First day's route to San Francisco

We thought that the best way would be to take one of our normal routes toward Crystal Springs and just keep going. It turns out that is just the thing to do. A little googling turned up The San Mateo County Scenic Bicycle Route.


Piece of cake. So come next Saturday, we load up, hit the road and follow this route right to Ocean Beach where we will do the ceremonial Pacific Coast tire dip. Maybe. Or maybe we will do it at Crissey field which is a place near and dear to us.

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We will get here soon

We wanted to use cartographe to show our tentative route across America this summer. The easiest way to do that is just to plot some points and let cartographe connect the dots.

In case it isn't clear that the maps are interactive, here is how you use them:

• click on the USA map in an area along our route, this will take you to a more detailed map


• click on a "bike" or "photo" icon in the detailed map, this will take you to the linked item, normally a weblog or photolog post


• to move between maps, click on the arrows

That is it!

For now, these tentative points all link to this entry. We will be replacing these links with links to photos and journal entries as we progress across the country.

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Which route to take?

We wanted to take this route all along but were intimidated by the passes and the remoteness of the route. Then, just over the past few days a couple of things happened that changed our mind.

First, we ran into a young man named Garth in Healdsburg who works at the local bike shop (Spoke Folk Cyclery)who took this route last year. We talked at length and came away believing that it was doable.

Then just last night we were checking out the first section on the web. The crossing of the Sierra Nevada my be the most extreme part of the whole trip so we wanted to check out lodgings and elevation gains along the route.

And what did we find? Nothing less than a great review of the scariest part of the ride, Mormon Emigrant Trail to Silver Lake by our local bike shop.

Being the superstitious mud eaters that we are, we took this as a sign. Now we are commited. You can't go against the signs!

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Sonoma in May, Wine Country Century

This year the century will be our big tune up ride for the trip across country. At one hundred miles, it is farther than we plan to ride on a daily basis, but it is only one day and we are not hauling any gear.

This century is the one we do every year. It is beautiful country and a great excuse to head to the wine country for a long weekend. How can you beat:

A big ride



A nice meal



and of course, wine.

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