Ocean cycling - racing up the West Coast

My first wake-up next to the sea wasn't nice at all. Everything was grey and foggy and temperatures had dropped to almost 13℃ at night - Californian summer!:) At least it was super dry and no sign of moisture anywhere, although the fog was all around.
When I reached the next tiny village at the beginning of the cliff-coast section called Ragged Point I ordered, for first time on this trip, a hot chocolate instead of a cold soft-drink:) The guy in the shop told me that it usually stayes that foggy most of the day and can clear up very rarely in the late afternoon. He also told me that they get this fog and the low temperatures every year the whole time between June and the end of August when it always clears up suddenly and you get super warm summer weather for a couple of weeks. That was so hard to believe that this place with not even 17℃/62℉ in the highs should get 35℃/95℉ not even two weeks from now! Now I really had to find out what was wrong about this weather here and looked it up while enjoying my very hot chocolate:)
It's actually quite simple: All the weather here is influenced by the very cold California-stream which flows from the north to the south right next to the coast. This stream never exceeds 15℃/60℉ in the summer and cools down the warm and humid air coming from the tropical sea which causes all the fog right in front of the coast. This effect is reinforced by the warm air rising above the land "pulling" the air from the sea towards the coast. The fog is hold back then by the coastal mountains and once it gets inland it simply dissolves above the heated ground. This effect causes this miserable but dry, foggy weather at the coast, while just a few miles inland you can swim in your pool when it's too hot for anything else. But at the end of August the inland starts to cool down, the "pulling" of the raising air becomes less and the fog stays away from the coast which changes the coastal weather from grey and cold to hot and sunny within just a couple of days. The result of this is that right at the coast the warmest months of the year are September and October instead of July and August like everywhere else. Actually that was exactly what expected before but it really surprised me that this phenomenon becomes so extreme here that you're barely able to see the sun for two months!

Rough campsite above the street this time

Starting in foggy weather the very first time

It's summer, yes!

It's so summer!:)

But now my route was already planned and although I would have liked some sunshine while cycling along the coast the temperatures in the afternoon were actually quite comfortable for cycling, without the wind, not too cold. At least you could see the cliffs a couple hundred meters out of the water till they disappeared in the fog which still looked pretty impressive and probably even more rough and wild than in sunshine.
Besides of the weather I had another wrong expectation of the Californian coast. On the map you would guess that now after all the mountain cycling the flat and comfortable part begins cause the coast as most people know is flat, right?
Well...I would say "flat" and "comfortable" are not the words I would choose for describing the part of Highway 1 between Paso Robles and Big Sur. "What the hell?", "Why?" and "Are you kidding?" fit way better! The guys who planned that road somehow thought it might be funny to make it least flat as possible. In fact the road is going up for maybe 200m/680ft and down to sea level again just to go up another time continuing like this the whole time! Maybe they wanted to build a roller coaster but then changed their mind? Whatever the reason was, it lead to the day with the second most meters in altitude after the Yosemite-climb, 1981m uphill in one day, at the coast!! However the temperatures were alright and I made quite good distance (as much as possible on this road) till I reached the little pass (300m) before Big Sur.
Suddenly I spotted a whale down in the ocean, I don't know which kind but definitely really big, what a surprise! Whale-watching for free:) Now that I was very close to Big Sur the traffic on the street changed totally. Most of the cars were either firefighters or policeman now and not many tourists anymore. A few kilometers later then I could see the fire by myself: It was coming down the mountain ridge right on the other side of the valley, not even 1km/0,6mi away from the street! Literally the whole side of the valley was burning, really scary, and I could imagine quite well why they would probably close the road very soon and evacuated the whole valley. At the next gas-station they had plenty of info-material about the fire and a few maps were you could see the proceeding of it during the last 20 days. The cause apparently was an illegal campfire located 15 km north of Big Sur which turned now into a massive bush-fire, burning more than 70000acres/280km^2 so far! Luckily the smoke has been blowing inland this day so I couldn't smell anything.
To find a place to sleep that night I had to cycle even 20 km further because they were about to close the whole section of the road around the fire during the night which meant nobody was allowed to stay inside this section between 10pm and 6am the next day but I made it out easily so I didn't have to care about his anymore:)

Super flat coastal-road

Sooooo flat! :)

Guess in the sunshine these colors would look amazing!

