SOMBA K'E/YELLOWKNIFE
Trees in the Oregon Redwoods are so large that some trunks have been hollowed out to make room for the roads.
"You could drive your car under the tree," said Amanda Kanbari.
Or, your bike.
Amanda Kanbari spent the month of July cycling down the west coast of the United States. - Beth Brown/NNSL photo |
The B.C. native returned this week from a month-long tour of the Pacific Coast Bicycling Route, from Astoria, Ore. to the Mexican border. "The ocean is always on your right side. That really helped when I was lost."
She left July 5, did some trip prep in B.C. and took off from the U.S. border on July 7, atop her Kona touring bike. She arrived in Mexico on Aug. 10.
The trek was 2,348 kilometres, excluding a few trips inland for sightseeing and accommodations through the couchsurfing-esque cycling site Warm Showers.
She took along some ulus as host gifts.
"They are awesome pizza cutters," she said.
But most of the time she camped in state parks, including a closed park in California.
"It was so flooded it looked like The Walking Dead," she said.
Last summer, Kanbari biked through Washington State but this was her first solo trip. She returned relatively unscathed, apart from a biker's tan and some scraped knees.
"I tried to avoid rattlesnakes in California," she said.
 | "You don't need to be an avid cyclist" | 
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She did have one flat tire and one late-night gun run-in - maybe why her parents weren't too keen on the trip.
Still, she would recommend such an adventure to anyone up for the challenge.
"You don't need to be an avid cyclist to go on a cycling trip like this," she said.
Kanbari didn't do any true training for the cycle, something she joked that she regretted almost immediately. She said the first week was hard because it rained all week and her tent ripped.
But it was a far cry from miserable. Her days started around 4 a.m., peddling through lingering fog with her headlamp and flashing rear light.
She cycled around 65 to 105 kilometres a day on mostly empty roads, that took her to San Francisco, San Diego and Malibu. She recalled cycling by both "Barbie dreamhouses" and collapsed cottages, built hazardously close to the beach, that had fallen victim to the tide.
She watched seals and pilot whales and made stops at beaches, coffee shops and jazz bars to read. During these reprieves, strangers would stop to ask her where she was travelling, why she was alone, and even sometimes to buy her a beer. These were her opportunities to tell people about Yellowknife.
Kanbari works for the YWCA as the co-ordinator of Project Child Recovery and Dudes Club, a leadership program teaching young boys about anti-violence, anti-racism and anti-homophobia, transphobia and social justice.
"People were so happy to hear about what I do in the North, working with youth and specifically young men," she said, adding most people had never heard about any similar programs.
"So we are really doing something great here in Yellowknife with the Dudes Club."
While on the road, she mostly crossed paths with male cyclists.
"It was a dichotomy of older men who had grown children and wanted to get away and do this trip, and men in their 20s and 30s who had just broken up with their girlfriends and were very sad," she said.
She also met about five other women travelling alone like her, which she said was always a real "girl power moment."
If Kanbari had any tips for cyclists pondering a trip like this, it would be to be willing to abandon your schedule. That's when she was able to enjoy the most spontaneous adventures - like gifts of organic groceries, impromptu surfing lessons and barbecues on the beach.
"When I opened myself up I learned a lot more," she said.
