I’ve decided it is time for a bike tour!   I’m going to ride up the Pacific Coast.   I’ve gone on bike tours a few time in the past – and it has always helped to clear my head and get me focused on what is to come next in my life.

In my 20’s I did a great ride from Salt Lake City to Glacier National Park. About 15 years ago I rode the North Carolina Outer Banks. I’ve done enough bike touring to know that the tour I plan, and the tour I do, are often very different things. I set out once to ride across North Carolina to its western border with Tennessee, but that trip got aborted after a couple of days because I got tired of riding in the rain.

So I am a little reluctant to define my plan so precisely now. I know I want to ride, and I know I am going to ride north from my home in Newport Beach up the coast. Beyond that, I am intending to leave things a little open. I intend to ride solo – although if I hook up with some interesting riders along the way, that might change. I intend to be self-contained, carrying everything I need on the bike and camping along the way. But I’m an old, out of shape, fat guy. If camping turns out to be a miserable experience and my body doesn’t want to play that game, then maybe I’ll spend a few more nights in motels than I think now.

My intent is to generally follow the route of the Pacific Coast Bicycle Route as defined by the Adventure Cycling Association  (ACA). This organization has detailed a wonderful route that follows the Pacific Coast from Vancouver to the Mexican Border. Of course, the ACA suggests that the route be ridden from north to south. The prevailing winds are usually from the north, and lots of the infrastructure (overlooks, campgrounds, etc.) are located on the ocean side of the ride. But heck, I live in the south and if I want to ride from my house, then I gotta go north!

Tentative plans call for me to initially ride to Paso Robles – north of Santa Barbara on the Central Coast. Nancy will come and join me there with her bike, and we will ride a few days in the heart of the Central Coast Wine Region. From there I intend to ride up past San Francisco and into the Napa Valley. Nancy will join me there again, and we can spend a week or so riding in the Napa and Sonoma Valleys.

The Adventure Cycling route goes straight up the coast, so I am going to map the detours inland to Paso Robles and to Sonoma  using good old Google Maps.   Google maps provides a great overview of every accessible road in the US (and most of the rest of the world for that matter), and they have a pretty good cycling route planner that will find roads with low traffic volumes and/or marked bike lanes.

As you can see, we are heading for wine country. Nancy and I both love wine – we like to learn about it, we like to talk about it, we love to meet the people who grow the grapes, and who make the wine. And of course, drinking it is usually pretty nice too. We have long daydreamed about combining a cycling vacation with a wine country visit. This trip looks to fulfill that dream.

There are some things I do not plan to do. I do not intend to wear a watch. In fact, I’m not even going to bring a watch with me. I intend that the pace of my days be dictated by the weather, my body, the road, and my moods. I am really tired of the clock dictating what I can do, and this trip will be a change of pace from that.

I also intend to get enough sleep. I’m not going to get up early to keep to a schedule unless I feel like it. For the last ten years I have deprived myself of sleep during the week, and tried to catch up on the weekends. Its doesn’t work well for me. I’m going to let my body dictate how much sleep it needs.

Importantly, I intend to meet some people. People different from me.  People who I wouldn’t be likely to run into while working for a big medical device company. People who might give me a glimpse of a different way of life, or a different way of looking at the world. Don’t get me wrong – I know a lot of amazing people and have many tremendous friends that I wouldn’t give up for the world. But my life is a little sheltered and a bit ‘white bread’. It’s that way on purpose really – my life is comfortable and easy and convenient. But I know there are lots of other perspectives that I might learn from – and I am hoping tis trip might help me to see a few.

Will any of this happen as planned? Who can say? I know I will miss Nancy tremendously. Spending time with her and sharing my life with her is my greatest joy in life. Voluntarily being away from her for an extended period is a bitter pill to swallow. Perhaps I won’t enjoy this at all and I’ll quit in two days. Perhaps I’ll get to Santa Barbara and decide to spend two weeks there enjoying that city’s beauty. Or I could stop in San Francisco. Or maybe I will continue up the coast – stopping in Portland, or Seattle or Vancouver!

The big idea, apparently, is not to have much of a plan. Anything is possible, which is what holds such magic for me. And it makes it incumbent upon you, dear reader, to check back regularly to learn how the trip evolves and where it is taking me. I will commit to updating this journal on a regular basis and to keeping all of you informed about my whereabouts and the marvelous events that will befall me along the way.