Abnormal flat part of the road:)

Deep blue ocean water (yes I used a filter:)

Whalewatching for free:)

Endless wild coast...

The Soberanes Fire coming down the mountain

A map of the current situation: The red areas are the ones which are currently burning. the more green it becomes the cooler it is. The red dot is me.

The next day I intended to get to Santa Cruz where I intended to meet Jodi and her family. This time there is not much to tell about the cycling during the day cause nothing special (except of my hot chocolate in the morning) happened. After just 20km/12mi the steep coast sections gave way to the wide Salinas Valley, I had to cross before reaching Santa Cruz at the other end. One interesting fact might be that Salinas Valley is also known as "The Salad Bowl Of The World" cause here almost 80% of the whole salad in the US is growing! But that was really it. The sky was grey, not much nature, all flat and so I could cycle pretty fast and reached Jodi's home already by 4:30pm in Santa Cruz. She, her husband Jesse and her two kids are living in a really nice house and neighborhood not far from the sea.
And again I got such a nice welcome! After taking a shower Jodi made a whole bowl full of enchiladas, filled with chicken, cheese and other delicious things I didn't ask about:) It was sooo good! During the evening we had lots of talks and she told me that she got some friends in San Francisco I really have to meet so I wrote down their contact cause I really liked the idea of staying at someones house there way more than staying in a random (and expensive) hostel.
Before I left the next morning Jodi made me a whole bag with sandwiches, snacks and candy which I totally enjoyed, everything (especially the sandwiches) was really delicious, thanks so much for everything, really! I felt kinda sad that I didn't stay at their home longer but now I was really focused on getting to San Francisco in time so I decided not to risk being in a rush at the very end and went on. After a couple of hours along the coast something crazy happened: The sun came out! Yeah, unbelievable! I got two hours of pure sunshine, soooo crazy! (If you can't believe it either, watch the photos:) Unfortunately after two hours the fun was over and fog started to come in again near Half Moon Bay. This was also the spot where I finally had to turn right, otherwise I would have ended 20km/12mi further in a city called San Francisco which I promised myself not to cycle into before I would have reached the 10000km-mark. Current standing: 9480km/5890mi so I had to do a northern loop around the bay and back south on Highway 1 to gain the missing 520km/323mi. With 6 more days to go, no problem! I turned right then and cycled over a tiny pass to the other side of the coastal hills into the San Francisco Bay Area, where I immediately, after crossing the pass summit, got my sunshine back. Even these tiny hills were able to hold the fog back and save the Bay sunshine while people in Half Moon Bay have to freeze. Cause I didn't want to cycle the whole way around the southern end of the bay I planned on taking one of these giant bridges across to get to the other side. Unfortunately the San Mateo Bridge which started right were I entered the bay wasn't open for cyclists so I had to take Dumbarton Bridge 20km/12mi south of San Mateo. Right next to this bridge I spotted the Google Headquarters on the map, just a 10km detour and because it actually didn't matter how I would get my kilometers done I decided to take a look.
Somehow Google Maps guided me through the very middle of Stanford University which was somehow exactly between me and Google:)
Wow! This university is really nice! Palms, flowers and green stuff everywhere between these nice designed buildings with their tiled roofs. I would definitely love to study here but I'm probably to dumb and to poor for that:/ Cause I took so many photos there it was already getting dark and I planned on cycling to Google the next morning and tried to find a place to sleep now which turned out to be quite difficult cause the Bay Area is actually a single giant city with not too much wilderness but I found something then when I headed a little bit back towards the hills.

My campsite under a giant tree

Pig crossing ahead:)

Deer walking through the streets of Pacific Grove

Jodi's home in Santa Cruz

The whole family:)

Cute kitty they have:)

Mmmmh...yummy!:)

Carzy, sunshine!

Wild coast sections just 30km/19mi before San Francisco

Second Whale-watching for free:)

Fog flowing over the hills and dissolving in the bay.

