Westwheel 9 — the Lost Coast and Redwood Country

Base camp

Richardson Grove Campground and RV Park sits on Highway 101 near Piercy — nine miles south of Garberville, a mile south of Richardson Grove State Park, and about two hundred miles north of San Francisco, which is three and a half hours by car. It was Westwheel 9’s headquarters for the week.

The practical reason for choosing it was electricity: every campsite there has 30-amp service, which is what makes charging a week’s worth of electric unicycles possible at all, and household outlets for slower overnight charging. Cell service and Wi-Fi in that stretch of the 101 are thin, so riders were told to download maps and routes before they arrived.

PEVRA’s published thanks for the arrangements went to Cindy Hendrickson, the campground’s manager. Riders who were not on a package booked their own sites, cabins or hotel rooms — at the campground itself, at Richardson Grove State Park, at the Benbow KOA five miles away, at Redwoods River Resort nine miles away, or in Garberville.

The week as it was scheduled

Most days were built the same way: one advanced route and one gentler version of the same country, so a rider on their first long week and a rider doing two hundred miles in a day could be on the same schedule. Three of the nine days were still unwritten when PEVRA published the programme, and they are marked below rather than filled in.

• The day before, Sunday May 31 — the pre-ride. A distance group was to leave the San Francisco Bay Area at 5 a.m. and ride about two hundred miles up Highway 1 to Leggett, arriving around 10 p.m. It would be the fourth time a group had made its own way to a Westwheel site under its own power. Riders had to be approved in advance, on high-capacity wheels with fast chargers.
• Monday June 1 — arrival, and the Drive-Thru Tree. Camp, charging, and then an afternoon ride the eight miles down to Leggett to the Chandelier Drive-Thru Tree: a 315-foot coast redwood, about 2,400 years old, with a tunnel cut through its base in 1937. You can ride an electric unicycle through it. Opening night dinner was set for back at Richardson Grove.
• Tuesday June 2 — the Avenue of the Giants, Ferndale and Cape Town. The plan was to leave in staggered waves rather than one pack, because the charging stop in Miranda has two heads and can take four riders at a time. The Avenue of the Giants is thirty-one miles of gentle grades and light traffic through Humboldt Redwoods State Park, past Founders Grove and the Dyerville Giant. From there the route ran to Rio Dell to charge, into the Victorian village of Ferndale for lunch, and out the coast road through Cape Town toward Petrolia — twenty-nine miles, mostly paved, some of it rough. The beginner version was a flat loop on the Avenue that a rider could step off any time it passed the visitor centre.
• Wednesday June 3 — Shelter Cove and Usal Road. The hardest day on the schedule, and a twelve-hour one: fifty-eight miles out to Shelter Cove to charge and eat, then south on Usal Road through the Sinkyone Wilderness — unpaved, unmaintained, steep, with creek crossings, no cell service for long stretches and Roosevelt elk on it — and back to camp by Highway 1. It was not a beginner’s ride, and PEVRA said so in those words; the beginner alternative was to drive to Shelter Cove and ride the town and Black Sands Beach. Whether this one ran is not something the archive records. The page carried two update lines that contradict each other and neither is dated: first that Usal Road was reported reopened after the seasonal closure, then that it was closed — the usual seasonal gate, normally shut from late October to mid-May, plus a washed-out bridge, which is not usual. What both agree on is what PEVRA knew: it was monitoring conditions, including County Road 431 from Shelter Cove to Usal Beach, and would confirm access before ride day.
• Thursday June 4 — the “Little Dragon”, the run down Highway 1 between Leggett and Westport. The programme named the day and never wrote it up.
• Friday June 5 — Jump On! A free training and demo session at the campground at 10 a.m., the same one PEVRA runs everywhere: learn to ride an electric unicycle, on PEVRA’s wheels, for nothing.
• Saturday June 6 and Sunday June 7 — Eureka and Arcata, and the sixth annual Pevvie Awards. Like the Thursday, both days were left as a region and a heading; the awards venue and time had not been settled when the schedule went out.
• Monday June 8 — a chill day. The Eel River, the old-growth trails in Richardson Grove State Park, or nothing at all. Rides for the day were deliberately left open.
• Tuesday June 9 — home. Most people would drive. A distance group was to leave camp at 5 a.m. and ride the two hundred miles back down Highway 101 to the Bay Area, arriving around 11 p.m.

Riders were told to carry a helmet, gloves, knee and elbow pads, their fastest charger, adapters for 30-amp and J1772 outlets, a pump, lights bright enough to be seen in daylight from behind, and water and food for anything that left camp.

The Pevvie Awards

The sixth annual Pevvie Awards were scheduled for the closing weekend in the Eureka and Arcata area, at a no-host dinner; the venue and the hour were still to be announced when the programme was published. They are the community’s own awards, given since Westwheel 4 in 2021, and they name a Rider of the Year and a Safety Hero of the Year among others.

What it cost, and the raffle

The rides themselves cost nothing, as every Westwheel ride has. There was no fee to attend; PEVRA asked riders to reserve a free ticket at pevra.betterworld.org so it could plan for them. Travel, meals and lodging were each attendee’s own.

For the second year, PEVRA offered a package that covered the awkward part — a place to sleep and somewhere to charge. The solo package was $199: up to eight nights of tent space at PEVRA’s reserved site at Richardson Grove, parking, priority 30-amp charging, the Monday opening night dinner, snacks, water and ice through the week, and a Westwheel 9 t-shirt. The couples or shared-tent package was $299 — everything in the solo package for two people, including two t-shirts. PEVRA described both as covering the campsite, the charging and the camp amenities; all other meals, transport and expenses stayed with each attendee.

Merchandise and the raffle were the rest: t-shirts at $25, patches at $5 on site, and giveaway tickets at $25 or five for $100, with a new Nosfet Aero from eWheels as the grand prize and no requirement to be present for the draw. Proceeds go to PEVRA’s work on safety, training and advocacy for personal electric vehicles — the same work this database is part of. Registration, tickets and donations are all handled at pevra.betterworld.org, which is not this site.

PEVRA membership is separate from all of that, and it is what keeps the training and the expedition running between Westwheels. Nobody at PEVRA draws a salary. Ride-week updates — a rollout that moved, a road that closed — go out on PEVRA’s Telegram channel.