Cycling On The Sunny Side Of The Moon

By Marco Werkhoven

Cycle touring. Adventure. I was born for it. Get on the road with us, and enjoy a 2700 mile bicycle ride from San Francisco to Santa Fe. We will take you with us over snow covered mountain passes, through hot desserts, while you can enjoy the views through the pictures in this book. You can enjoy from your lazy chair. Or if the touring fever hits you, you can follow the route with a map at hand, and plan your own tour. So you can choose the level of comfort, discomfort, adventure yourself. This book will, next to a fun ride to read, also give you some tips on preparing and planning for bicycle touring.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Marco Werkhoven
• Release date: Dec 4, 2011
• ISBN: 9781465761286

Book preview

Cycling on the sunny side of the moon.

Marco Werkhoven

2700 miles on a bicycle through the dry and deserted southwest.

SMASHWORDS EDITION

Copyright 2011, Marco Werkhoven

All rights reserved. This book, or parts thereof, may not be reproduced in any form without written permission.

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Prologue.

Years before the Second World War even started, 2 young Dutch men decided to cycle from Holland (Europe) to Jerusalem. For that time, a monstrous tour. Heavy steel bikes, no gears, unpaved roads, primitive camping, heavy equipment, dangerous encounters..... But wow, what an adventure. The book about this tour passed from my grandfather’s hands into my fathers hands, and from his hands into mine and that is when it all started. Cycle touring....... I guess I was born for it. Plans about cycling all over Europe, into Africa, crossing over to Asia and as desert North and South America started playing in my head. But it had to start somewhere. So my ideas focused on Amsterdam to Rome after graduating from high school. And then I could call in Rome that I was having too much fun, and continue for life, working odd jobs wherever I would be to survive.

But it took until spring 1990 before I, and by then my partner Irene, decided that it was time to start cycle touring. We needed an affordable way to go on vacation. So with our mountain bikes loaded with low quality bicycle panniers and too much stuff we cycled through the French Alps. And that was the moment the fever really hit us.

We have been cycling every summer since then and in spite of tough moments and disappointments we enjoyed every tour we made....... although....... almost every tour.

I wrote this book because I wanted to share our sweat, pain, joy and delight with you on one of our favorite tours. And if this book gives you cycle touring fever it will help you on the way to plan your own basic cycle tour. Or, if you would like to do the tour described in this book you might be able to trace our tracks if you take a map at hand while you read.

How it all started (1993).

Hey, Irene. If we are going to the United States to find a job, why not start our adventure with a bicycle tour through some of the states in the area where we're going to work???. Mmmmm, that's not a bad idea, but can we fit that in between all the things we have to do for our new life in the States????. Of course we can!!!!!!!!!!!

The beginning (1994).

It is February 13, 1994. There we are. Waiting at Schiphol Airport in Amsterdam, The Netherlands, ready for take-off. We feel a little shaky in the legs, from fear as well as from exhaustion from running around like chickens with their heads cut off for the past 6 months. But the way everything looks, things are all taken care off, and we don't have to worry much for our future in the United States. Once we're in the United States we will still have to arrange some things for our work, but we also found somebody who will help us enormously with all the red tape. Erik will do miracles to arrange our future careers. However, besides starting our work on the first of august, license-exams, some last minute red tape, finding a home, shopping for furniture etc, we will cycle the tour we have planned.

Starting in San Francisco we will cross California, Nevada, Arizona, Utah, Colorado and New Mexico with Santa Fe as the final little dot on the map. According to our calculations the total distance will be just over 2500 miles. During this tour we will cross all the climate zones, except for the arctic, due to the geographic and geological setup of the area we will cover. Therefore there is no good time to ride this tour, but we will just hope for the best.

Every beginning is difficult.

It's April 12, 1994. Yesterday evening we have been brought to Albuquerque. Now we, our bikes and all our camping gear, are brought the last stretch to the airport by the hotel's shuttle service. The driver thinks we are absolutely crazy when we tell him what our plans are. We are not too sure ourselves either but the tickets are bought, the next three months are without obligations and we would look really weak if we would give up now.