Stanford University Main Entrance

Inside the Campus

The Googleplex was huge! I'm not sure how many buildings they've got but definitely more than 50! Unfortunately there's not much to see if you're not going inside but the main buildings are surprisingly small for such a huge company! Nevertheless it was interesting to see but I didn't stay too long there and went over Dumbarton Bridge soon after. Although this is one of the shorter bridges of the bay it took me more than half an hour to cross it which was definitely the longest bridge ride I ever did. Same time as my arrival on the other side the sun came out and the wind as well. It was blowing quite strong directly from the sea so the direction didn't bothered me too much but it made me feel quite cold during the day although the sun was shining. From Dumbarton Bridge I cycled the whole way on bike-paths through the eastern bay area which includes the cities of San Lorenzo, San Leandro, Alameda, Oakland, Berkeley, Albany and Richmond. Actually I never knew when I left one city and entered another (if viewed from space everything looks like one big city!) Most of the time the bike-paths kept me away from the water but one time I couldn't resist on taking a look of where I would end and I could see it very clear across the bay: the beautiful city of San Francisco. It was so close, just one hour to cycle but for now it was just watching, no touching!:/ The more I cycled away from the open sea now the warmer it became again and by sunset I got the highest temperature of the day with 24°C/75°F which is the perfect temperature for cycling in my opinion. Right before Carquinez Bridge at the northeastern end of the bay I pitched my tent before entering the city of Vallejo on the other side where it would have been probably hard to find a place to camp. During this evening I recognized that I might had caught a cold during the last couple of days which was actually not that much a surprise after this cool-down but it became really bad during the night. I definitely had fever and just could hope that it would be a little bit better the next morning cause getting really sick so close to the end would have been horrible!

The next morning it was slightly better. The fever was apparently gone but I still felt really sick so I decided to give it up and take the train to San Francisco.

Camping near Stanford

Under this tree:)

Google Headquarters

Google bikes everywhere

Approaching Dumbarton Bridge

Canals somewhere near Oakland

There it is: San Francisco on the other side of the bay

The very top of Golden Gate Bridge sticking out of the fog.

I'm kidding:D Never ever would I have taken the train after cycling 9600km/5970mi so far unless I would have broken both legs or gotten an illness I couldn't have walked with anymore. So I just started a little slower than usual and got myself another hot chocolate which really helped my throat which hurt really bad this morning. Then around 10am I got another call from SWR3 which was funny because that wasn't the night show this time, it was 7pm in Germany. Another host of the evening-show said hello and I remembered how that could have happened. The day before they were doing a quiz in the radio where people from all over the world could sent hints of the place they're staying in the moment to SWR3 and people listening can guess which place/city that would be. I sent a couple of hints for San Francisco and why I'm here but nothing happened so I expected nothing else to happen anymore because usually he doesn't call people for a quiz. I guess he didn't know that I was talking several times a week with the other host cause he sounded quite surprised by my story and did a short interview with me. The funny thing was that this wasn't live but I didn't know that he was recording so I just talked like during a normal phone call. One hour later after somebody solved the quiz he played exactly this talk we had before, pretending it to be a live interview. For somebody who didn't know it was really quite hard to realize that this wasn't live.
I was just interested who the other host I was talking to usually would say. If he would feel cheated?:D

My plan for the next four days was perfect: Exactly after two days I should reach the coast again and then the remaining distance on Highway 1 should be perfect for two comfortable final days:) Now that I was cycling approximately 30-40km apart from the coast the summer was back and the temperatures hit 36°C/97°F again. I was cycling through Napa Valley that day, apparently famous for its wine according to the hundreds of vineyards I passed. One thing I still haven't found out about this valley was where all these limousines were coming from. Dozens of 7-8m long limousines passed me during the day and my only explanation was that this wine must be insanely good, cause even in Vegas I saw less of them!:)
Cause I still felt a little bit weak from my cold I was super happy then when I heard out of the sudden this BOOM-sound and stood completely still the next moment. At least it was no tire-wire this time cause the only thing I found was a big hole where something really big and sharp must have hit my tire. Probably a piece of a wine bottle, one of these rich guys had thrown out of his limousine (just an assumption:) So I could change my tube in the sunshine and enjoying the heat what my body at this moment really didn't like!
But I guess I should see this positive: Nothing really bad happened, I was feeling better and I could cycle the rest of the day over a little hill into the next valley (Alexander Valley) where I stayed the following night close to a little town called Geyserville.

Campsite near Carquinez

Looks pretty familiar:/

:/

Camping in the woods close to Geyserville.

