Carr's Big Bike Blog: Day Two

Again my journey began at the crack of dawn. I was up and on the road by 6am. Let me tell you, it's COLD at 6am along the coast, even in June. Again I was very glad to have that extra layer of clothing to keep me warm. The scenery on Monday was by far the best of the entire trip. The ride down Highway 101 is as beautiful as any I've ever witnessed. Once I made it into California I was soon traveling through the Redwood forests. The sheer size of these trees is amazing, that and the forest was very dense with so many of these ancient trees was incredible. It was mid morning with the sun shining as I was riding along yet it was almost dark due to the density of the forest. Hwy 101 actually turns into a four lane freeway through one of the forests, but fortunately there was a side road, The Avenue Of The Giants, that went along parallel to the highway through all the trees. This was one of the best stretches of forest road I've ever been through. At the South end they even had a tree that you could drive through. The insides of the tree had burned out long ago so it was actually hollow, but yet the tree was still alive.

Highway 101 turns inland away from the coast so I needed to get on Highway 1 that stayed along the water. I stopped at a little town called Leggett where the two highways came together for a short break. Hard to call it a town really, it only had three buildings: a post office, a gas station, and a small market. The market had a couple tables out front so I grabbed some lunch and sat down to eat. A few minutes later a local hottie sat down at the other table with a snack. I tried chattin her up, but she clearly didn't give a shit. Crash and Burn once more.

The first stretch of Highway 1 to get back to the coast went up and over some hills. This was some of the most technical and challenging road I've ever ridden. Lots of very tight slow speed turns up and down hills through the forest. Very cool stuff. Once I got to the coast I proceeded South yet again. The road was still very windy and only 2 lanes, but there wasn't much traffic so I was able to make some decent time. I was planning on spending the night in one of the small towns along the coast, but there was really nowhere to stay so I was forced to turn East and head into Cloverdale for the night. It was a 60 mile stretch of road that took me almost 2 hours to travel due to the incredibly narrow and windy road. This was without question an amazing ride and was only tainted by the fact that it was so late in the day I was already very tired and wasn't able to rail the corners as hard as I would have liked. Again, very challenging and technical, but well worth it.

Day Two Route

Pictures

The Oregon Coast