Portland to San Francisco Bike Trip - Day 11

Day 11 Stats - August 29, 2006

• Garberville to Mendocino
• 78.18 miles, 5518 ft. elevation gain, 653.84 miles total (30,176 elev)
• Ride time 6h 29m, trip time 8h 36m, start time 07:31am
• Average speed 12.0 mph, max 35.1
• Cities visited: Garberville, Leggett, Westport, Fort Bragg, Mendocino
• Total flats to date: Aimee:1, Pam:0, Preston:1

A delightful cycling day, but physically very difficult!

We had a long day ahead so we got an early start with cold breakfast in our rooms at and then wheels rolling just after 7:30. Blue skies, cool but not cold for a change.

Hwy 101 was deserted in the morning and the miles flew by as we enjoyed the nice shoulder, smooth road surface, and almost complete dearth of cars. We skipped two small detours recommended by the cycling maps and stayed on 101 since the riding was so pleasant. In hindsight this turned out to be a sagacious move since the side roads were closed that day for construction!

Confusion Hill (an area just north of Leggett) provided the first physical and mental challenge of the day as we climbed about 1000 ft. and had to contend with limited-to-no shoulders as the truck traffic picked up.

At Leggett, we said goodbye to Hwy 101 forever and started on Hwy 1. We all fell in love with Hwy 1 immediately as the traffic dropped to almost nothing. We spent the next couple of hours ascending and descending the 1800-ft. peak of Leggett Hill (the biggest climb of our entire trip). The going was slow, and heavy tree coverage on both sides occluded any possible view, but the cycling was delightful nonetheless. It felt good to relax our mental guards and focus entirely on cycling without having to worry about getting plastered by a car.

There were no views at the summit, nor a sign indicating the summit, so our ascension was somewhat anticlimatic. We immediately dropped down the other side (freezing in the process) and then had to climb another 700-ft hill before we were finally ejected out onto the coastline.

It felt good to be back in the temperature environs of the coast after sweltering away the last couple of days inland. Cycling the coast along Hwy 1 was what I originally had envisioned the bike trip would be like (bikes whizzing along the cliffs, ocean on the right, mountains on the left, birds darting about, very few cars, cool breeze whipping at our heels). Today was the first day that the ride delivered on that expectation.

Had a great lunch of organic pizza in Westport (Aimee loves the abundance of organic foods in California). Ate lunch on some picnic tables at a beautiful conservancy spot right on the water.

Sped through many nameless coastal cities in the afternoon. Our cycling maps are a little too detailed: Some cities that are listed on the map are so small that we didn't even know that we had gone through them until we showed up at the next city on the map.

Got to Fort Bragg around 3:30pm. We had originally planned on spending the night here and then having a semi-rest day tomorrow in Mendocino, but we changed our plans enroute to include an extra day in SF. I am glad that we didn't give any commerce to Fort Bragg since it is an overcrowded coastal town with way too many aggressive drivers and totally inadequate bike lanes for a city this size. The southern side of Fort Bragg felt great because (a) we were leaving Fort Bragg forever, (b) it was slightly downhill, and (c) we had a tailwind :)

One final big climb of the day and we arrived in Mendocino, a very nice New England-inspired coastal town. This is a town where it's faster to walk than to take your car. Lots of neat little shops, including an organic co-op located in an old church. Before dinner, we walked around and marvelled at the immaculate gardens ubiquitous in this town, each with beautiful flowers and interesting plants (see the pictures if you're interested in some of them).

Grabbed dinner at the Mendocino Cafe then ice cream from the store down the street and back to the hotel in time to watch dusk over the ocean from our room.

We stayed in a B&B above a restaurant, the Blue Heron Inn. Very nice rooms and reasonably priced (for Mendocino) at $110/night. Noise from the restaurant did keep us up until they closed around 10-11pm, but they made up for it by preparing a delicious take-out breakfast for us the next morning.