My way from San Simeon to Geyserville

From Yosemite to the coast - last days of summer

After I woke up the next morning I got my first surprise of the day: I've been camping in some kind of limpet. They were sticking on simply everything: my socks, on and in my shoes, on my tent even on my skin!! They were definitely the most penetrating kind of limpet I've ever seen, sooo hard to remove, all hundreds of them and the next problem was that I forgot that I had to get out of the grass first so I could start gain pulling them off on the street.

Everywhere and sooo hard to remove!

After 30km of cycling through the foothills I had to make an important decision on how to get to Yosemite from there. I had two options which were both damn hard to ride just according to my map. Cause there was no road following the Merced River upstream to Yosemite Valley from here, both roads were going over the mountains:/ The first option would have been to take a 50km detour doing two 500m-climbs including the 600m up the Valley at the end (1600m uphill in total). The second option was to take the straight way to the valley climbing up from 300m to 1900m over the closest mountain ridge between here and Yosemite, maybe including some up and down in between. Because I assumed that although the straight route seemed harder it might take me faster to Yosemite so I didn't think much more about it and started on going up.

On the first 800m-climb of the day

What I missed somehow was that after the first 700m uphill the road went down again, maybe 100 meters and then a little bit up, then down and so on...
This continued for at least 30km so before the final climb I already did 1700m in altitude but gained not even 900. I'm not exaggerating when I say that the final 600m-climb didn't feel very comfortable anymore to my knees but I wanted to reach at least the summit that day for not having to do another climb the next morning. And so I did. Around 7pm I finally reached the top of the pass and still had an hour left till sunset but I decided to stay at the top and save the 700m-downhill to Yosemite Valley for the next day. For the first time that day I could take a clear look on the landscape around me, cause I haven't been able to enjoy it on the way up really. From here you could overlook the whole western Sierra during the sunset, what an amazing view!

"right lane turns right ahead" you can't be serious!:)

In a traffic jam in front of the northern entrance

I'm there:)

Burned forests along the road.

The only problem was to find a place to sleep. Cause I had entered the National Park already I wasn't allowed to sleep just anywhere (what I probably wouldn't have done anyway because of all the bears in the park.) So I had to take the only campground up there which would have been something around 25$ for me according to the guy in the gas station. But I was lucky again: the campsite was full and the rangers already left at 8 pm so I just entered the campground, chose a random site and asked the people there if I could pitch my tent somewhere (I mean there was plenty of space for hundreds of other tents although every site was occupied apparently). As I expected, it worked already the first time and I could stay on the site of a young couple from the East Coast (New York or somewhere over there) who were on a 6-week road-trip across the US. They were really nice and told me about their trip as I told em of mine and we ended up playing rummy the whole evening till it became to dark, which I luckily learned just a couple months ago in New Zealand (thanks to Jake Sowe for that, I won a round;) They even offered me some S'Mores, a marshmallow and some chocolate between two crackers which apparently is one of the most popular campfire-snacks in the US and I really liked it! They were kinda shocked when they found out that I've never heard of it or even seen it but I'm intending to spread it out in Europe successfully:). Cause of everything they offered me I had to give something back which were a few dollars for the site and some of my Mac&Cheese which was way to much for me anyway:)
So I can say that this evening definitely saved my day after setting a new altitude-record: 2386m/7820ft uphill lifting my average of the last five days now over 1700m/5600ft per day, definitely the most exhausting week I've ever had!

A "S'More" weird look bit very tasty!

They definitely made sure they don't have to refill the toilet paper for a month!:)

The next day I could finally do what I've been looking for for weeks: Visiting Yosemite Valley:) But before I could start my down-ride I had to see something else what I've camped just a mile away from: Giant Sequoia Trees! There're three Groves in the park and one of them, Tolumne Grove, was just a mile-walk away from the road so I simply couldn't miss the chance of seeing the biggest trees in the world! (The tallest Sequoias are the Coastal Sequoia Trees which grow in northern California (up to 115m/377ft) but these ones here are the ones with the largest volume, so they've got the biggest trunks) And they weren't kidding! Wow, wow and wow! These trees are massive! With a diameter of 6 or more meters (20 or more feet) it needs at least 10 or more people to "hug" the tree completely and these ones aren't even the biggest ones, which you can find in the Sequoia National Park south of Yosemite (up to 95m tall and more than 8m wide at the bottom) but still super impressive!

