San Diego

Matthew and I made it to Natalya and Elmer's house on the north side of San Diego yesterday. Started from Lan and Hale's house in Irvine. (thanks, Hale/Lan/Elmer/Nat, for your great hospitality!)
Took this ceremonial dip-your-rear-wheel-in-the-Pacific-Ocean photo at Laguna Beach.

The fully-loaded rig weighs in at 48 lbs.

Biked along the coast, and hit bad weather for the first time of this trip. It rained on us the last couple hours of the journey. At least it wasn't too cold, and after a whole week of absolutely gorgeous, perfect weather, I can't complain about a day or two of rain. The only bad part was getting caught by darkness, missing a turn, climbing an extra big hill that we didn't need to, fighting rush-hour traffic in the rain, and nearly running into construction barrels. All part of the adventure...

"there are a lot of cool places in the world"

after the Time Trial on Wednesday, we drove down to Monterey Thursday morning to spectate the start of the next stage. Stage Starts are really cool because you get to watch the riders sign in, you get to hear what the riders have to say (the announcer interviews them as they sign in), and you also get to check out all the bikes up close. here are Discovery's bikes:

here is proof this one belongs to Eki. but they misspelled "Ekimov".

here are Saul Raisin, Bobby Julich, Chris Horner, and Carol, signing in/granting interviews.





today's stage is a 100+ mile jaunt down the coast from Monterey to San Luis Obispo. Juan Jose Haedo would win today's stage in a sprint finish.

after the race started and the riders rolled out of town, we did our own ride, along Monterey's 17 Mile Road, then down the coast on Hwy 1 to Big Sur and back. Man, that was one of the most beautiful stretches of road I have ever seen.

if you're ever in Big Sur, check out Nepenthe, a restaurant that overlooks the ocean. after eating dinner there, we cruised on down to San Luis Obispo and got a hotel room.

Friday morning, we again spectated the sign in and Start, then rode around San Luis Obispo, up a big climb that overlooks the valley, then down to the ocean and back. yet another beautiful day and beautiful place. Shige commented, "There are a lot of cool places in the world."


George Hincapie won today's stage. Friday evening, we got a hotel room in Thousand Oaks (where tomorrow's stage will finish) and visited my friends Mark and Mae in Santa Monica.

Saturday morning, i linked up with my cousin, Billy Powell, for breakfast. Billy says hi:

Then Shige and I rode our bikes around Thousand Oaks, spectated the finish (Olaf Pollack of T-Mobile won today's stage), climbed a big hill in Topanga Canyon, picked up Matt at his friends' place in Santa Monica, fought LA traffic jams, and finally made it to Lan and Hale's place in Irvine. Nat, Elmer, Michelle, and Adam cruised up to join us for dinner, too.


Sunday, Shige went home, which "cut the cord". We no longer have the safety net of Shige's car; Matthew and I are on our own with only our bikes for transportation. Thanks, Shige, for taking the week off work to spectate the Tour of California with us! That was a lot of fun.

Matthew and I went back up to Redondo Beach to spectate the final stage of the Tour. Olaf Pollack won again in another sprint finish, and Floyd Landis sealed the overall victory. Back to Hale's to spend the night, now I'm updating this blog, and tomorrow, Matthew and I will bike down to San Diego.

Here are the Browns (Hale, Lan, Kristine, Kimberly, and Calvin):

Here are the Browns plus a Holloway:

"this wouldn't have been complete without a creek crossing"

today was epic. we decided to ride our bikes from shige's house in Santa Cruz, over the mountain, and into San Jose to go spectate the Time Trial. so shige plotted a good route on Google Maps. it didn't look far; too bad Google Maps doesn't tell you which roads are dirt and/or Keep Out/No Trespassing. so we started with a jaunt along the coast, and then turned inland and started climbing. and climbing, and climbing. it just went on and on forever. just when we thought it was over, it kicked up some more. finally, 3300' of climbing later, we topped the ridge and were treated to a spectacular view of the pacific ocean. it was awesome.


but when we dropped down the other side toward San Jose, the road turned to dirt, which then got rough, and before we knew it, it turned into a full-on mountain bike ride, complete with mud, ruts, baby heads, and death cookies. here's a picture of shige and matt decending the trail on their road bikes.

when we crossed the stream, matt declared "this wouldn't have been complete without a creek crossing!"

