In May 2026 I biked from San Francisco to Los Angeles — a wishlist trip between my longtime home and my childhood home that was just as cool as I imagined / hoped. My partner Chrispy and I spent 11 days on the road, rolling through: Davenport, Santa Cruz, Monterey, Big Sur, Ragged Point, Cambria, Pismo Beach, Lompoc, Santa Barbara, Ventura, and, finally, Hermosa Beach. Our longest stretch was 78 miles, our shortest was 12, and most were in between, about ~40 or so of flats and climbs and unpaved paths and busy highways and side roads and detours and wide shoulders and no shoulders the angst and agony of acute pain and the full-body satisfaction of sore-but-strong muscles and bridges and trees and cute hotels (shouts to my credit card points!) and midday beers and traffic and solitude and transcendent vistas and cloud formations and clear skies and whispering “not today” to the vultures circling overhead and one potent bout of pouring rain and strawberry fields forever and artichokes and wildflowers and tailwinds and treasures and pelicans and seagulls and waves and convos with curious folks and fellow travelers, 500-or-so miles down the Pacific Coast.

Before we left, we constructed a little drawing board and attached it to my handlebars so I could sketch and take notes on the go. A few blocks after we set off in the Outer Sunset, I jotted what first came to mind — “here to there” — and this became my motto and mantra for the journey. Both “here” and “there” existed as a series of fixed and fluid points, present(s) and future(s) that shifted from: morning to night; the base of a hill to its summit; switchbacks to straights; breakfast to snacks to lunch; our next route cue; and moment to moment, with every pedal stroke. It’s still a bit surreal that we did it.