Down the Pacific Coast by Bike

Rain, redwoods and the long road to Mexico.

Our journey down the west coast of North America did not end with a cinematic plunge into the Pacific. It finished two miles south of Imperial Beach, pushing unloaded touring bikes through unrideable sand while a US Border Patrol helicopter circled overhead.

Ahead of us, a steel fence cut through the dunes and carried on into the surf. Mounted guards moved through the dry scrub on the American side. On the Mexican side, families were swimming, eating and laughing on the beach.

After several weeks in the saddle from Vancouver, you feel a little entitled to a plaque — or something to mark the end of the Pacific Coast Cycling Route. There was no finishing post, no discreet sign of congratulation, only the quiet certainty that we had made it. It was an odd moment: joy at arriving; puzzlement at finishing in front of a heavily guarded steel barrier while laughter and ordinary life carried on a few metres away, on the far side of it.

It was an appropriately strange conclusion to a journey that had never quite gone to plan.

Six weeks earlier, before we had turned a single pedal, we had met our first obstacle: the baggage-claim counter at Seattle–Tacoma International Airport.

Bikeless in Seattle

Every long journey demands a small leap of faith. It helps, though, if your bikes make the leap with you.

The two bikes had gone onto the conveyor together at Heathrow — we were sure of that. On arrival in Seattle, only one of them reappeared. We watched every carousel until they had shed their loads, slowed, shuddered and stopped. The count stayed stubbornly at one.

The missing bike, it emerged, had failed to make the connection in Paris and was expected on the following day's flight. This was not reassuring. The trip had been planned for months; it needed two bikes for two riders, not one. The airline's information about compensation did not help either. Our visions of mountains, coastline and forest began to dissolve in the face of our first real adversary — airline bureaucracy. Something like thirty million pieces of luggage go astray in air travel each year. You find yourself thinking about that number when your bicycle is one of them.

Then, joy: in the early hours we were woken in our hotel room by a courier holding a bike box. Ride enough long miles on a touring bike and you develop a strong attachment to it — something to be nurtured and protected, faintly like a child. A different vibration, a new note from the drive train: these are things you notice, and attend to. Our luck was in. The bike had survived the diversion undamaged.

The next day, whole again, we made our way to the coast and rebuilt the bikes at Port Angeles. Panniers loaded, we rolled downhill to the Black Ball ferry and crossed to Victoria, on Vancouver Island. From there we rode north through wooded country and quiet lanes to Swartz Bay, and took a second ferry across to Tsawwassen, on the mainland south of Vancouver.

If you ever have the chance to take the crossing between Swartz Bay and Tsawwassen, take it. The ferry threads a labyrinth of forested islands, rocky shores and narrow channels, with mountains beyond and — if you are lucky — seals, porpoises and the occasional whale to watch from the rail.

The Pacific Coast had begun to work its spell. The missing bike was forgotten; the ferries were the picture-postcard scenes of our imaginations. We loved the crossing. We did not love the road out of Tsawwassen.

Traffic was heavy, there was no real shoulder, and Margaret picked up a nail in her front tyre. We had made good ground towards Vancouver before discovering that bicycles are barred from the road tunnel to Richmond. Luckily, Vancouver's buses carry racks on the front. We stripped off the luggage, hoisted the bikes onto the rack, and reached central Richmond without further trouble.

A ride that nearly ended in Washington

We spent a few days with friends near Vancouver before setting off in earnest on 4 July. Loaded with camping gear, tools, spare clothing and an unreasonable quantity of hope, we rode south through Richmond and crossed back into the United States.

Snow-covered mountains stood off to the east. Families gathered on beaches and in parks for Independence Day, and fireworks cracked around our campground that evening — though from inside a tent they could as easily have been small-arms fire.

Disaster came the next day, near Bellingham, when Margaret fell. She escaped fractures, but her knee and elbow were badly grazed and her right thumb had taken much of the impact. Riding was just about possible; working the front brake was becoming steadily harder.

