Biking Across North America

We are a couple cycling across North America for what we think will be a distance of roughly 10,000kms. We departed on June 16th, 2010, from Prince Edward Island, Canada, and we are on our way to San Diego, California, U.S.A. We always wanted to see our country and visit the pacific coast of the United States, and we thought what better way than with our own energy on bicycles. We feel very fortunate to be able to do such a trip, knowing that many around the world can not for so many reasons. Since this is one of those special once in a life time occasion for us, we are trying to do our bit and take the opportunity to also raise awareness for the American and Canadian Lung Associations (2010 is Year of the Lung, and you can’t bike without good lungs and we all want clean air). We hope that we can inspire you through our stories as we have been inspired by others, and that you enjoy following our journey!

At long last, 6 months and 10,700km later, we have finally made it. Thank you for all the well wishes along the way and for following our trip!

We’ll update our other pages on our site which have been neglected down the Pacific Coast, including a few posts we are still behind in Oregon.. We’ll post some entries on our journey back home by airplane with our bikes to the snowy East Coast of Canada as well.

In the mean time, we are going to kick back for some R&R in the San Diego area for the next week before we fly home. Although I am not sure how we will adapt to not packing, biking, camping and finding food constantly!

“May the wind always be at your back,
and the shoulders ever wide.
And may the downhills always be longer than the ups”
The Cyclist’s Toast from the Velorution Guestbook

- Adam & Katherine

Today’s entry:

We woke up to an incredibly warm morning. The last time it was so warm on our trip was back in mid-summer in Ontario!

We had a very relaxing morning, and had cereal in the sunshine. Last night we met a couple from Newfoundland, Pat and Kirby (please correct us if we got it wrong!) who were travelling with their RV. After travelling this far it was neat to meet fellow East Coasters on our last night of camping!

This morning we met our camping neighbors Steve and Katherine from Arizona. They were interested in our trip and we were interested in their home-built tear-drop trailer they were towing with their car (you can see it in the background in the first photo). It was very neat. We had a great time chatting with them and donated our bear spray to them on our way out. It would be ironic if we encountered a bear on our way to the border but we hope that would be highly unlikely..

It didn’t take us too long to get to the border, but it involved several slow stop lights. Thankfully we were able to follow a bike lane pretty much all the way. Once we could see the border, it was incredible to compare the population density across the two countries in the border area. Tijuana was packed with buildings while the US side was an open field patrolled by US border security vehicles.

We were also surprised with the number of stores by the border, ranging from factory outlets to boutiques to big box stores. There was an incredible number of people from Mexico crossing the border by foot just for shopping!

Once we arrived at the border, we snapped our last bike trip photo of us at the Mexican border. The end of our trip and the start of another chapter of our lives!

Click here for today’s photos

GPX

After nearly 6 months of cycling, we reached our final destination of San Diego, California. It was a beautifully sunny day, and the temperature reached 25C, almost breaking the 27C record of 1952 for San Diego.

We said good bye to Sandy and Tom after a wonderful breakfast of bacon, eggs, and even pancakes with real Canadian Maple Syrup. Thank you Sandy and Tom!

We were filled with excitement as we headed towards San Diego in the warm sunny weather. We followed bike lanes all the way to the coast, and saw many day-riders out on their Saturday morning rides. We reached the South end of Mission Bay, and we could see fog in the distance and noticed the temperature drop. Fog is rare in San Diego but it’s been showing up the on and off for the last few days. We hooked on to the bike path that followed the bay inland and it quickly warmed back up. We managed to grab a few nice photos of us and our bikes with the San Diego skyline in the background.

As it was Saturday, there were many tourists and locals out and about on the waterfront. We stopped to enjoy the scenery along the way and we ended up chatting to quite a few people curious about us. We asked about cycling in Mexico and the people we asked said that because of the notorious roads with no shoulders and many crazy drivers, but more importantly the recent drug war crimes, it probably would not be the best idea. We would love to continue cycling South into Mexico and the Baja Peninsula, but agreed that it would be a little too much excitement and risqué for us at this time of our lives.. we know many people are still doing it, but maybe we’ll wait til we have a few more grey hairs later in life.

We also me Peter, who is living around the area and had previously bicycle toured from Seattle to Oregon. He told us a story when he was once stranded on the side of the road in Oregon with a wrench that was 2mm too wide to remove his rear cassette, and a woman stopped to ask if he needed any help. After a quick explanation of his problem she pulls out a toolbox from her car and gives him the right sized wrench and told him to keep it as he’ll probably make use of it again. We both agreed that meeting all the interesting and kind people along the way is one of the best part of touring by bicycle.

After enjoying the scenery by the waterfront we continued south. We hooked onto a bike lane on a road that went through the southern industrial area of San Diego past many Navy and commercial shipping ports. It was very quiet on a Saturday, and it made for a pleasant ride especially with the great tail wind. We passed by hundred of cars still wrapped in plastic covers that were recently off-loaded from the manufacturers in Asia and Europe. A couple ladies cycled past us and commented how warm and wonderful the weather was. It seemed like the weather was putting everybody in a good mood including us!

We eventually arrived in Chula Vista and the KOA campground for the night. After setting up camp we cycled out to a discount grocery store nearby to get supplies for dinner and breakfast. In Chula Vista we definitely felt the atmosphere of the area was quite different from the waterfront towns we had been visiting along the coast. It seemed people were in a great rush to get to wherever there were going and people drove accordingly (Update – we later learned that we had crossed into the southern tip of National City just at the grocery store…  which is where we could tell the atmosphere wasn’t as nice.. National City is not the nicest part of San Diego according to Wikipedia: “Although crime has dropped since the 1980s and 1990s, National City still has significant gang and drug activity, and perennially leads San Diego County in violent crime. Although in 2008, National City was homicide-free for the first time since 1963.”)