So over an hour later we're flying towards San Francisco. Other travelers and the crew look at us with surprised expressions on their faces. Well, it is not every day that you see bike shoes and bike clothes in a plane. Especially when the carry-on luggage are handlebar bags with the helmets attached to it.

Around lunchtime we are thrown out of the plane and start searching for the rest of our luggage. The big blue nylon bags, which contain the rest of our panniers, sleeping mattresses, tent and food, are easily found between all the other suitcases. Our bikes are found in a corner of the baggage claim hall. The blue/white KLM-boxes, in which our bikes also were transported from Holland, are torn and almost falling apart. We drag all our stuff outside and start to pack. While Irene divides everything, I inflate the tires and bring the bike boxes to the office of KLM-Northwest, just in case they want to recycle them. We load our bikes with all the panniers, fill our bottles at the water fountain and jump on our bikes.

But how do you get from an airport on a bicycle. We start to follow the line of cars, but wonder where this is going to end. We ask a security officer where to go. He points in the direction of the line of cars. If we follow that, we will end up on the big road that will lead us into San Francisco. But after less than 1 mile we find out that people who give directions are not very familiar with the bicycle phenomenon. We end up on the Interstate that passes by the airport. Even though a big truck tries to push us off the road we continue on the shoulder. During the flight we already discussed the possibility to start our tour on the Golden Gate Bridge. But now that we are in the middle of the San Francisco traffic the decision is made very quick. We will visit the Golden Gate Bridge during a long weekend San Francisco somewhere in the future. We will make our way to Half Moon Bay to start the tour with our feet in the ocean.

The six lanes of the Interstate are crowded and we hope quietly that biking in the States is not like this everywhere. Fortunately we can turn of the Interstate to get on quieter roads. At a gas station we stop to ask for directions and to buy 1/2-gallon gasoline for the camping stove. The eyes of the man behind the register almost pop out of his head when I walk in to pay for only 1/2 gallon. But we are on the right way so we continue our trip. At McDonalds we stop for lunch. Even though we have food for 2 days in our panniers we grave for some French fries and a burger, especially after our battle on the interstate. We ask a police officer on a motorbike for the best road to Half Moon Bay, and a safe route east for the next few days. When he hears our plans he suddenly starts to bring in suggestions and ideas with an enormous enthusiasm. Then he asks how long we think to stay at McDonalds, jumps on his motorbike and disappears. After about 10 minutes he returns with a map of the area that is a lot better than the maps we got from AAA.

Just like Mr. Police officer told us, the road towards Half Moon Bay is narrow, busy and dangerous. Many times we're pushed of the road by trucks and lots of cars blow their horns, which scares us so much that we startle on our bikes, which makes it even more dangerous. And with the cycling uphill we are so slow that the surrounding traffic feels we are blocking the road, which makes the passing maneuvers even more daring. After the climb we pick up speed and fly down to the camping near the beach of Half Moon Bay. We only have to pay hiker/biker prices and we get a spot that is only a few steps away from the beach.

We chat with some other bikers who cycle the west coast. They think highly of our plans to go east, because we will have to cross several mountain ranges, deserted areas and desserts.

During sunset we go for a romantic walk on the beach, take some water in our hands to make a symbolic start for our tour, and we think. We think about what is ahead of us, even though we can only guess what it will bring. We feel perfect but we wonder if we will be able to withstand everything. The remarks the other bikers made make us wonder if we really researched this well enough. Aren't we overlooking some very important aspect?? What do they know that we don't know?? After all, we are only used to European bike touring.

The night is cold and moist. That is even clearer when we get op the next morning and discover a real San Francisco fog is covering the shore. Everything is dripping with moisture as we wash up and stow away some breakfast. Then we stack all the damp stuff on our bikes and start our climb towards the Skyline Boulevard. According to the police officer yesterday, that should be a quiet and beautiful road with a lot of breathtaking views. Well, that might be if there's no heavy San Francisco fog hanging over the coastal mountain range. Besides that the road is running high on the mountain ridge, which means the climb early this morning isn't rewarded with a nice downhill. It is therefore only halfway the day, when we are completely exhausted even though we still have a little bit over 15 miles to go. Oh well, it is a very familiar feeling for the first day of a tour but