LEAVE IT ON THE ROAD MIXTAPE - SIDE B
The experience of riding right above the ocean has few equals.
Side A (published allllllll the way back in September) was a collection of roads unknown to almost the entire crew. Mike had traversed several of the roads on his first ride across the US in 2013 and marked a few of them as "must ride again." Side B was a retracing of the route Mike rode in 2014 and again with returning riders Jake Szymanski and Patrick Marzullo in 2015. Many of us have ridden sections of this route at other times and it's started to feel like home to us.
Remarkably, nearly every mile of riding down the coast from Portland to SF has a memory tied to it; right down to which debate was currently brewing and who was ultimately "right." That includes recalling most of our original motivations and layering on new ones. Those we lost in the year since the 2015 ride. Others who have been diagnosed in the same time frame. The senses have such amazing markers on memory that for 8 days, we ran through all of our collective pasts and paid personal and private tributes to each, pushing a bit harder this year to bring those stories into focus for those that followed along.
Below the Marine Layer
Avenue of the Giants.
Legendary Nestucca River Road
We traded our brilliant photographer, Natalie R. Starr, for another rider, Mike Galucci, and set down the coast once more to see what we could see... raise a bit more money than last time... share more memories.
SIDE B
118 miles / 6,763 feet
99 miles / 5,120 feet
111 miles / 5,584 feet
95 miles / 5,468 feet
105 miles / 4,352 feet
81 miles / 7,000 feet
106 miles / 8,532 feet
74 miles / 7,740 feet
The night in between these routes was a little get-together hosted by Vanilla Bicycles where we showed off the bikes, auctioned off some prizes, and sold prints of photos from Side A.
