Your future vacations will begin on a bicycle. Start pedaling now

PHOTO by RUSS ROCA

Standing in front of Denny’s on Long Beach Boulevard and Sixth Street at 6:45 a.m. seems an unlikely start to a backcountry adventure, but it’s the gateway to one of Long Beach’s greatest secrets: an Amtrak bus.

I haven’t owned a car in eight years, which in Los Angeles is usually understood to mean you are either broke or have a DUI. In my case, it’s by choice. Let’s say I’m an early adopter—I haven’t paid for gas in eight years and have no plans to. I also haven’t gone on a “road trip” in the traditional sense (small quarters, long hours and short tempers) since I was a child, but it doesn’t prevent my girlfriend and me from long wandering adventures. When you substitute the automobile with the bicycle, it makes all the difference.

On a bicycle, the mundane task of going from point A to B becomes an adventure, a battle with the elements, a test of resourcefulness. When you return from a bicycle adventure (it can hardly be called a vacation), you come back a changed person. On bicycle, we have traversed the hills of Solvang on wine tastings, ridden down the Oregon coast, and pedaled along roads where the only traffic hazards were sunning salamanders.

This past Memorial Day weekend, we boarded the Amtrak bus with our bikes (Amtrak allows you to bring your bike on its buses and trains for free up to San Luis Obispo and for $10 all the way up to Washington State!) from Denny’s, which brought us directly to Union Station in downtown LA. From there, we boarded the Pacific Surfliner train, claimed our seats and watched the scenery transform from graffiti-scarred buildings to views of the ocean and on to open rolling country.

Train travel is civilized (and cheap! $35 to San Luis Obispo, $80 to Portland, Ore.). You are not herded like cattle. You are spared the indignity of not being able to carry more than three ounces of your chosen liquids. And once your ticket has been checked, you can make haste to the café car where you can order beer that is better than what you can find at most bars in Long Beach—the Surfliner offers brews from Stone Brewery!—and watch the landscape unfold before you.

We de-trained at San Luis Obispo, loaded our bikes and hit the road—but not before a good-sized lunch. (A pleasant side effect of biking is that you can eat in great quantities and still lose weight. I’ve been known to eat ice cream for breakfast while on tour.) From San Luis Obispo, we took backcountry roads to Morro Bay (18 miles) to camp at the state park. (Another advantage of bicycle camping is that many state parks offer special “hiker/biker” camp sites. Hiker/biker sites are dirt cheap—generally $5, compared to $20 at car or RV sites—and as a hiker or biker, you’re guaranteed a site.)

The next morning we rode to Paso Robles (40 miles), stopping for a large breakfast (no ice cream this time) before we hit the hills. Our route took us north to Cayucos, then inland via Old Creek Road, where we turned onto Santa Rita Road toward Paso Robles. After about eight miles on Santa Rita, the pavement disappears and is replaced with dirt and gravel and begins to climb steadily.

My girlfriend is a climber. Even loaded with panniers and camping equipment, she can fly up hills. I’m not a climber. I’m more Sisyphus to her Hermes. 

But that’s okay, too. Bike touring isn’t a race. Somewhere between the base and the summit, my mind and body accepted the labor of the climb. It’s at that moment of acceptance, when I’m spinning my lowest gear and inching along slightly faster than walking speed that I’m totally and completely present. The journey becomes the destination. When we reached the summit, the tree line disappeared, revealing an impossibly blue sky, a field of yellow flowers and, more importantly, a fast winding road going downhill. From the summit, we descended and re-entered civilization in Paso Robles. 

We were there to attend our first Great Western Bike Rally, an annual gathering of cyclists. GWBR has been described as a giant church picnic, with the bicycle as the religion. The annual event includes a bike swap meet, bike show, a Huffy toss competition and route-slips for self-guided rides all around the countryside.

For the next three days, it was cycling bliss. The Paso Robles countryside was our playground. We went wine tasting, had breakfast at a place called Hoover’s Beef Palace (a livestock auction house with an adjacent restaurant), and were treated to screensaver-worthy landscapes. 

All of this—without once stepping foot inside a car or paying for gas.

Like a lot of people, I went backpacking through Europe after graduating from college and took the Eurail. And I remember the trip fondly with a misty romanticism. Late trains and slow service are considered “old world” when you’re overseas—and a pain in the ass when you’re in Long Beach. I always wondered if I could recreate that same sense of adventure here in the states. I believe you can. By combining the bicycle and train (or even the train alone) and being open to serendipity, you can have more than just a road trip. You can have an authentic adventure.

Tags: amtrak, bicycles, great wester bike rally, Long Beach, road trips, san luis obispo, vacations