Day One
Today, I started my ride of the West Coast from Blaine, WA to Imperial Beach, CA—from Canada to Mexico. 1,800 miles will take me five to six weeks to complete, assuming I stay incident and injury free. This ride will complete my 11,600 mile circumnavigation of the contiguous United States. In spring of 2024, I rode the “Southern Tier” from Santa Monica, CA to Cape Canaveral, FL. Previously, I rode from Key West, FL, to West Quoddy Head, ME (the East Coast), then on to Cape Alava, WA (the Northern Tier). I finished the east and northern sections on July 11, 1981. That was 44 years ago! Some projects take a while to finish up.
Last spring, for the Southern Tier, I relentlessly prepared for the ride and was fit and ready on Day One. The preparation for this year’s effort has been shoe-horned in among more pressing business, namely the sale of our home, which was completed just yesterday, and knee surgery in June, from which my physical therapist declared me fit for this ride just last Monday, three days ago. In summary, I am not fit and not prepared, at least not in the way I was a year ago. But the start date has arrived, ready or not. So I’m off.
Today was a short ride of 27 miles, from the Peace Arch State Park at the British Columbia/Washington State border, to Bellingham, WA. A learning day. I woke bleary and achy from days of house packing and the long drive from Montana to Washington. The day was filled with lots of home sale financial details to work through with my wife Joan, the search for cycling gear in an over-stuffed Subaru, a shopping trip for forgotten equipment, then the drive to Blaine. Joan took my picture at the Peace Arch as the sun was descending over Drayton Harbor, and I was off briskly by 4:30 PM—not exactly an alpine start, but a start.
Mark & Joan at the Peace Arch.
Every mile ridden is done forever. Anything banged out today is banged out for good. Clear skies, a rough road on Portal Way, a direct headwind that gathered strength as I passed the Bellingham airport, a low-blood sugar bonk riding Northwest Avenue into Bellingham, a dead iPhone—my new riding app is a known power hog, I later read on Reddit—and a final stop at a Fred Meyer to beg for a bit of a phone charge so I could call Joan to pick me up at the Bellingham REI. I called her, she picked me up and we headed south for great food at Tacos Tecalitlan in Burlington and drove back south to our hotel, the McMenamins’ Anderson School in Bothell.
Sometimes, you have to start ugly to start at all. As I write, after nightfall, I’m back in my hotel, showered and drinking Prosecco with Joan to celebrate the money dropping from the sale of our home (we are now officially houseless, though not necessarily homeless). Financially: a good day. Cycling: a start, though a bit of a stumble. And I am 1.5 % of the way to Imperial Beach! Only 98.5% to go! Today’s ride, the ride itself, was delightful. Familiar roads, a green and fragrant northwest July day, not yet a parched, dusty August furnace, and just enough miles to feel tired but not so much of a drain that I am dreading tomorrow. This week is a running start, putting in the training I didn’t get done earlier, while eking out some progress towards Southern California.
My first night of camping won’t be until next week, at Paradise Point State Park near Battle Ground, WA. For now, Joan and I are hoteling it and I’m getting a lift to each day’s start point, and a lift from my daily endpoint to a shower, a good dinner, and a comfy bed. Is this “cycle touring”? Sure. But it’s not yet the harder core, grind for hours, day-after-day push for campsite to campsite, sore, stinky, physically beaten up from road vibration and mentally beaten up by angsty traffic. That’s all to come. Oh, the joy!
