Final thoughts and info

Hi all,

I'm back on my own imac in Edinburgh and will wrap up this blog with this final posting. It has some overall stats, some pics (particularly of the last day) and my closing thoughts.

Let's begin with overall stats...

Total Miles - 1923
Overall time in saddle - 147 hours and 15 minutes

The tour took me 40 days and the breakdown was
Rest days - 6 days
Virtual rest day (< 20 miles) - 1 day
20-29.9 miles - 1 day
30-30.9 miles - 3 days
40-40.9 miles - 6 days
50-50.9 miles - 9 days
60-69.9 miles - 8 days
70-79.9 miles - 5 days
80-89.9 miles - 0 days
>=90 miles - 1 day

Overall my average day (excluding rest days was) 57.8 miles and 4 hrs 25 minutes pedaling. So to give an idea of what this meant I usually started between 9 and 10, had 1 hour for lunch and around 1 stop per hour of say 10 minutes taking me to around about a 4pm finish. Sounds about right.

The last day was a little strange, particularly at the end. Here's some pictures...

The view from my rest stop in La Jolla where the waves nearly intervened and prevented me finishing!

This is the "Quagmire" that I

a) tried to cycle through - nearly fell over as my wheels were sticking.
b) tried to push through - this didn't quite work either as the mud was thick and my feet and bike were starting to get stuck
c) ended up circling round through the fairly thick and grabby brush.

This is the most southerly beach on the Pacific coast of the US. As you can see Tricross has made it through the quagmire and you will also see a fence and some buildings - these are beachside houses on the Mexican side. There were some Mexicans enjoying the sun on the other side and I felt very out of place on my own on this side.

This is me with the bullring-by-the-sea. Apologies for poor quality - there was no-one else around and nothing much to balance my camera on. I wasn't really in the mood for hanging around either as there were choppers (ok, one chopper) flying overhead. I did feel as if I wasn't really supposed to be here. But I made it!



So finally, what are my thoughts about the whole trip. Apart from completing the cycle challenge - Woohoo!, I suppose I should remind myself what it was all for...

1. Raise money for Room to Read and make a difference. I think we can call this a success!
2. Give me time to think about what I want to do when I grow up ;)
3. Have an adventure.
4. Continue to learn Spanish

I don't have an easy answer on 2 and I think this is partly because there will probably never be one magic, shiny thing that will be perfect....and partly because maybe I'll never grow up!

On 3 however, I certainly did! I had no idea what to expect before the trip. I didn't even know if I could do it at all with my back injury - in fact chances were I couldn't. I only started cycling again about 10 days before I flew. Not the best preparation. A couple of friends that spoke with me during that time will know that I didn't think much of my chances. I was so focused on trying to get my back sorted that I didn't know much about my route. I knew I had some maps that were probably pretty good and a GPS for if I got lost. However, I knew I could sort things out as I went (with my credit card handy just in case!) and that's how it turned out.

Unfortunately, I didn't manage to learn as much Spanish as I'd originally thought. Not really surprising with the benefit of 20:20 hindsight. However, I did keep my hand in a bit by reading short stories, listening to Michel Thomas and having the odd conversation with a Mexican speaker or two.
 
So what did I enjoy the most?
- First I think the Pacific Coast of the US (and Canada) is a stunning and amazing part of the world and the people I met were very friendly and helpful (and the beers & wine ain't bad either!)
- Some of the other cyclists I met were great company (if only for a short while). We're all doing our tours for our own reasons. Some quite different and others remarkably similar. No matter why we are touring though, there is some sort of a bond between cyclists, particularly tourers - maybe we're all a little crazy!

- None of us gets enough of a chance to take a time out and just enjoy being alive it seems to me - a chance to "stop and smell the flowers" is probably the cliche. Ok, we get a couple of weeks off for holiday but most of that is de-stressing before heading back into work again. I really appreciated being able to just look at things a bit longer, not be constrained by timescales (other than the cycling piece).  I saw a great sign in a cafe which I thought summed it up in a way...

- Possibly most of all, though, I loved just getting out there and doing it!!!

So what now...?

Well, thankfully for me, the adventure doesn't end quite yet - On the 1st of November I fly to Argentina where I will teach English for a month. I will then have a few weeks to travel around South America and follow my nose there for a while. So I still have some time to think about what I want to do when I grow up!

Finally, before I sign off I'm going to mention a bloke I met in Santa Barbara again. His name is Al and I only spoke with him for about half an hour. He was drinking Bud light (well, no-one's perfect!) and I mentioned him in Day 38 pt2 - he was glad I didn't think everyone in America was a Jackass. One other thing he said was - "What are you going to do next?! Tour De France?!" At the time I laughed it off. But, you know, Tim Moore wrote a great book about cycling the route of the Tour De France having done practically no cycling for years - French Revolutions. I have no idea what would be involved really...but if I'd thought like that about my Pacific Coast tour....anyone fancy doing the TDF route?

Maybe it won't end up being the TDF, but there will be a challenge 2012...and maybe I'll write a blog...until then....