The following morning we crossed Deception Pass, where the road spans dark, fast water between steep wooded islands. The scenery was magnificent. Margaret's hand was not.

At Oak Harbor, a bike shop replaced the shoe damaged in the fall, freed a jammed cleat from the pedal and made enough small adjustments to keep us moving. From there we rode on to the emergency department at Coupeville.

The hospital felt more like a hotel — a scene of unexpected calm, with a grand piano in the lobby, few patients and no harassed staff hurrying anywhere. After several phone calls involving our travel insurer, Margaret was examined.

There were no fractures, but the doctor suspected ligament damage: gamekeeper's thumb. Without a dependable grip on the brake, continuing a heavily loaded ride down the Pacific coast was plainly unsafe. As gently as he could, he suggested our journey was over.

We looked at each other. A second opinion, perhaps?

For the moment, though, we took the advice. We left the bikes behind, went back to Seattle, hired a car, returned to collect them, and spent several days edging south through Washington and Oregon while Margaret's hand recovered.

The rental car became a mobile convalescence ward. We visited Mount St Helens, passed through Portland and Salem, and eventually reached Eugene. We were tourists now, travelling with air conditioning and upholstered seats — but neither of us was willing to accept that this was how the journey would end.

Cautiously, we tested riding again. After four days, Margaret could grip the brake lever: not comfortably, but well enough. So at Eugene Airport we returned the car, rebuilt our travelling lives on two bicycle frames, and rode west towards the ocean.

Our route would no longer form an unbroken line from Vancouver to Mexico; we had missed a good stretch of Washington and northern Oregon. That mattered less than the simple fact that the ride — briefly reduced to a heap of bags and abandoned plans — was alive again.

Starting again in Oregon

The road from Eugene to Florence followed a river valley towards the coast. It was direct, but carried heavy traffic — logging trucks and RVs whose drivers seemed urgently determined to reach the Pacific before we did.

Forty-five miles in, the road vanished into a tunnel. A button at the entrance let cyclists trigger warning lights announcing bicycles inside: a thoughtful system that had no measurable effect on the behaviour of motorists. The tunnel climbed towards a blind crest, and cars and trucks came out of the darkness behind us, accelerating downhill as we pedalled for the exit. We emerged intact and reached Florence late in the afternoon.

That night, rain tapped on the tent. The hiker–biker area around us was crowded with other travellers heading south, and the Oregon coast introduced us to the true character of the route. The name suggests a leisurely line beside the sea. In practice the Pacific was often several hundred feet below us, as the road hauled itself over yet another forested headland.

There was rain around Reedsport and North Bend, steep work on the Seven Devils Road, and a run through small towns shaped by fishing, timber and summer visitors. Bandon was full of tourists. At Port Orford we ate breakfast in the Paradise Café before returning to the mist. Then, just south of Port Orford, the coast suddenly delivered everything its reputation had promised.

The sun came out. The sea turned blue. Rocky stacks rose from the water and long beaches ran between wooded headlands, while the road climbed and fell above them, handing out views so extravagant that even the hills seemed, briefly, reasonable.

Only briefly.

The climb out of Gold Beach went on for miles, then returned in several instalments. The next day we crossed into California, passing the agricultural inspection point without being challenged over the emergency fruit hidden in our panniers.

By now another side of the coast was hard to ignore. Many of the towns we rode through were struggling. Commercial units stood empty; motels and holiday parks were half-full in what should have been their busiest weeks. People spoke of declining trade and cuts to public spending.

The country was still living with the aftermath of the financial crash. From a bicycle — moving slowly through communities that motorists cleared in minutes — the evidence was difficult to miss.

There were still enormous RVs on the road, often towing a car with bicycles strapped to the back. They made a fine contrast with our own arrangement: two bicycles carrying everything, including their owners.

Redwoods, small towns and the road to Leggett

Northern California did not greet us with sunshine. Crescent City was cool and wet, and the road south opened with a long climb through traffic, then a descent that left our hands aching from constant braking.

