Roadbike Tour California (Palm Springs)

Participants:

Iris, age 65, retired

Roadbike tour California (Palm Springs)

Review of the bike Tour to Palm Springs (USA)

The author of this review: Iris from Austria - now retired

I escaped the long Austrian winter...

Looking for a good opportunity to ride my bicycle

And have been ending… in the middle of no-where…

My tour has been started on a rather cheap BA flight from Vienna to San Francisco on February 18th 2010.

The very next day, I have started my tour.

I did it the usual way: taking the CalTrain down to Santa Clara and heading for Hwy 9 at Saratoga. This time, I have been confused… found the wrong way, met another biker who convinced me to ride up to Skyline Blvd. via the Old Page Mill Road. I should have been warned: this road is very steep and with all my luggage (two saddle bags) and absolute no-training at all, it has sucked all my power of. Finally I had two flats, what rounds this day… . On the way down to Santa Cruz is has been so terrible cold and wet: I cached a cold and have been sniffing for days.

My Californian friends picked me up at Santa Cruz and have taken me down to Pismo Beach by car.

The next day, I have been touring around the area of Pismo Beach. Sniffing, I climbed up to Lopez Lake, hit Morro Bay and the well known Los Osos Valley Road.

The plan of my friends was to go to Palm Springs for a week vacation. I followed. But on the car tour to Palm Springs, my Californian friends decided to make several private visits at L.A. and further at San Bernardino. As it turned out, I will loose another day at San Bernardino, I have taken my bicycle out of the car and started riding to head for Palm Springs.

What a challenge! Freeways surround San Bernardino. Not made for bicycles. Luckily I found the entrance to the San Timoteo Canyon Road. So, I escaped the freeways for a while. Not knowing, I will re-enter Hwy 10 again. There was no way out at the city of Banning. I have been riding on Hwy 10 at least for more exits…: Then I found, there is a little side road after the Hwy fence. I slipped through the fence and have been continuing riding safe of the sideway of Hwy 10. Hwy 111 has taken me down to Palm Springs, where I arrived pretty late in the dark after a 200-kilometer ride.

Again: Palm Springs is not made for bicycle riders. It is surrounded by the San Bernardino mountains in the North and the San Jacinto mountains at the South.

As I need to ride to the coast, I have been checking out ways to overcome the San Jacinto mountains. I have been riding South on Hwy 74. Hwy 74 started as a wide road at Palm dessert. But is winding up to 1.700 meters. Narrow with no shoulder. What a dangerous and scary ride.

Hwy 371 and didn’ t do any better. Even the downhill to the city of Temecula was a sort of danger to me, as my speed has been higher by now. At Temecula, I have been lost again between freeways. A local young man “Notcha” has taken me by his car driving me down to Pala at the Indian reservation. At Pala I have been riding my bicycle again on Hwy 76 to Oceanside. It went dark, when I have been arriving tat the Oceanside Motel 6.

At Oceanside’ s Motel 6, the check-in has been easy: the had all my personal data, from my last ride back to 2008, whereas I have been riding the coast with my daughter Anne.

Anne has been a very brave rider. I celebrated my memories on this ride with a good bottle of Californian champagne. Californian champagne is so sweet, so good and so cheap! A bottle is roughly $ 7,-, which converts to € 6,-. You will never ever find better booze for that price. Cheers Anne!

Riding down to San Diego and Tijuana was a sort of deja-vu. San Diego’ s Old Town has not been so busy as time I have been there with Anne. It looks to me: California is in a sort of economic recession.

The easiest way to go to LAX, where my plane has been departing on 3^rd of March 2010 was to take the Amtrak. Amtrak has supplied a bike box. With the Surfliner train, I have been traveling the coast up to LA’ s Union Station. And with a shuttle bus to LAX...

THANK YOU !

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