Touring California’s Lost Coast, Fifth and Final Part

The final two days of our eight day lost-coast tour were beautiful and pleasant, though nowhere near as epic feeling as the previous days.

By day seven, my knees were getting pretty darn grouchy. I’m not sure if this was because my saddle had slipped a bit (something I only figured out upon my return home), or simply due to lots of mileage and climbing. I tend to think it was a mix of both. In any event, combined with Esteban’s angry Achilles tendon, we were not bursting with bike mileage energy the way we had been on previous days.

The morning ride into Point Reyes Station was only 38 miles and 1754 feet of climbing. While I had thoughts of exploring Point Reyes National Seashore, I found myself content to spend the afternoon chilling in town and hoping my knee would heal up a bit for the climb over Mt. Tam in the morning.

(Signs that you are in Marin)

After a ridiculously good lunch at the Pine Cone Diner (does every restaurant in Marin serve only local organic food?) and some gluten free pastries at Bovine Bakery, we made a pilgrimage to Black Mountain Cycles, where we found a customer’s Cunningham in the stand. Hands down one of the coolest bike shops out there. If you are in the area, go and give Mike some of your money.

We ended up staying at the RV park in Olema, which I really can’t recommend unless you are determined to be close to Pt. Reyes. In the future, I’ll continue on to Samuel P. Taylor park up the road. It worked out Ok in the end though, as we had a couple of other friends touring the area who stumbled upon us, and we were able to do the final day’s ride over Mt. Tam as a foursome.

We began our final day early with a 7am rollout from camp. Our plan was to ride over Mt. Tam, get lunch in Mill Valley, make it to the airport to pick up my car, and drive all the way back to San Diego before midnight when I turn into a pumpkin.

The initial climb up Bo-Fax was terrific, though signs on the road tended to be less than encouraging:

We arrived at Ridgecrest Road before it was open to traffic, and the light made for some spectacular Jesus effects.

By the time we hit the dirt of Old Stage Coach and Railroad Grade, we might have been able to see the end in sight, except that it was covered by clouds.

It was interesting to think about this as the birthplace of mountain biking and how this might have affected some of the early designs. You can certainly see how things like a drop bar Cunningham make an awful lot of sense on the Mt. Tam fireroads.  It was a bit funny to see so many people riding dual suspension bikes, but maybe I am ignorant of some of the rougher dirt options on Mt. Tam?

Lunch at Punjabi Burrito in Mill Valley is not to be missed. You know you are back in civilization when you can order an Indian fusion burrito with quinoa!

After a final push, the end was literally in sight:

One of the most hair raising experiences of the entire tour was ironically the ride across the Golden Gate Bridge, where high winds and a seemingly endless stream of oncoming tourists on rental bikes made a head-on collision seem almost inevitable.

While we thought about spending the afternoon in San Francisco visiting Box Dog Bikes and a few other shops, in the end we voted to make the long slog of a drive home so that we could spend the following day with kids and wives. We ended the final day with 44 miles and 3626 in climbing, plus a solid eight hours of driving!

All in all, it was a terrific trip. It’s hard to capture the deep satisfaction I take from a trip like this in words. I do know that a lot of my chronic aches such as lower back pain tend to go away on a trip like this as the stress just seems to melt away in the here and now bliss of it all. Now that I’m back, I can’t stop scheming about the next one.