Valerie & I are currently doing (except in the opposite direction, starting from San Francisco). It was with just a little jealously that I listened to how they’d set their minvan up with a bed & bikes in the back – sort of what I’d been planning on doing originally – & saw a trip with two keen bikers.

Only a week into their trip they’ve had much more excitement than we have (& they can keep it) – police drug raids in the motel room next door, (lack of) visa hassles, a tick removed under local anesthetic & then discovering a car down a bank with a very drunk woman at the wheel last night. It was great (mint) to catch up last night in SLO over a beer & share riding & road-trip stories, trade recommendations & listen to true-blue Kiwi accents (although Emma still has a little English there).

They rode the same trails yesterday afternoon that I had that morning, but I was keen to ride with them so we hit the trails again this morning. It was nice to have people to chat with on the climb & then someone to chase/chase me down the hills. We followed the same loop mostly that I did yesterday (except starting at the campsite) & once most of the way up East Boundary cut off to the right & rode Barranca back to the fireroad.

A lot foggier at the top of Hazzard Peak compared to yesterday.

Barranca had a little bit of a climb & then turned into the most technical (not too bad) downhill in the area – it was much more rocks & gravel than the packed dirt on Hazzard Peak & Manzanita. I had a good fun chasing Brent down & trying not to swallow too much of the dust he was kicking up around the corners.

A tick-infested (OK, he had one) man kindly took this at the top of Barranca

Yesterday I had spied a little bit of trail on the other side of the creek, so we dipped down, crossed the creek & rode the Reservoir Flats trail back to the campsite. It was a fantastic little ride in the morning fog, super nice to have some Kiwi riding buddies (albeit briefly) – with goodbyes & good-driving well-wishes we parted way.

We’re now on our way north up the Central Coast to the acclaimed Monterey aquarium. It was weird as we drove up the 101 seeing that big layer of marine cloud sitting off west over the ocean, while we are bathed in sunshine. It’s beautiful countryside to drive through – gorgeous hills on both sides with extensive vineyards giving way to multitudes of market gardens in the center (big rows of pickers’ cars parked along the side of the road, seemingly in the middle of nowhere).

Looking at the atlas just after leaving SLO, it looks like it’ll make much more sense to continue up the coast to Santa Cruz (good riding) & San Fran before heading east to Yosemite & up to Lake Tahoe (instead of Monterey, east to Yellowstone, west to San Fran with a day trip south to Santa Cruz, & east again to Tahoe). So that’s probably what we’ll do.

*We had a good few hours to look around the aquarium. It was pretty cool, but now that summer vacation has begun it was packed with families which made it a little difficult to see some of the animals. Is it a bad sign that the thing I will remember most is that the plural of fish over here is ‘fishes’? Actually, the jellyfish & the sea-horses (& kin) were the best things.

A leafy sea-dragon

So this is what a cuttlefish really looks like – all those years I thought it was for feeding (dead) parrots

bikes, GPS, history, MTB, roadtrip, travel, USA

Montana de Oro & Hearst Castle

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A small State park half an hour’s drive south-west of San Luis Obispo, Montana de Oro’s trails came highly recommended from Chip. Arriving at the trailhead around ten o’clock, the view of the ocean was still shrouded in that strange coastal summer fog. Still, it was sunny above & I was off following another Garmin Connect trail up a fireroad. Just as I got to the start of the East Boundary, I met another rider coming down the hill & he told that the trails had changed a bit & advised me of the best route for a two to three hour ride. I continued up East Boundary with a few switchbacks, ignoring the trails I would have taken had it not been for the good advice. The climbing was pretty easy & I started to get some good views down the valleys. Pausing briefly to let a couple of horses past I was soon going down the other side to a fireroad. This was great fun as it was a smooth trail, but with some quite substantial water bars to jump off. All too soon as I was heading for the coast, with a nice cove, on the fire road.

The local club kindly provided tools in case I wanted to do a little trail maintenance

It wasn’t long until I got off the main road & headed up the Hazzard Peak trail. At the start of this trail, the local bike club had installed a box of small cow bells – for riders to borrow to warn other trail users of fast approaching riders.

I grabbed one for the hell of it, thinking I may as well give it a go. The bell didn’t last long on the gentle climb before being stuffed in my pack. In fact, after a few minutes of downhill I was driven so maniacal by the bell, I was likely to push anyone I met off the side of trail. I continued up the climb (about 300 metres, but not as steep as Monday’s 300m climb), crossed a few of the closed old trails before reaching Hazzard Peak.

The ride off the top was fantastic, some of the most fun, flowing downhill I’ve done in quite a while. There were ample little bumps to catch some air off, some loose rocks to make it interesting & plenty of banked corners to throw the bike into. About three times there would be a tight right-hander all of a sudden & you really had to make those as the outside edge was really sandy & off-camber. The last little part of the trail was called Manzanita & was also excellent, much bigger water bars to jump over with confidence. Back at the car in less than two hours, I was pleased I went around the direction I did.