Tonight is our last night of camping on our trip, and with most KOA campgrounds we feel like we are in a deluxe campground / resort. We had the ‘Kamping Kitchens” again with the electric burners, dish washing sinks, and lighting. They have a perfectly flat and soft area filled with wood chips to pitch your tent, and picnic tables in the perfect size and weight in great condition. More importantly. they actually have hot water for their showers for a change compared to the California State Parks! I know, we are just so demanding sometimes..  The only downside was that they had a large jacuzzi that was actually open (a first at a campground!) but the water was luke warm.. But we’ll take the hot showers instead any day.

Tomorrow we are going to head down to the Mexican border for a quick photo-op, then we are going to head back up and kick back for some R&R around the San Diego area. It is hard to believe tomorrow is our last official bike day of our trip!!

Click here for today’s photos

GPX

We woke up a bit later than usual due to the very noisy campground the night before. We were one site in from the highway and the train tracks. After we had gone to bed, two separate RVs pulled into the campsites beside us and one even ran into the trees separating our site from theirs.

We had a great breakfast while we waited for the fog to clear. Unfortunately, this meant a wet tent. The fog lifted and we left the campground.

Several miles later, we encountered the fog yet again, at the Torrey Pines Reserves. We did manage to have a look at the pines, as this is one of the only places in the world you can find them.  Apparently, the special thing about these pines is that they have 5 pronged needle bunches (I have a feeling this is not the technical term for this…).

After that, we turned inland and headed toward Sandy and Tom’s place. We went past University of California San Diego, a large industrial area, a marine corp base and a long shopping district, all lined with bike paths. We spent several hours at Starbucks updating the blog and are looking forward to our visit with Sandy and Tom this evening.

We are planning on making a trip down to the border in the next couple of days for a photo op and then time for celebration!!!

Update:

We had a great time at Sandy and Tom’s and were welcomed with open arms. We met Paul, Allie, and Zack and had a great time! Thank you so much guys!!

Click here for today’s photos

GPX

We started the day riding on a bike path past a popular surfing area. Soon after we past a nuclear power plant, and then entered Camp Pendleton, a U.S. Marine Corps Base Camp.nTo avoid having cyclists needing to cycle on the prohibited I-5 freeway, they allow cyclists to bike through the camp. Initially we were on an abandoned section of the old highway 101 and a section of the road that is sometimes used as a test landing strip for the army (they close the road then). Once we arrived at the guarded entrance, the guard at the front gate was very friendly and after showing our ID he let us through. There were many day-riders and we were surprised an army camp would be a popular cycling route.

It was a really neat experience cycling through an army camp as we saw the marines in full gear training by the side of the road. There were army choppers flying over us and army Humvees and trucks driving by. We were also surprised to see so many regular cars driving around the camp. Near the exit to the camp we went past a suburb of base family homes, and even went past a big mall, complete with fast food chains and a large grocery store all within the base!

After exiting the camp we arrived at the waterfront, where we had lunch on a picnic table on the beach. It was a breezy day by the ocean, but the sunshine kept us nice and warm. While having lunch we met Gertie and Nick (please correct us if we were wrong! We are having trouble with names lately..). They were from B.C. and had been coming to the area in the winter for the last 17 years! We had a nice chat and they wished us a safe journey.

We continued cycling along the water front on bike paths and bike lanes. It was fantastic cycling. At one point a seagull decided to drop some white droppings on me, but thankfully it only hit the side of one pannier and no where else!

When we arrived at our camp ground in San Elijo, we had dinner as the fog started to roll in. Thankfully it was still warm, and we would take fog over snow or even rain any day

Click here for today’s photos

GPX

We made it through LA with flying colours, and are now headed towards San Diego to arrive in just 2 more days! Today we are headed from Newport Beach to a campground in San Clemente.

Although we could definitely notice the smog, the beach front and the bike path by the water was absolutely beautiful in LA. Best of all, even though it was 20C plus, we were the only ones there!

Update:

We followed the well marked bike path out of Irvine towards the coast. At one section there was a warning sign about Mountain Lions and the ‘rugged terrain’. After going through a perfectly normal section, we thought by those standards most of our trip should have had warning signs everywhere.

Once we got back on the coast we followed the PCH through a few congested towns with parked cars on the shoulders. We took some backroads to try to avoid some of the congestion. Once out of the towns we had a nice bike lane almost the entire route to our campground. We past a sign saying that there was 113km to San Diego! Surprisingly it was the second sign we had seen on our trip down the pacific coast where the distance was both in miles and kilometers. It was hard to believe we were so close to our final destination and the end of our trip.

Right before our campground we met Russel and Ned (please correct us if we were wrong!), who were credit card touring from San Jose down to Oceanside. They were from New York and were visiting LA on business and decided to squeeze in a bike trip while there were out on the west coast. It was their last day of their 5 day trip. We had a great time cycling with them and had a nice chat through a maze of residential streets.

We said good bye to Russel and Ned and headed towards our campground. When we arrived the lady at the front kiosk said that they had gotten rid of their hiker/biker rate, but that we could pick any free site we wanted for a special hiker/biker rate! She was very nice and we ended up getting a fantastic waterfront site! We would have to say it is definitely in the top 3 campsites we have stayed on our trip. The views to the beach down below was phenomenal, and after dinner we headed down for a quick walk on the beach for the sunset.

Click here for today’s photos

GPX