Beyond Klamath, though, the road entered the redwoods, and nothing quite prepares you for their scale. The trunks rose like walls at the roadside, their upper branches lost in a canopy far overhead. Sound seemed to be soaked up by the forest. After the din of Highway 101, riding among them felt like entering a cathedral built long before anyone had thought of cathedrals.

The settlements scattered through this landscape were rather less grand. Orick amounted to a few businesses, a café and the Palm Motel — the town's principal accommodation, largely because it was very nearly the town's only accommodation. South of Trinidad we fell in with local Sunday riders and followed quieter roads and a coastal path towards Arcata.

Then I got us lost entering Eureka. This was becoming one of my specialist contributions to the journey. Margaret handled food, campsites and the practical continuation of life; I located unnecessary hills.

South of Eureka the road ran through farming country and a string of small communities. Loleta still had railway tracks threading through it, though they had the look of having waited a very long time for a train. At Rio Dell and Scotia — two towns facing each other across the river — the contrast was sharp: one worn and financially exposed, the other orderly and carefully kept, its fortunes visibly tied to the timber industry that built the region.

Then came the Avenue of the Giants.

The road followed the Eel River beneath some of the tallest trees on Earth. We camped among them for ten dollars, which felt like a bargain given that nearby motel rooms were advertised at more than ten times the price. Camping did, admittedly, involve mosquitoes, queues for the facilities and the slow accumulation of damp clothing. The romance of sleeping among ancient trees fades a little when those trees are also sheltering an organised insect assault.

Ahead lay Leggett Hill — the climb every southbound cyclist discussed with a mixture of dread and professional interest.

We camped short of Leggett, rose early, and began.

The climb ran for more than an hour, much of it at a gradient of around seven per cent. A fully loaded bicycle exaggerates every slope; the panniers seemed to hold not clothes and camping gear but building materials. We ground upward through the trees, stopping when we had to and pretending the stops were mainly for photography.

At the summit we pulled on jackets for the descent, assuming the hard part was behind us. The road dropped in tight bends, levelled briefly, and then presented a second climb of roughly 600 feet. This one had never acquired Leggett's fame, and was therefore free to be much worse than expected.

By the time we reached Fort Bragg, the last run of hills had stripped away any remaining dignity. We found a room, leaned the bikes against the wall and lay down. Leggett had not been conquered in any cinematic sense — no burst of speed, no triumphant sprint, no music. We had simply kept going until the hill ran out.

That was enough.

Mist, cliffs and the Golden Gate

South of Fort Bragg, Highway 1 settled onto the very edge of the continent — beaches, surf, rocky outcrops and long views over the Pacific. Traffic thinned where Highway 20 peeled off inland, leaving us quieter stretches of coast and a growing sense that San Francisco was within reach.

The next day, between Fort Ross and Jenner, the road climbed above the sea in thick mist. We rode a kind of tightrope: traffic passing close on our left, the land falling away steeply and without a barrier on our right. Looking over the edge was like looking into an abyss — the mist hid the sea, but not the knowledge that it was down there somewhere.

At Bodega Bay the weekend crowds had taken every room and campsite, so we pressed on to Valley Ford. Over dinner a local cyclist gave us directions for the final approach to San Francisco and, more valuable still, the assurance that it could be done.

The following day we followed the inlet towards Point Reyes Station, crossed a procession of hills, and joined a growing tide of local riders around Fairfax and Sausalito.

Then the Golden Gate Bridge appeared.

The approach involved one last climb, after which we joined a dense press of cyclists and pedestrians crossing the bridge in a stiff wind. It was hardly serene. It was unmistakably significant.

We had reached San Francisco.

The bridge did not mark the midpoint by distance, nor did it end the hard riding, but emotionally it split the journey in two. Washington and northern California had been about survival, recovery, wet forests and lonely roads. Beyond San Francisco lay the coast of films and tourist posters: Monterey, Big Sur, Malibu, Los Angeles.

