Matt & Rita are avid cycle tourists, having toured by bicycle in Italy, The Netherlands, Germany, Canada, Australia and the US. They actively promote cycling and are members of the San Luis Obispo Bicycle Club and the San Luis Obispo County Bicycle Coalition.

Matt & Rita were perfect hosts. Even though we arrived last minute, they put us up and cooked a great meal to top it. Ivana tested out their tandem-recumbent and it was fun to talk about all our trips together.

The next day they cycled out with us, which was great as they were showing us much better routes and a great fish-tacos bar

Thanks Matt & Rita!

Victor, originally from Puerto Rico, though he grew up in San Antonia, Texas, has been on the road for a while, walking to promote peace through Marijuana.

This is how he describes his mission, taken from his website  http://HaveThisBook.com

I am a self employed long-distance walker/journalist.

With the Internet I have discovered a way to fight the world’s greatest problem. What would you say that is? Of all time. Where it all starts. Well, more like humanity’s greatest problem.   The world can shake us off.

I say it’s ignorance. Ignorance is the root of all problems, if you ask me. Nobody listens. We’re not learning. We are stuck. The technology is here, the facts have been staring us in the face for decades . . . but we still insist on killing the world and ourselves because death makes money.

Why doesn’t anybody care?

Well, here is my idea.

With the Internet(and you’re going to think I’m crazy, just like I want you to) I plan to eliminate money, make everything free, prove that it’s human-nature to be generous and bring world peace.

I’m going to get rid of cars in big cities and make everybody healthy(and height/weight proportionate).

AND, not only will I get marijuana totally legalized and chill everybody out…I will get it recommended.  It will be growing everywhere.

That’s the key.

I’ve got it all figured out.

I will tell you exactly how I plan to do all this . . . if you are willing to listen, and only then.  I wouldn’t want to waste your time.  I’ve got a website if you would rather read it.  There is a lot to be said for the presentation, though.

Click on ASK ME HOW, on the left column at the top on http://HaveThisBook.com (if you want to).

“There are two ways of spreading light: To be the candle or the mirror that reflects it.” – Edith Wharton

Rose, Diego & Ximena are housemates in Pacific Grove, adjacent to Monterey, California. All are active environmentalists, preferring the bike over a car and helping clean the beautiful coast of Monterey bay.

Diego has cycled across Europe and Asia, see his website http://superpedaletos.blogspot.com/ & Ximena has just succeeded in getting styrofoam containers banned in Monterey. It is small initiatives like these that slowly make the world greener, from the bottom up…

Only about 4-5% of the original giant trees (Redwoods and Giant Sequoias) are left after the logging activities, and this place is one of the best to enjoy the grandeur of the trees.

After cycling through thousands of kilometres of forests and nature, we had not expected to be so impressed anymore, but just cycling and walking between these Giants, some over 100 meter high and thousands of years old, made us feel humble and small. It also gave hope that maybe nature can be saved if humans try to do their best as well…

Soon more stories about Northern California, for now I just wanted to share some images of the road, the trees, the villages and the odd tourist attractions. It is hard to put the Giants into perspective, the light is always wrong (or absent) and no photo will ever do justice to the feeling of being there.

<rant> Imagine cycling along one of the most beautiful stretches of coastal nature in the US, maybe even in America. Dunes, forests, cliffs and rough waves. So nice they declared it a ‘National Recreation Area’!

I enjoyed the scenery, but got more and more annoyed with the trash that was on the side of the road. It got so bad that I could not focus on the nature or even on the traffic, but just on the next piece of plastic that had been thrown out of a car window, or maybe I should say truck window?

Besides the ugliness of the trash, the chemicals that are slowly released into nature (by decomposing and by getting eaten by animals), it also creates dangerous situations for cyclists, as many times we have to go around heaps of glass or large pieces of trash, forcing me onto the car lane (assuming there is a shoulder to begin with).

At one point, at the bottom of a steep hill, I decided to take some photographs.

About one mile later, I had about 75 pictures of discarded trash, all taken within 45 minutes of uphill cycling (some more were shot after lunch, one hour later). Please take the following facts in account:

• I only started shooting after I got really annoyed by all the trash, so there were hundreds pieces more, just before this series.
• All first 75 shots were taken within 45 minutes; this includes cycling uphill, getting off the bike, releasing the flap of my handlebar-bag, getting the camera ready, taking a picture and getting moving again. Mostly I could do only a few pedal strokes before stopping again.
• Many pieces are missing. Only halfway up I started to shoot ‘doubles’, before, I passed items if I already had shot them. Missed Doubles (or triples) include red Bull, Coca Cola, Camel cigarettes, all Beers Of Idiots (see below) and more
• I did not shoot most unrecognizable and/or unbranded pieces of trash, such as random car parts, plastic wrappers of all kinds and sizes, unrecognizable glass items and much, much, much more…
• The road was steep on my side, the side of this trash, so likely a multitude of trash was to be found lower down the slope
• It was busy and there was no good shoulder, so I could not stop for every piece.
• Image #27 is the one in the middle: Scenic Byway… Besides this sign, there had also been a ‘Adopt-A-Highway sign before I started shooting.
• I only shot one side of the road.

Here is it: all the glory of Mile 207, Oregon (click image for larger version)

Conclusions:

Not all of the below are scientifically proven or valid, but it after cycling several thousand kilometers along the US highways, it is reasonable safe to assume that:

• There are hundreds pieces of trash per mile of US Highway, even though it is in a ‘National Recreation Area’
• Coors & Bud (especially light) are the choice of beer for trash-throwing idiots
• There is just as much ‘healthy’ trash (waters such as Dasani, Aquafina, ArrowHead (with ‘Eco-Shape bottle’!), V8, VitaminWater etc) as there is stuff that was already trash to begin with (KFC, McDonalds, Taco Bell, BurgerKing etc etc)
• Drive-thru coffee creates throw-away empty coffee trash.
• Adopt-a-Highway seems nothing more than a scam where local businesses get some advertising and never look at ‘their’ road again. There were some exceptions in the US (especially notably when the Adopter was a Bikeshop or Eco-market etc), but generally those signs only seemed to attract trash as the idiots throwing things out of their car, seem to need something to aim for..

I assume that the crazy fools that throw these things out of their car window (trust me, they are NOT cyclists…) have zero respect for nature also have no respect for others or even themselves, as they are messing up their own planet. Is is just education? lack of proper values taught by their parents? Or just plain stupidity? I really wonder what goes on in their minds if anything at all.

Some places have a sign that says: ‘$1000 fine for littering’. This means that if one person was stationed here, he could have raised at least $80,000 in fines (likely a multitude) on this one mile alone. I think that will cover his salary? How’s that for job creation?

< / rant>