Generic Touring Thread

Just heading home after nearly 4 weeks touring down the Pacific North West from Seattle to San Francisco. No tales of epic heroism - I kept the daily mileage pretty modest so I had time to explore / hang out.

Oregon was great start to finish. Washington was beautiful but maybe not so cycle friendly. Northern California was just foggy.

Couple of things I discovered along the way:
If you're as fearful as me, swallow your pride and hitch a lift across the Columbia from WA to Astoria. I didn't and came as close to death over the 4 1/2 mile bridge with no shoulder, side winds and logging lorries, as I ever have.
I couldn't face the ride into Portland and discovered that little local buses go there from Tillamook on the coast. Pretty infrequent, but you can put your bike on the front.

Few pics (hopefully)

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@KT_Bee More pics please!

Is that camp at Cape Lookout? It was deserted when I was there last May

Flight to Munich and a train home from Strasbourg are booked, my tour of Bavaria & the Black Forest is happening. Very Excite.

Credit card touring it, so no camping gear = really enjoy the route without cursing all my gear on the climbs.

https://ridewithgps.com/routes/15941462

Looks amazing! Super jealous.

Just booked a single ticket to Marseille. Will ride from there to the Grand Colombier (Jura) where I will meet some friends who will take me and my bike back home to Belgium.

@IdealStandard and I rode from Trondheim up past the Arctic Circle to Narvik earlier this summer. We'd planned to take the E6, but as soon as we saw how beautiful the coastal road was, we stuck to it the entire way. Lots of killer hills, mosquitos and expensive cucumbers (£4), but you can't beat drinking your morning coffee in a field full of elk, or watching the midnight sun on a clifftop above the arctic circle...

We got the ferry from Copenhagen to Oslo, then the sleeper train up to Trondheim... And then got the train from Narvik to Stockholm. More trip deets

Here are a few pics.

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and a few more..

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Anyone got any tips for routes through the black forest? The Germanic obsession with privacy and rejection of streetview, is making it very tricky for me to work out what is gnarly downhill mtb runs, and what is beautifully paved minor roads...

Very happy riding gravel/ dirt roads etc, but we'll be on road bikes with 28c tyres so rock gardens are a no no

Current route through looks like this

https://ridewithgps.com/routes/16262444

Ah cool, I've just got back today from my trip covering very similar territory to @KT_Bee. Me and MsPub flew to Vancouver, then buses through Seattle and Portland, then to Tillamook where we started riding properly, just under 800 miles to San Francisco in 13 days (incl. one rest day). We were on a schedule to get overnight train and bus back to Vancouver after a couple of sightseeing days in SF, but happy to report that saddle sore was the worst of our problems, longest day was just over 90 miles and the Pacific Coast Highway is HILLY.

Echoing comments above, some of the bridges were a bit sketchy, and we were probably lucky with most logging trucks seeming to be going the other way, but generally found the whole route and people very bike-friendly.

Plenty more here!

Fantastic trip :)

Fantastic trip and great boat photo :)

Getting itchy feet seeing these write ups!

Thinking about doing the Pyrenees and northern spain in late september. Will the weather be good?

Perfectly fine, get warmer the further south you go.

Even October is pretty warm, English summer warm.

Cheers, and thanks for the photo credit. I managed to smash my phone in Vancouver and my brother lent me his Lumix camera for the bike ride, so that worked out quite well!

Looks epic. How many days were you cycling for? Hoping to do something similar next summer.

Getting itchy feet seeing these write ups!

Very much this, paticularily the Pacific Coast shots! I find wanderlust always hits hard as Summer turns to Autumn.

The whole trip was 14 days, but we really put the miles in at the start, and then took it easy for the last week. We rode about 780km in the first 6.5 days, then got the ferry from Bodo to Lofoten and did the last 450k or so over 7 days. I would wholeheartedly recommend it for a trip next summer!

Some awesome trips!!

Lovely weekend camping. First day 55m from Roydon to a site in the fens, about 15m north of Cambridge. Rest of weekend getting trashed and noodling back as far as Cambridge.

Couldn't believe how excellent the busway is, buses bombing along these weird tracks once in a while, and plenty of cycling alongside going on. Cambridge has a really great cycle culture.

<3 busway, riding along there at night with mates was always great. We're heading for 6 days around Norfolk on the tandem ending with a leg bashing down the busway to Peterborough.

Roadside pint.

On the Road.
There.
Unsure of existence Spice Museum?
End.