NoneMoreBlack
flâneur
On Saturday I will be heading out solo across the country and back, with a fairly loose itinerary that currently looks to be 8ish weeks. I’ll be trying to keep dailyish updates coming to this ride report. Should anybody prefer I will also have updates coming in vivo on IG. That's where I'll be sharing any video as well since it's a bit of a pain to do here.
I'll be happy to hear any recommendations in this thread if I happen to be passing through anybody's neck of the woods.
PREAMBLE
I conceived of this ride as a ten year anniversary celebration of my journey from Minneapolis to SF in September 2010. As it so happens, September 2020 was not exactly an auspicious time for such an adventure, so here we are. In planning the ride which would have originally been a sort of retread of my original route, I figured why stop halfway, and will be continuing east past the Mississippi.
I conducted the original journey on a 1982 CB450 wearing a luggage rack constructed from an oven grate and bungees, about six months of riding experience under my belt, a paper road atlas, a Nokia brick phone, and a point-and-shoot digital camera. Furthermore, this wasn’t an adventure for adventure’s sake; I was moving to SF, and the aforementioned junkyard luggage rack was carrying all my earthly possessions. On the plus side, as a stone-broke line cook, that didn’t amount to much.
I’ve never documented this trip in any public way so here’s a twelve year old pre-ride report for context and nostalgia. I didn’t really think much about documenting things at the time so it’s a pretty spotty account.
“Chutzpah”
The original route as best I can remember.
My northerly route took me to visit an uncle in Billings, a friend in Portland, and my first taste of the PCH down to my new home. Not counting the time I spent on layovers I think my travel time was something like 8 days.
Not for nothing they’re called the Great Plains
For some reason I took more photos of this park than almost anywhere else on the trip
Montana
The Lolo pass, which was my consolation prize as the Beartooth was already closed for the season
I was tragically underprepared for inclement weather, this is me arriving at my first taste of the Pacific Coast in Oregon after a miserable morning in the famous PNW rain. My jacket was actually pretty waterproof but nothing else, so after my pants were saturated the water wicked its way up under my jacket until I was wet nave to chops.
I believe right after I took this photo I stopped at a laundromat to throw all my gear in the dryer and a diner to house a bowl of hot soup. I do recall stepping off the shoulder directly into an abundantly fruiting blackberry bush so that was nice.
Almost didn’t get a hotel room as I rolled into Crescent City half an hour before checkin closed, as apparently there was some kind of classic car show that weekend
Things finally began to warm up as I took my first trip down Avenue of the Giants
Living and riding in the Bay Area can make you jaded about these vistas, I do fondly remember how striking this was the first time
I think I actually got lost finding my apartment in SF and wound up on Ocean Beach as the sun was setting
I'll be happy to hear any recommendations in this thread if I happen to be passing through anybody's neck of the woods.
PREAMBLE
I conceived of this ride as a ten year anniversary celebration of my journey from Minneapolis to SF in September 2010. As it so happens, September 2020 was not exactly an auspicious time for such an adventure, so here we are. In planning the ride which would have originally been a sort of retread of my original route, I figured why stop halfway, and will be continuing east past the Mississippi.
I conducted the original journey on a 1982 CB450 wearing a luggage rack constructed from an oven grate and bungees, about six months of riding experience under my belt, a paper road atlas, a Nokia brick phone, and a point-and-shoot digital camera. Furthermore, this wasn’t an adventure for adventure’s sake; I was moving to SF, and the aforementioned junkyard luggage rack was carrying all my earthly possessions. On the plus side, as a stone-broke line cook, that didn’t amount to much.
I’ve never documented this trip in any public way so here’s a twelve year old pre-ride report for context and nostalgia. I didn’t really think much about documenting things at the time so it’s a pretty spotty account.
“Chutzpah”
The original route as best I can remember.
My northerly route took me to visit an uncle in Billings, a friend in Portland, and my first taste of the PCH down to my new home. Not counting the time I spent on layovers I think my travel time was something like 8 days.
Not for nothing they’re called the Great Plains
For some reason I took more photos of this park than almost anywhere else on the trip
Montana
The Lolo pass, which was my consolation prize as the Beartooth was already closed for the season
I was tragically underprepared for inclement weather, this is me arriving at my first taste of the Pacific Coast in Oregon after a miserable morning in the famous PNW rain. My jacket was actually pretty waterproof but nothing else, so after my pants were saturated the water wicked its way up under my jacket until I was wet nave to chops.
I believe right after I took this photo I stopped at a laundromat to throw all my gear in the dryer and a diner to house a bowl of hot soup. I do recall stepping off the shoulder directly into an abundantly fruiting blackberry bush so that was nice.
Almost didn’t get a hotel room as I rolled into Crescent City half an hour before checkin closed, as apparently there was some kind of classic car show that weekend
Things finally began to warm up as I took my first trip down Avenue of the Giants
Living and riding in the Bay Area can make you jaded about these vistas, I do fondly remember how striking this was the first time
I think I actually got lost finding my apartment in SF and wound up on Ocean Beach as the sun was setting