Me and an other guy in front of a giant fallen Sequoia

me compared to the biggest tree in Tolumne Grove

After this short walk I could start my down-ride to my big goal of the day, the actual Valley.
Already what I've seen from approaching on the pass road was stunning: Although Yosemite Valley is a super touristic place (they even built a one-way road system to avoid traffic jams in the park) they managed it somehow to hide most of the buildings and streets in the pine forests so it still has most of its natural look:) Besides of that it looks just breathtaking. Looking into the valley you got to see the Bridalveil Falls to your right and the giant cliff of El Capitan with it's fmous 900m-vertical climbing route called "The Nose" on your left. Going deeper you can spot the famous mountain "Half Dome" in the very back of the valley which looks like a bowl cut in half and the also famous Yosemite Falls on the left side of the valley. Everything so close together that you could see everything within an hour but what I wanted to do was hiking up to at least one of these spots at the top of the upper rim of the valley  to get a look from above.
As I expected there was no permit available for Half Dome that day so I asked for the hike with the best view over the valley and the woman at the Visitor Center suggest me hiking up to Glacier Point, a scenic overlook from the east side of the valley from where you could see apparently pretty much everything of Yosemite. Unfortunately as I was used to already, there was no storage available anywhere so I had to leave my bike including all my bags behind and hoped that I would find everything locked at a fence again when I would be back.

El Capitan and "the nose" at the entrance of the valley.

My "favourite" kind of tourism:)

Yosemite Falls almost dried out during the summer.

The hike (800m uphill) was pretty awesome with all the scenic overlooks I was promised (for more details look at the photos) it took me almost 2 hours uphill and 1 1/4 down on a super well maintained trail. The only bad thing was that Glacier Point on the very top was also accessible by car so you get hundreds of people up there and lots of tourist buses with people from everywhere in the world but what should I expect from on of the most famous places in the US:) By the time I was back (bike and bags still there:) it still wasn't too late to cycle up to an overlook called "Tunnel view" from where you can take one of the most famous photos of Yosemite (the one you always see on postcards) and I even got this view during sunset! After that I still got enough time to cycle out of the park (actually I had to cycle 2 miles back into the valley because of the one-way-system:/) and left the park at the El Portal-Entrance at the western end following the Merced River downstream till I found a neat place to camp on an abandoned picnic area.

Looking west out of the valley

The eastern end of the valley with the famous Half Dome

On the top of Glacier Point

Waterfall you would pass on the hike up to Half Dome

Found a swimming hole at the river, but soooo cold!

Most famous overlook from Tunnel View with El Capitan on the left, Half Dome in the back and Bridalveil Falls on the right

Moose right next to road

My goal for the day after Yosemite was clear: Leaving the mountains now! During the last week I did more than 10000m/32800ft uphill (by bike and by foot) and although I wouldn't say it wasn't nice I definitely wanted to have at least one or two days of flat and comfortable cycling after this!:) How convenient that the big Californian Central Valley was ahead which I head to cross diagonally to get to Paso Robles and then to the coast. The Central Valley, more than 600km/370mi long and 80km/50mi wide was the perfect environment for chilling and making lots of distance the same time. If just the wind would blow the right direction... and it did!! Once I was cycling out of the foothills after Mariposa I got a gentle wind blowing from the north while I was heading south after the village of Planada almost straight for the next 150km! To be honest, cycling through the central valley during the summer heat is quite boring cause the only thing you're gonna see for over 150km are corn-fields and almond orchards, nothing else!! The same plants everywhere in this giant valley. Even a single orchard has the size of several square miles (they're so big that it's easy to hide in so I used one of these as my sleeping place for the night). I really wonder where they get all the water from to irrigate all this cause everywhere you can see canals with open flowing water between the fields. With this massive evaporation that must cause it's no wonder that they get such severe water problems here in California during droughts. Another thing I noticed while cycling through this valley was that almost everybody here seems to have an Hispanic background. It changed just out of the sudden when I entered the valley, maybe that's because the have many Hispanic workers here on the farms? I don't know but it's like Spanish seems to be the only spoken language, it really felt like cycling through a different country:)

Camping St an abandoned picnic area next to Merced River

Cycling through the foothills of the Sierra

Finally out of the mountains!

