Patrick's Point Park

Scenic Drive continues to the north of Trinidad, making its way along a stretch of cliffs above the Pacific. Around mile 7 you come to Patrick's Point Park, a little known jewel in the state park system. I wandered up on my bike yesterday and noodled around in the park for hours.

The whole park is serviced by a well-maintained--and little used--network of roads, each one of which leads to a spectacular ocean view. I parked the bike at the Agate Beach overlook at the north end of the park.



These are iPhone photos, thus the dreamlike, soft coloration.



Inside the park you see Sitka Spruce growing alongside Redwoods, a reminder that this is the southern end of the Alaskan rain forest.

Looking for a dramatic site for your next wedding? This is "Wedding Rock."


For much of my ride I had the park to myself.

A Week in Santa Monica

Thanks to a borrowed bike, I got out on the Santa Monica beach bike paths every morning. Say what you will about the evils of Los Angeles traffic, the car culture seems far away here.


75 degrees at 8 am and all is well. Cruisers and hitchhikers were happening.





Continuing south to Marina Del Rey I had the path almost to myself.





I turned around on a bridge after chatting with this group.


As in every Marina I've ever visited, all the ships were crowded against each other, safely tied up and deserted. Obviously, slips were at a premium, as were yachts. Almost nobody was actually sailing.



Could we pay off our national debt by simply selling all our idle yachts? I stopped for coffee. At the next table these guys were speaking a language I've never heard.





At the age of 70 this rugged couple from Australia were traveling the world by folding bikes! I caught up with them a few miles from the end of a North American tour.


The next morning I tried to find their hostel. Alas, Venice has three and this wasn't the one.



Santa Monica Playland at the end of a relaxing day...



The Santa Monica beach faces southwest, so the sun sets over the mountain range to the right of the beach, which feels like north to most Californians.

Coming Soon: Ken Thiessen revisits RENOVO

Ken's Renovo review turns out to be the most popular item we've ever published. He'll be merging his body with one of the new Renovos in an all-new road test around the end of this month and promises an update. Stay tuned...

Arturas Zuokas for President of the USA!

Downtown Vilnius, Lithuania can be a pretty nice place if everyone respects the parking laws. Was that your Mercedes, Rob "My Heart Bleeds" Ford, Mayor of Toronto and Hall of Shame member?

As for the rest of you downtown jewelry shoppers...





Mayor Zuokas appreciates your cooperation.





Tip of the helmet to tra for this gem. For more details, see "Vilnius Mayor Crushes Car in Bike Lane With a Tank."

Stock Market down 600

Review: Lensmate Polarizer for the Canon S90/5

For cyclists who are serious about photography I've recommended both the S90 (here) and the improved S95 (here).

If you already have a Canon S90/5 you'll want a Lensmate polarizer. It's mounts in a few minutes and doesn't really fatten up your pocket camera. Once installed, the filter moves on and off the camera with a flick of a finger. The S95 shown below has both the lensmate polarizer (show here extended; it all but disappears when the camera is off) and the essential Richard Franiec grip. I'll say it again: don't leave home without that grip.





You can't apply polarization in Photoshop; only an on-camera filter can make the difference between an annoying, blown opportunity and a great shot.

Midday in NYC: lots of glare. I could hardly look at the side of this building. I reached for the polarizer and the glare vanished.

Minutes later in the Subway I still had the lensmate polarizer on my S95--and got this shot. The car was over-lit  with glare coming off every surface.

Polarizers really shine around water. Glare coming off of the ocean can flatten a beautiful scene or simply blow out all the color. But not this time.

Deep within the Pioneer Grove, home of the world's tallest Redwoods you see great contrast between light and dark and very bright areas tend to blow out. The polarizer transformed a flat, uninteresting photo into this three dimensional study.

The county closed this restaurant and arrested the owner after drinking water health codes were repeatedly ignored. Out on bail now and with the restaurant still closed, the owner (not shown here) has become a patriot.

Go Bruce!

The Plan:

The Details:

My response on Life is a Wheel, Bruce Weber's NYT cycling blog:

 

Go Bruce!

 

I'll be with you (in spirit) you on The Social Biking Blog

I'd vote for more teeth on those rear gears and a set of Albatross handlebars, which are good beyond hope. Straight bars will destroy your wrists. Your hands want to be thumbs up—think of a handshake. And with upright bars you will want a wider saddle.

Did you want a sex life after this trip? If so, you could treat yourself to a Brooks B67, the Cadillac Limo of bike saddles. Mine had no break in period and I've had no saddle problems from the day I installed it.

If you get blown off course, you're welcome at my place in Arcata, CA, just over the Oregon border. It's only about 600 extra miles.

 

Anatomy lesson

By Aaron Kuehn, a designer who definitely thinks outside of the box

helmet tip to David Hodge in Stockholm, who sent the Kuehn drawing.

May the force be with him!

I met a happy Mango rider on a bike tour of Holland back in 2007. That meeting became one of the first entries on The Social Biking Blog. Now the Mango has come to America!

NEW HALL OF SHAME MEMBER

Back in March 2011, John Cassidy of "The New Yorker" complained that NYC's new bike lanes were getting in the way of his lumbering antique cars, (which he calls "heaps"). There followed an extended...ahem...reaction from Hall's fellow NYers who ride bikes, not cars, in the city's new cycling lanes (see bottom of the NYer article). The Economist weighed in with "The World is His Parking Spot." Taking the bait——indeed swallowing the hook whole——Hall attempted to justify himself with no fewer than 3 additional rants about why the city already had too many bike lanes. Mind you, he isn't opposed to all bike lanes. Some of his best friends are bike lanes...

Cars being persecuted by selfish kids on bikes and inconsiderate women with baby carriages.

Nobody does print flame wars better than NYers so who knows where—or if—this will end. Meanwhile, John Cassidy has earned himself a place in the Social Biking Blog Biking Hall of Shame (see the right sidebar).

ARCATA OYSTER FESTIVAL

90% of California's oysters come from Arcata Bay and on Saturday, June 18, most of them were in the Arcata plaza. You want to arrive at 10 so you don't have to wait too long for this:

I saddled up around 9:30 and pressed on up Old Arcata Road past the Anvick turnouff.

And past the Anvick couch.

Oysters called to me, so I didn't stop to try out the couch. Later that day it had moved to a new home. As I got closer to town other riders appeared. The trick was to appear relaxed and casual while closing fast on Oyster central.

Maybe I should have left a bit earlier...

After eating a half dozen Arcata Oysters:

Other competitors and their bikes:

Our bill of rights in action. It's tested daily right here on the Arcata Plaza.

I parked discreetly on the sidewalk. To steal my bike a thief would have to cut down a tree on the plaza, a death penalty violation here in Arcata.

Beer + oysters usually leads to more beer.

Summer!

Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?

Thou art more lovely and more temperate.

Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,

And summer's lease hath all too short a date.

Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,

And often is his gold complexion dimmed;

And every fair from fair sometime declines,

By chance, or nature's changing course untrimmed.

But thy eternal summer shall not fade

Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow'st;

Nor shall death brag thou wand'rest in his shade,

When in eternal lines to time thou grow'st,

So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,

So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.

Sonnet 18 
William Shakespeare

Rough winds indeed. Who doesn't love the notion of old gas guzzlers being slowly buried in grasses and flowers? 

From the bike path on Old Arcata Road near sunset. Click photo to Expand.