The Route - What's a California J ?
I named this tour The California J because the route forms the shape of the letter J, as shown on the map below. The route starts in downtown San Francisco and ends at my home in Oakland, Oregon. It's not all in California, but it's mostly in California.
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It's easier to visualize the route if you click the button in the upper right of the map and select "Terrain" view.
The first big climb is 5080-foot Pine Mountain summit, between the coast and the Central Valley.
The second big climb is 5280-foot Walker summit, crossing the Sierra Nevada mountains.
The third big climb is a side trip to the 9200-foot Kearsarge Pass trailhead.
The fourth big climb is the Sherwin Grade and a side trip over 9100-foot Minaret Pass.
The "jagged" high elevation section is Mammoth Lakes to Lake Tahoe.
The final 3 big climbs are volcanoes in the Cascade range: Lassen, Medicine Lake, Crater Lake.
The main objective of this tour was to see the eastern Sierra Nevada mountains and the Pacific coast south of San Francisco.
In past years I had biked the Pacific Coast from Vancouver Island to San Francisco and from Los Angeles to San Diego. Until this year I had never biked the popular segment from San Francisco to Los Angeles. I didn't want to bike across the Los Angeles area again, so I turned inland in Ventura.
Part of this tour duplicates routes I pedaled in 1995 (Medford to South Lake Tahoe) and 2000 (Reno to Fresno). The entire distance from Lee Vining (day 24) to Bartle (day 37) duplicates the route of previous tours, but this time I traveled in the opposite direction and allowed more time to see things along the way. In addition this was my 3rd time to pedal the final segment from Crater Lake to my home.
The astute observer will recognize that this route maximizes tailwinds. I followed the prevailing wind south along the coast. Then the prevailing wind blew me inland to the Owens valley. Then the prevailing south wind helped me travel north. I really did have a tailwind 80% of the time!
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