Route Planning: Are We There Yet??

A lot of the questions I have received about our bike trip have to do with the logistics surrounding how we are planning our route down the coast.  With less than 90 days until our trip, this remains one of my top concerns.  Luckily, there have been enough cyclists who have traveled the Pacific Coast that I have a fairly good idea of the route we want to take.  At first, I thought it was going to be simple: just ride down the road with the big ocean on our right the entire time; and for a both Oregon and California, there is a lot of truth to that.  However, the state of Washington is an entirely different animal.  I will get to that in a minute though.

This is a good start, although the book is somewhat outdated and is primarily written for cyclists that will be camping.

There are really three different ways to plan a route and they have to do with the types of accommodations you plan to have.  The first is camping; riders plan their routes around state parks, campgrounds, or many times just find a secluded spot on the side of the road to stop.  This means they are not really beholden to making it to a town for lodging.  On the flip side, there is a lot of stuff you have to carry on the bike.   The second way to travel is to have a sag vehicle either following your or meeting you at certain points on the road.  This way, you don't have to carry any supplies on the bike and you can focus on a faster, more efficient ride.  Of course the person in the vehicle better have a really good book or a lot of things to binge watch on Netflix because they are going to be sitting for a LONG time waiting for riders.  The third option--and the one that we are doing--is to find lodging and plan the route around our nighttime reservations.  Of course this is also a really expensive way to make the trip if we were to stay in motels every single night so we will also be using an online website called warmshowers.org.  Warm Showers is a site where cyclists offer their home to touring cyclists and provide (most times) a bed, shower, laundry, and sometimes even a meal.  They work on a "pay it forward" type attitude and their reward is the chance to interact with different people and hear about their stories.  In looking at our route, we will probably be able to use Warm Showers for 15-16 of the nights and motels for the rest. 

These are the official cycling maps for the Pacific Coast Route

Great maps!  Too bad that we are going  a different route for a lot of it!

 The next consideration is where to start the trip.  Most people that do the Pacific Coast start in Vancouver, CA and all the guide books and maps give their guidance starting there as well.   Here is where we run into our first problem:  TIME.  While I would love to start in Vancouver, it would add 2 extra days to our route and I am already pushing the limit of the time I can take off work.  Instead, we have decided to fly into Victoria instead and then take the ferry from Sidney, BC past the San Juan Islands and cross the border in Anacortes, WA.  This would take us south through Port Townsend and then down the 101 along the eastern edge of Olympic National Park.   This is yet another deviation from the cycling guide books that recommend going south through Bremerton; that would add another 80 miles or so altogether and so we will try and stay in as straight of a line as possible.   For those looking at a map, we will go south through Lilliwaup, cut over through Elma, Raymond, and then hug the coast to Astoria Oregon.  After Astoria, it is pretty much the coast then entire rest of the way.  Side note:  If you know anyone along this route that would host a couple cyclists for the night,  we would love the hook up!

Our daily average goal is to ride 56 miles/day.  This will vary between 25-80 miles a day, depending on the amount of climbing, wind conditions and distance between towns.  We are going to try and attend church on the Sundays where there is a church building in the area--on those days we are planning only 25-30 miles that we can ride easily.    We are certainly hoping for a strong tail wind for as much of the trip as possible!   The other considerations that are out of our control will be rain and mechanical issues--both of which would severely alter the planning we have made so far. 

I have like 20 of these--Google Maps has been my best friend!

If anyone has any knowledge of the northern Pacific Coast--Washington and Oregon in particular--we would love your input.  We certainly want to avoid sketchy roads, towns and things of that sort.  Likewise, if there are any attractions that we can see that are on our route, (planning to visit the Tillamook Cheese Factory but if there is a "world's largest ball of yarn or something...) help us to make sure we don't miss it!