Got this view the whole day!

At least it's pretty good for camping in:)

By far the largest cup I've seen so far: 52oz/1,5l !!

Cycling healthy...

...and yummy!:) 

Impossible to see the end of that!

This valley was so big that I needed till the next evening to leave it in the southwest after passing the small town Avenal and cycling over a small pass into the coastal hills near Paso Robles where I stayed the next night. Everything around here looks as dry as in the desert although I already crossed the Sierra Nevada, so strange! Wether they've got still this severe drought or that is normal during the summer here but so dry while being so close to the sea? I really wanted to find out about this later but I wanted to reach the coast first!:)

Leaving the central valley, not much difference to the desert really but good for photos:) 

Last inland campsite before reaching the coast:)

The next day I was supposed to finally reach the other side of the continent after 71 days of cycling and already more than 9000km behind me! But first I got slowed down by something I really wanted to do for weeks now and somehow never got the chance really: Eating in a Denny's. Since I got the tip from these three fellows back in Utah I passed dozens of Denny's but somehow never been hungry enough to afford the Pancakes-All-You-Can-Eat for 4 Dollars. But this time the Denny's in Paso Robles appeared at exactly the right time and as I definitely wanted to sit in one of these before finishing my trip this was the perfect moment:) And it was awesome! I loooove american pancakes and although this is kind of a pancake-chain and I'm not an expert, I guess that they're really good, fresh made and served together with some kind of butter and maple syrup, sooo delicious. Once I got my first plate I already ordered the second one and recognized why this would be probably my only time in a Denny's on this trip. For a hungry person it takes just soooo long. It may could have been way slower but the All You Can Eat is really like you have to ask for another two pancakes every time, they write down your order, bring it to the kitchen, make two pancakes, bring it to you and you're finishing them within a minute (at least I did:) and so you have two wait 10 to 15 minutes every time for just two pancakes which is too long for me also considering that you have to wait a couple of minutes extra at the beginning to be seated and until the waitress comes to pick up your order. But I really don't wanna say it's bad, it really isn't! It tastes awesome, it's just not like in a fast food restaurant where you can pick up your food quickly when you're in a rush.

Yummy!

On the last 30km/19mi to the coast then I passed the first warning-sign of a large wildfire north of Big Sur, a little town 100km north on Highway 1. I talked to several people about that before and they told me that they might gonna close the road soon if the fire would come closer to the highway but that would mean returning the whole way back and doing a 300km-detour inland which I really didn't wanna do so I just went on taking the risk of turning back. While I was getting closer to the coast the temperatures dropped steadily what I was expecting cause I heard of the moderate climate there before but this was just crazy. From almost 37°C/99°F in Paso Robles the temperatures dropped to almost 17°C/62°F when I reached Highway 1. With the rough wind blowing from the sea I was really freezing!
But I was there, just a few kilometers later I finally was standing in front of it: the Pacific Ocean! What a feeling. Waited more than 70 days for that and now I completed the crossing (but not the trip, please keep reading!:) and was looking at thousands of kilometers of water in front of me.
But it looked totally different than I expected! For everyone (including me) who expected blue water, sunshine and summer feeling, forget it! A main reason because it looked so different probably was the large bush fire north of Big Sur. Although it was more than 100km/60mi north of where I was the wind was blowing from such an unfavorable direction that the smoke covered the whole sky and painted everything in an incredible red color in the middle of the afternoon! I'm not kidding when I say that it was literally raining ash! To be honest, this environment with its cold and windy weather, the rough and steep cliff-coast, the dark smoke-covered blood-read sky and the rain of ash rather reminded me of Mordor in the Lord of the Rings than of what you call "The Golden State". It kinda felt like being in the wrong movie where they changed pretty much everything I was used to. And if I was still something like 100km away from the fire, how would it look like up there? I didn't even want to think about it!

Warning signs of the big bush fire everywhere on the road

The last down-ride to the coast!

There it is: Highway 1:)

Brrrrrrh!

The west coast, there it is!

The sun, barely visible through the smoke.

No sunset yet! (4pm)

Mordor or Golden State? Mmmh...

The sea-elephants look like they would enjoy this climate:)

White ash raining down on me!

And last but not least my route