alas, we finally made it to the bottom and soon thereafter found the time trial course, but since that whole journey took us a lot longer than anticipated, we got there too late and missed the time trial! but we did get to see the riders chilling out at their team vans afterward and caught the awards presentation. Floyd Landis won the stage and took the yellow jersey. David Zabriske was 2nd, Bobby Julich 3rd, George Hincapie 4th, and Nathan O'Neill 5th.

here's my David Zabriske impersonation:

We're back at Shige's place in Santa Cruz.  Yesterday, we spectated the Tour on this big climb just east of San Jose.  It was awesome.  The climb was huge, and the view of the valley was beautiful.  Sorry no pictures today, my camera's battery died.  George Hincapie won the stage and took the yellow jersey!  We're headed back over there today for the Time Trial.

 

 

Santa Rosa, CA

today, we biked through the beautiful countryside of Sonoma County, California. this is wine country. then we watched the stage finish in downtown Santa Rosa. Juan Jose Haedo won today's stage. Levi retained the yellow jersey. it's Levi's hometown. i found Charlie Brown. Charles Schultz lived in Santa Rosa, too.

JoeB, Amanda, and Freya say hi!

San Francisco

time to spectate the Tour of California, we headed to San Fran. today's stage was the Prologue in the Embarcadero District. here's George Hincapie, Michael Rogers (Time Trial World Champion), and Sid warming up. Levi Leipheimer won the stage.

where did Shige get that cool hat?

here's Matthew, pimpin' his ride, with Shige's support.

goin' back to cali

We made it to san fran, flew in last night. Man, that was a long flight. I'm thinking...If the flight out felt long, what's the bike ride home going to feel like? I'm in trouble. I figured out how to email this message to the blog from my phone. Pretty cool.

Baby, I'm not crazy, I'm just a little confused...

So I got laid off. It was weird. I mean, I never thought it would happen to me. It happened to lots of my friends over the years, and they moved on. But Panasonic seemed resilient.

I worked at Panasonic for 10 years, designing cell phones. I loved the work, the environment, and my co-workers, but Panasonic really struggled to get cell phones out the door. How many Panasonic cell phones did you ever see in the market? Alas, it's time to move on. I have no idea what I want to do next, but hopefully this trip will help me figure it out. Stay in this field? Career change? It's an open slate. Regardless, how often do you have an opportunity to take a multi-month sabbatical? To fulfill a dream? I feel very fortunate. Get laid off? Ride your bike across the country. Makes sense to me. As soon as the layoff rumours started last year, I was secretly hoping this would happen.

So I fly out to San Fran on Friday. Only 3 days and counting. I wish I were ready. I only just moved back into my house a few weeks ago, and I'm still getting situated. These house projects will have to wait. My bike is already out there, and my plane ticket is one-way. It's time to ride.

We're going to spectate the innaugural Tour of California next week. It was Matthew's idea. It didn't take me long to figure out the Tour of California's timing and route line up perfectly with my bigger goal. It will start in San Francisco on Feb 19th, and travel down the coast, finishing in Los Angeles on Feb 26th. I can't think of a more fitting way to start a cross-country cycling tour than by spectating a professional bike race. After the race is over, from LA, I will bike down to San Diego, then turn east, and ride home along the southern part of the country. I anticipate the whole thing will take me about two months.

Matt worked with me at Panasonic and also got laid off. He wants to do the whole trip across the country with me, but he's a little apprehensive about being gone so long without a job to come home to. So he's going to join me for the first two weeks - spectate the Tour of California, then ride with me to Tucson, AZ, then fly home from there. After that, I'll be on my own, but that's too far away to think about right now. I'm just looking forward to getting to California and spectating the tour, as all the pros will be there. Shige's going to take the week off work and ride with us, too. Should be fun.

Here's a picture of my rig. I loaded it up and took it for a test drive last week, before I put it in the mail to Shige. One change of clothes, a few spare tires/tubes/tools, an iPod, and a credit card; what else do you need? I borrowed the bike rack from Terry. Thanks, Terry! Terry is my hero. He did this trip last year. The rack makes the bike heavy. But to my surprise, I hardly noticed while riding. I do feel the weight, though, when going up hills or starting from a stop. And I found it's not a good idea to take your hands off the bars. It's so back-end heavy, the front end shimmies if you take your hands off the bars. But Terry says no-panniers are the way to go, for aerodynamic reasons, and this rack is perfect. I just hope I can fit all my gear in the bag. I'm glad Terry also loaned me his compression sack, too.

Wish me luck!