Pre-Ride
We live in an off the grid Tiny Home in the mountains above Santa Cruz, California.We take care of a lush garden, chickens and ducks, and inadvertently all of the wild birds who steal the chicken food, too. Our lifestyle is pretty idealic:wake up when we want, let the chickens out, cook food fresh from the garden,then mountain bike an hour into town for work, bike home, eat more food,cuddle, sleep.
Saying goodbye to this lifestyle for the life of adventure presents quite an interesting opportunity. The dramatic change for us is not that we will be outside all day and living simply – this is how we choose to live our every day lives. The adjustment will be in not being deeply familiar with the landscapes we pass through, in not having a whole gang of adorable birds to feed and fresh eggs to fetch and that one Great Horned Owl calling above us each night.
Luckily,what we do bring with us is each other. And we actually thrive on obscene amounts of time together – which is really fortunate for a couple who tries to live in a Tiny Home or go on extended biking adventures together. What we know we can expect on this journey is lots of laughter, lots of calf massages,unbelievable amounts of ice cream and aged cheeses, rich dark beers, James Brown on the climbs and wind on the descents, some really, really disgusting socks, and the irreplaceable feeling of giving oneself to the road and its many twist, turns, and, well, uphills.
Onward and upward!
- IMAGES OF THE ROAD -
Gear List
- FROM: Bonny Doon, CA
- DOB: 1999-11-30
- OCCUPATION: Adventurers
- Genesis Moment and Inspiration for your Trip? We have biked the entire Pacific Coast already, and it may seem odd that we are doing it again. Along the last journey we met a screen printer and fellow bike tourist named Justin who had ridden the Pacific Coast route over five times. When we first heard this we thought he was crazy – there is so much out there to explore! But he went on to explain, and ultimately convince us – that not only is the ride experience different every time due to weather, new companions, older selves, etc; but traveling known roads you can come back to the places that really impacted you, and try the alternate routes you had to pass over last time. The ride just gets better and better because your relationship to the trail is what frees you to explore more deeply. When you know that there is a taqueria and clean water only ten miles away you are more likely to actually stop and jump in the roadside lake that otherwise remains unexplored….
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Have you Traveled by bike in the past?
Matt and I live in a Tiny Home deep in the mountains above the town where we work and our daily commute requires a year round touring set up. At every moment we have to have everything we need for the day – heavy bags full of produce, a down jacket, bike shoes and sandals, water for the day and a lunch, the list goes on. We have a daily relationship with loaded bike travel!
Matt has been bike touring since he was 17, and set off on a very aggressive pedal across the country on ACA’s Sierra Cascade Route and Northern Tier Route attempting 5,000 miles in two months. After making it all the way to the ACA headquarters in Missoula, Montana and earning his ice cream he was hit by an SUV just east of Missoula and heli-evacuated to the nearest hospital. That accident, which snapped his leg in half and exploded his bicycle is what “saved his life,” as he says. Through the long recovery process he learned to slow down and his relationship to bicycle touring, which had formerly been focused on mileage and destination, is now more focused on the slow and simple pleasures of the road.
Kate has been biking to different ice cream parlors all over California her whole life but didn’t start her first multi-day bike travel until she met Matt. They have been on two bike tours together, one big, one small. On the first one, she had a small heart failure in the mountains of Big Sur and had to bike eight miles of steep uphill to get to cell service. She learned that she has a mild heart condition, and biking is good for it. That “adventure” has been a similar inspiration in her relationship to biking and using her body as a means of excursion – a long journey in patience and thankfulness for the incredible feats that a body can perform!
- What is your goal for the route? Sunshine, lakes, ice cream, back country, rain forest, hot springs, tacos, aged cheeses, and so much laughter.
- What do you hope to get out of this journey? A more intimate understanding of and connection to the Pacific Coast. An opportunity to reconnect to the folks we have met along the way – a real rarity of this type of travel! A relationship to the brands that we use and care about – knowing the people who are making what we are using. We want to live each day 100% fully.
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What’s in my bag? List four things that you could not live without (take a photo of each on a neutral background)
Little journals Kate made, Book of poems by Mary Oliver,Our friend’s homemade Organic sunscreen, Rechargeable boom box for pumping James Brown on the climbs
