Author: neil

Rett, inspired by the sunset the night before, surprised me by suggesting that we set our alarm early enough to get up, make some coffee, and head down the cliff to watch the sunrise from the beach. In our previous life, Rett had a childlike stubborn resistance to going to sleep before the clock on…

An almost zero-mile day gave us plenty of time to stay in our motel until checkout. Rett used the time to make a series of phone calls, attempting to straighten out a Target order she’d had sent to a US Post Office via General Delivery, but had been shipped by non-USPS companies, leaving her stuff…

Walking the bikes back down the steep, rough track in the morning was certainly easier than the way up, but I still had to keep my wits about me to prevent my ~100 lb. vehicle from sliding out sideways on curvy ruts. We had nine more miles of empty, no-centerline, smooth-surface backroad riding to enjoy…

The Santa Cruz Mountains rise south of San Francisco, dividing Silicon Valley from the Pacific Ocean to the west. The normal Pacific Coast bike route keeps you hugging the coast out of San Francisco, so most cyclists won’t even notice them. But our route into Silicon Valley had us way too far south on the…

Sometimes mornings just suck. Nothing to do with Jayaram, Aparna, and Dharma, who were just as gracious as always seeing us on our way in the morning, similar to how they left the same front door for their epic adventure 20 months ago (maybe we’ll also return to their door in 10 months time like…