We stayed with friends for several days and fell behind our schedule. Eventually they drove us beyond Santa Cruz, and we resumed riding into Monterey. This opened a second gap in the line of our journey. Purists may disapprove. Purists were not responsible for our timetable.

The coast of the imagination

Monterey was crowded with visitors, seals and reminders of John Steinbeck. Cannery Row had long since stopped smelling of sardines and now sold the idea of its former life to tourists.

The next morning we climbed out of Monterey towards Carmel. Beyond Carmel Highlands the road entered Big Sur, and the Pacific Coast became the landscape everyone pictures when they hear its name.

The highway curved along cliffs above a luminous sea, with mountains rising immediately inland. Bridges leapt across deep ravines, and every headland revealed another stretch of coast that looked designed for the cover of a travel book. It was also steep, busy and, at times, alarming. Tour buses and RVs overtook us on blind bends with the serene confidence of drivers apparently able to see around corners.

We reached Big Sur by lunchtime and camped within sight of the sea. Next morning an expensive breakfast at Gorda proved a sound investment, because the road immediately resumed climbing. For hours the sea stayed on our right and the mountains on our left — sometimes we rode close to the water, sometimes we looked down on beaches from several hundred feet up.

After Ragged Point the land relented. The road descended, flattened, and at last let a tailwind push us along. We passed Cambria earlier than expected and carried on to Morro Bay, where we took a motel room and filled it with the full untidiness of touring cyclists: a wet tent spread to dry, clothing hung from every fitting, and a supermarket chicken eaten without ceremony.

The following day took us through San Luis Obispo, where we paused in the quiet courtyard beside the old mission. Beyond Pismo Beach the country turned increasingly agricultural. At Guadalupe the scent of strawberries reached us across the road before the fields came into view.

Workers were harvesting fruit and vegetables in the sun, bent over long rows beside trailers and packing stations, while boxes of strawberries were advertised cheaply nearby. The gap between the price of the fruit and the labour that produced it was hard to ignore.

In town we met the Santa Maria Tailwinds Cycling Club, a group of day riders who could have belonged to any Sunday club back home. We joined them for breakfast before pushing on towards Lompoc. The Harris Grade climb gave a wide view over the valley and proved gentler than we had feared. After Leggett, our definition of a serious hill had quietly changed.

Fields, fiestas and the endless city

The road to Santa Barbara began quietly, climbing through open country before dropping towards Highway 101. Roadworks had stripped the shoulder from part of the highway, pushing us into uncomfortable proximity with fast traffic; the sea stayed in view and the wind helped from behind, but neither quite made up for riding beside vehicles at motorway speed.

Santa Barbara was in the middle of its fiesta. Rooms were scarce and dear, and we settled for an overpriced motel offering few of the services its price implied. The next morning showed the city's better face: children dressed for the celebrations, joggers on the waterfront, beach-volleyball games already under way and market stalls opening beside the sea.

South of the city we passed Carpinteria, surfers gathering near the beaches, and the harbours and coastal paths around Ventura. Oxnard then took an extraordinary length of time to enter and almost as long to leave, its wide roads, malls and light-industrial strips reaching far inland, while near the coast artificial islands and channels let people moor a boat beside the house as casually as a car.

Our lodging was the optimistically named Palace Inn — neither a palace nor especially regal, but affordable and equipped with a kitchenette. On a bicycle journey, these virtues comfortably outrank architectural authenticity.

From Oxnard, Highway 1 carried us back to the coast. It was Sunday morning, and the beach parks were already filling with families unpacking coolers and lighting barbecues, surfers waiting in the bays, road cyclists passing in both directions.

Then came Malibu — a town that ran for miles without ever quite revealing a centre. There were beaches, palms and expensive houses facing the ocean, but also relentless traffic, commercial strips and the same signs of economic strain we had seen further north. Malibu managed to be both glamorous and oddly ordinary: a famous name attached to a very long road. At Santa Monica we left the highway for the beach path and checked into a motel a few streets inland.

