NBG 2006 San Francisco to Boston scout, Scott Campbell remains an active touring cyclist even when the weather is less than ideal. From Scott's words below, you will see why most people only tour during the warmer and longer days of summer and spring. With his permission, here is an email exchange that he and I recently had:
I just got back from a mini loaded tour with Pam to San Juan Bautista. We left from our place on Friday; rode to Sunset Beach and spent the night there. It sure was cold that night but colder on Saturday morning. I heard it got down to the low 30s.
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Were your bags warm enough?
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It was not so much that the bags weren't warm enough it was more that the air is damp. It was the getting out of the warm bag into the cold morning air that was not pleasant. On top of the fact that with out any light we were forced to go to sleep very early. We were in the sack by 6:30pm. Then we go up at about 6:30am the next morning. Some people might say getting 12 hours of sleep is what they hope to achieve someday; I was not enjoying waking up and going back to sleep several times throughout the night.
From Sunset Beach we rode over to Kirby Park on Elkhorn Rd to meet the bike club for our Saturday club ride. I was leading the group, from the back, over to San Juan Bautista. 14 people showed up to do the ride. We rode through Aromas to San Juan Bautista then said good bye to the group as they rode back to Kirby Park. We had planned to stay in San Juan Bautista. Our first choice of campgrounds was a bust. They turned us away saying we don't rent to tenters.
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Ugh, how did U react to that? Did U ask them to make an exception?
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First thing I asked is, "Where can we go that is close by?" His suggestion was to climb to the top of Fremont Peak to the state park. This is an 11 mile climb and several thousand feet in elevation gain. The guy almost made an exception to the rule. But I knew of another campground and suggested that we head to it. However, the guy did let us use the phone to call the other campground. That is where we went and saved us from having to do all that climbing.
The owner was very nice and let us set up camp on a very beautiful piece of lawn behind the office. We had a hot shower and sat in the laundry room reading books that were there for anyone. We were lulled to sleep by the sounds of the traffic on the freeway just a stones throw away.
This morning we set out to come home and stopped several times to enjoy the view or some snack. We had to fuel up for the climb on Empire Grade. All totaled we rode 116 miles.
btw: His partner for the ride was Pam Slocum. In 2006 she rode with him to San Francisco from Denver..