Day Total - 44.0 miles
Trip Total - 213.7 miles
We were definitely sluggish in waking up due to the darkness among the towering redwoods of Taylor State Park. The kids weren't though, and a few began their day by racing their bikes down the hill right past our campsite.
We began our day on a bike path, the Cross Marin Trail, that as far as I can tell doesn't extend outside of the park yet. From there, we took back roads toward Point Reyes Station, which was just barely south of our route. We had been passing and been passed by cyclists the whole morning, but Point Reyes Station was entirely taken over by cyclists. It seemed like every bike owner in Marin County decided to come through for a Saturday ride. We only stopped to look for stove fuel, which no one in town had, but it was an amazing sight to see.
From Point Reyes Station, we were back on Highway 1 and back along the coast. The road rolled along Tomales Bay with heavy traffic headed to the oyster farms for the first few miles. Once we passed the biggest of the farms though, the traffic thinned out, and we continued to follow the road through rangeland to the small village of Marshall.
Just past that point, the road turned inland, not to meet the coast again for another 20 miles. We got our first real tailwind of the trip at this point, and we were easily able to keep a 16 to 18 mph pace on most of the gradual ascent to Tomales. We stopped there to look for fuel, again without luck, but I did get to down a whole bag of Combos. There were a bunch of bikers here too, though it seemed to be the northern end of the trip for most. I talked to a few of them briefly, and we were on our way.
As we neared Valley Ford and Sonoma County, the hills got longer, from gently rolling to a couple hundred feet up and down each time. My seatpost took the opportunity to slip during this section, which left me without much uphill power until I caught up with Kevin, who was carrying most of the tools. Soon after that problem was fixed, we crossed into Sonoma County and hit the bikerless town of Valley Ford, where we still didn't find the fuel we were looking for.
My legs would have preferred to stop there, but our target was a campground on the north side of Bodega Bay, some 8 more miles up the road. The hills by that point were getting very long, and because we were headed back toward the ocean, we had a headwind to contend with as well. The temperature dropped too as the fog rolled in, and we were both chilled when we finally arrived in Bodega Bay.
Since it is the largest town for some distance (population about 1500), we expected that Bodega Bay might have the fuel we needed. But the first two places we looked didn't. It wasn't until a small shop on the way out of town that we finally found some. This time, we bought two canisters, which we figured would get us to Fort Bragg, the next town of any size.
We camped that night at Bodega Dunes, part of Sonoma State Beach. We were fortunate to be tired from the ride, because there were Boy Scouts running around the campground in addition to a foghorn that sounded every 8 seconds all through the night.
Trip Total - 213.7 miles
We were definitely sluggish in waking up due to the darkness among the towering redwoods of Taylor State Park. The kids weren't though, and a few began their day by racing their bikes down the hill right past our campsite.
We began our day on a bike path, the Cross Marin Trail, that as far as I can tell doesn't extend outside of the park yet. From there, we took back roads toward Point Reyes Station, which was just barely south of our route. We had been passing and been passed by cyclists the whole morning, but Point Reyes Station was entirely taken over by cyclists. It seemed like every bike owner in Marin County decided to come through for a Saturday ride. We only stopped to look for stove fuel, which no one in town had, but it was an amazing sight to see.
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| Tomales Bay |
From Point Reyes Station, we were back on Highway 1 and back along the coast. The road rolled along Tomales Bay with heavy traffic headed to the oyster farms for the first few miles. Once we passed the biggest of the farms though, the traffic thinned out, and we continued to follow the road through rangeland to the small village of Marshall.
Just past that point, the road turned inland, not to meet the coast again for another 20 miles. We got our first real tailwind of the trip at this point, and we were easily able to keep a 16 to 18 mph pace on most of the gradual ascent to Tomales. We stopped there to look for fuel, again without luck, but I did get to down a whole bag of Combos. There were a bunch of bikers here too, though it seemed to be the northern end of the trip for most. I talked to a few of them briefly, and we were on our way.
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| On the way into Tomales...also apparently the last picture I took that day |
My legs would have preferred to stop there, but our target was a campground on the north side of Bodega Bay, some 8 more miles up the road. The hills by that point were getting very long, and because we were headed back toward the ocean, we had a headwind to contend with as well. The temperature dropped too as the fog rolled in, and we were both chilled when we finally arrived in Bodega Bay.
Since it is the largest town for some distance (population about 1500), we expected that Bodega Bay might have the fuel we needed. But the first two places we looked didn't. It wasn't until a small shop on the way out of town that we finally found some. This time, we bought two canisters, which we figured would get us to Fort Bragg, the next town of any size.
We camped that night at Bodega Dunes, part of Sonoma State Beach. We were fortunate to be tired from the ride, because there were Boy Scouts running around the campground in addition to a foghorn that sounded every 8 seconds all through the night.
View Day 5 - Lagunitas, CA-Bodega Bay, CA in a larger map
So you're really doing this... impressive! Good luck on the next leg of the journey!
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