The unease began at reception, where the clerk spoke to us from behind a heavy metal grille — the only such arrangement we met on the entire journey. The room did not feel secure. That evening a loud party spilled along the corridor, and the door lock was flimsy, so we brought the bikes inside and wheeled them against the door. Touring bicycles are not designed as security equipment, but loaded with racks, mudguards and several weeks of grime, they make a persuasive barricade.

We slept badly and left before dawn. For the first sixteen miles we rode the beach path. In Venice, homeless people were waking and packing away their belongings while joggers, cyclists and dog-walkers began their morning routines — the two groups sharing one seafront and inhabiting entirely different worlds.

We rounded Marina del Rey, passed beneath the roar of aircraft dropping into Los Angeles International, and carried on through a chain of beach communities towards Redondo Beach. After coffee, I followed the cycle signs with misplaced confidence and got us lost. We recovered, found Torrance Boulevard and eventually reached the Los Angeles River path. Much of the day became an intricate alternation of roads, river paths, beach routes and improvised navigation.

And yet we crossed Los Angeles by bicycle, which still felt improbable. We passed Long Beach, Huntington Beach and Newport Beach — where another wrong turn was neatly repaired by the little ferry between Balboa Peninsula and Balboa Island — and by Laguna Beach we had ridden seventy miles and had had enough.

Southern California had stopped being a series of towns. It had become one continuous urban coast, changing its name every few miles but rarely actually ending. Along parts of Orange County, immaculate developments sat behind walls, gates and guarded entrances, suggesting a version of paradise organised around the careful exclusion of strangers. As travelling cyclists, we were strangers everywhere — passing through without invitation, visible but temporary, carrying our belongings in bags and occupying none of the protected space around us.

The next day was harder than expected, the road rising and falling through busy coastal communities. The beaches were crowded and the surfers plentiful, but the scenery had begun to repeat itself. At Camp Pendleton the civilian coast gave way abruptly to a military one: we rode through the Marine Corps base while training exercises went on nearby and convoys of combat vehicles passed us on the road. By evening, after eighty-one miles, we reached San Diego.

The next morning we stripped off the panniers and rode south towards the border. Without their luggage, the bikes felt almost weightless.

No plaque at the border

We crossed by ferry to Coronado and carried on towards Imperial Beach.

We had half-expected some indication that the Pacific Coast Route ended here — not a monument, necessarily, but at least a sign fit for a photograph. There was nothing.

We continued south until the tarmac gave out and the track dissolved into sand. Unable to ride, we pushed the bikes through the dunes. The atmosphere shifted as we neared the border: helicopters circling, patrol vehicles moving through the area, mounted officers watching the scrub.

Then we reached the fence. It ran across the beach and on into the Pacific, dividing a landscape that showed no other interest in being divided.

On the Mexican side, families were enjoying an ordinary day by the sea. Children played in the water; adults sat on the sand, talking and eating together. No one appeared to be invading anything. The security apparatus on our side made their ordinary pleasure look somehow politically charged — yet the people across the fence were not performing freedom for our benefit. They were simply being people at the beach.

Pelicans crossed overhead. Dolphins surfaced beyond the breakers. The waves passed between the metal uprights without presenting documentation.

We spoke with one of the Border Patrol officers, and took photographs as he and a colleague rode through the scrub on horseback. Policing a national border is not simple, and after so brief an encounter it would be foolish to pretend we understood its practical difficulties. But the physical contrast was impossible to ignore: on one side, helicopters, patrols, fencing and suspicion; on the other, people swimming in the same ocean.

We had ridden south half-expecting the Pacific coast to stand for freedom — open road, open sky, the sea always at our side. The journey had certainly given us those things. It had also taken us through tunnels, traffic and economic decline, and in the land of the free a great many lives seemed to be lived behind walls, gates or bars.

There was no ceremonial finish. We took a few photographs, turned the bikes around, and began the ride back towards San Diego.

Behind us, the fence stood in the surf. The Pacific continued into Mexico without a passport.