Back at the motel in SLO we hurriedly booked the last two tickets for the 3.30 tour of Hearst Castle, had lunch & set off up Highway 1 for about an hour to check out William Randolph Hearst’s sprawling complex. Seriously rich from newspapers at the beginning of the twentieth century, he & architect Julia Morgan designed & built a huge place to house his extensive European & Egyptian art collection (he bought something like twenty percent of the big European art firesale after the First World War). The castle & its three guest houses are up a five mile driveway overlooking the Pacific on a site where Hearst used to camp with his parents when he was a kid (his father having built up an extensive holding of ranching land previously).

My first impressions were that it was just a big place of someone who had too much money just throwing all sorts of very old European artifacts together & it was all a little weird. But the place grew on me & as I saw more & more of the collection & heard where various pieces were from & how staggeringly old they were. For instance, in the main living/sitting room in the house were four gigantic Flemish tapestries – these four are part of an original set of ten, only five of which remain – these must be important as the Louvre has had replicas made of all ten. It was some serious art. The last thing we saw was another pool (the outdoor one was built three times before Hearst was happy with it & had pillars next to it about two-thousand years old) built under two tennis courts. The indoor pool was for the most part three metres deep & laid with thousands of beautiful tiles, quite a few of which were coated in 22 carat gold leaf. The guest list was quite something too – Bob Hope, Churchill, Chaplin, Cary Grant, Clark Gable & Carole Lombard, Hedda Hopper, WC Fields & all sorts of others I’ve never heard off. Quite an interesting place all up – unfortunately we didn’t see any of the zebra grazing the land as we drove out. Descendants of originals that used to be in the private zoo (which also included giraffes, polar bears, kangaroos, antelope, impala & others) they have managed to stick around.

city, history, roadtrip, travel, USA

La Brea & Hollywood Boulevard

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Giving the morning peak-hour a miss (a good excuse for not getting up too early) we left San Diego behind, eventually, & headed north. Although a much shorter & quite different visit than my previous one, once again I really enjoyed my stay there – if in some horrible circumstance I had to choose a big US city to live in, I dare say San Diego would be it.

We are aiming for San Luis Obispo today on Chip’s recommendation (great riding), so that makes for 500 km/300 miles of freeway to get to the coast somewhere between LA & San Francisco. Getting through LA wasn’t nearly as bad as last time I drove from San Fran to San Diego in one day (via the Pacific Coast Highway), & no doubt the traffic would have been a lot better if we hadn’t got distracted around Hollywood. Valerie suddenly remembered that she really wanted to see the La Brea Tarpits, which really aren’t far from Hollywood Boulevard.

We knew a little about the tarpits beforehand but were blown away by just how extensive the paleontological finds were. With the biggest collection in the world (use a Clarkson voice) of fossils in the range of 11000 to 50000 years old, there really are a lot – three million, with at least as many to come from Project 23 (twenty-three big boxes excavated from a parking garage construction). There were sabre-tooth cats, mammoths, mastadons, really big sloths, a giant jaguar & on display over four-hundred dire wolf skulls. That really emphasized just how many animals got trapped in the tar. Coming up from an oilfield below the surface, the tar/asphalt/heavy oil still finds its way to the surface – you could touch some of it as you walked around the park outside the museum. The animals didn’t get trapped & then sink, they got stuck up to a few inches in before dying of starvation, dehydration, exhaustion or ending up as prey (the predators would often get stuck too, so you’d end up with so many different fossils in one big tangle). All in all a great & very interesting place to visit.

Harlan’s Ground Sloth – that’s well taller than me

Californian Sabre Tooth Cat

A Mammoth – of course

Still bubbling away – if you look closely enough in this particular picture

We headed back to Hollywood Boulevard to have a quick peak. I was staggered just how many stars there are on the Walk of Fame – but with such a long history of entertainment, I suppose I shouldn’t have been surprised. Also with so many names, I didn’t recognize many of them. We also spent a bit of time checking out the hand & footprints outside the Chinese Theater before heading back to the car to hit the freeway.

Quite a bit of the first part of the 101 followed the coastline, but we had the fog to obscure our view. Since getting through Santa Barbara & giving up the driving, the road has turned north inland & the countryside is beautiful in the early evening light. Lots of rolling hills are now playing host to many vineyards – just when we’ve almost finished those six bottles from Grand Junction.

*It turns out San Luis Obispo is a really, really nice big town with beautiful scenery, lots of bars & restaurants & a great feel to it. We had Moroccan for dinner – the tangine was superb. That & the four cheese meal I had last night reminded me of a few dinners out in Auckland with ye of little Faith… I have a sneaking suspicion that I stopped for lunch in this town two years ago, the streets seem familiar somehow. It must have been when I’d abandoned the foggy Pacific Coast Highway & headed for the 101.

Yes, I was right – “Lunch in San Luis Obispo – a very nice little city & I stumbled upon a great Italian restaurant. I would have stayed the night in San Luis Obispo if I didn’t have to get back for court tomorrow as the riding is supposed to be very good.” Speaking of the riding, I’m all prepared to hit Montana de Oro State Park tomorrow – I hope the weather is fine for some great views.

Yet another sidenote – it looks like Joel & Kristy (friends from up in Canmore) are planning a roadtrip down this sort of way – might get to see some mates soon, I hope around Tahoe somewhere.