Bike Be All Crazy

My ride yesterday took me up the SGRT, which is nothing new. What I saw, however, was new. At least new to my eyeballs.

As I approached this contraption, it appeared to be one large vehicle. But as I passed, I saw that the rear half was just pushing the front half along. Notice the special bumper:

Of course, when I stopped to take pictures, they separated and were all, "I wasn't doing that!"

Pacific Coast Bicentennial Bike Route

My bike wants to get on a train.

So I had a long weekend, the weather was hot, and it may have just been in my head, but I could swear I smelled smoke from the fire in Idyllwild. Not wanting to stay in town for any of that noise, I headed to Union Station to catch a train into Ventura with my bike for a ride up the coast.

She's got a ticket to ride...

...and a destination.

Back in 1975, a bicycle route was established that basically follows Highway 1 down the California coast with some detours for reasons of safety, legality, or scenery. I say "down" because south is the preferred direction of travel. Even without the tailwind, the views are better from the "cliffside of the trail." Though CalTrans stopped publishing maps for the route in 1982, the Adventure Cycling Association distributes a variant of the route, and perhaps others do too. Thus, summertime brings lots of bike tourists to the route I was following. Many of the "pannier crowd" are international tourists spending as many hours sightseeing and dining as riding. Domestic bikepackers seem to be a thriftier crowd. Many of them are on thousand mile (or more) journeys, doing the entire route, or doing their own route on a door-to-door loop. But no matter who you are, the $5 hiker/biker campsites at world class destinations like Morro Bay State Park are attractive. The warm shower alone is worth the price of admission.

You can't see Morro Rock because the fog won't lift for a while. Wait for a photo op? Ain't nobody got time for that!

One of the nice things about staying at a campground is that you get to talk to some of your peers. Talk naturally turns to routes, destinations, and gear. I was given directions to the grocery store and a recommendation of the best place for fish and chips. As I was starting to get cold, I opted for hot food. The best place was closed, so I went to the one next door. When I ordered fish and chips, they asked me if I wanted chips or fries!

You know that palm tree island with the long bridge, don't you?

But I'm making it sound like I went to Morro Bay. Nothing could be further from the truth. I went for a RIDE. I didn't know if I would make it that far. And going further was an option, too, if I wanted to get on a train in San Luis Obispo on the way back. One of the nice things about riding the coast is that the cell phone always seems to have reception. I was able to give updates of my progress (and my evolving plans) every place I stopped. Some other riders don't bring phones, relying instead on the internet at public libraries for email communication. I couldn't do that. I gots to have my Words With Friends while I'm waiting for that cheeseburger...

Nothing's showing.

And the Pacific Coast route doesn't just hug the coast, either. There is quite a lot of variety. Ranch land, farm land smelling of ripe strawberries, small towns, mossy trees, lone oaks dotting the grassy hillsides. My favorite views were the ones that simply couldn't be captured in a photograph.

Share the road.

I had never been to UCSB before, but I got the opportunity, as the route crosses the campus. Talk about a bike-friendly school! There were many, many bicycle parking lots scattered about. Some of them were huge! And bike paths criss-cross the campus. I don't think my picture does it justice, but here you go.

I've got to go back and see this school in the daylight...

Everybody loves a sunset.

On my last day, I called ahead to the SAG vehicle. Not to cut my ride short (I've done that before), but to extend it. "Hey, Babe. I don't want to get on the train in Ventura. If I ride down to Malibu, can you come pick me up?"

I am in the habit of waving to other cyclists going the opposite direction. On the 605 bike path, lots of people wave back. If you have ever ridden Ballona Creek, you know how some cyclists are too serious to be friendly. I was expecting the "west-side cold shoulder" in Malibu, but even the guys with aero-bars gave me a nod. That was a nice surprise.

I Took A Picture!

     It seems like my infrequent posts consist mostly of apologies for the lack of pictures on my posts. It's becoming increasingly clear that there are two schools of thought in this uber-digital age:

• Pictures, or it didn't happen.
• This is such a wonderful experience that I don't want to stop experiencing it in order to "document" it.

Today's case in point is yesterday's bike ride. I left at 9:30am and did not arrive at my destination until 8:00pm. Most of those hours had ample lighting for photography and/or experience. From 10:30am until 6:30pm, I was out of my cell service area. So no checking my Facebook, no texting my friends, nothing much to keep me from taking pictures. And yet, here it is. My one photo stop:

North side of the road

South side of the road

     I don't have much to show for my ride. Some tan cheeks, knees and neck... A picture that only counts as two because the panarama mode only holds so much. But I have one story. 

     My photo stop (which was really a stop to adjust something on my bike, or adjust my clothing, I forget...) was about 6 or 7 miles beyond the turnoff to Crystal Lake. Earlier, as I was standing on the pedals, climbing and panting, some dude descending shouted out that I was "...Almost there!" Kinda strange when you consider I was about a third of the way into my ride. If he had known my destination, would he have shouted "Only 60 more miles to go..."?

     Oh, the silly little things that make me laugh!

What Makes The Sky Do This?

The Coast

All rides must start somewhere. To get to the start of this ride, I took the BART train to Daly City.

On the train platform, you can see my weapon of choice. Compared to the 1.75" tire, disk brake, and pannier-sporting machines I was to run into 110 miles later, this bike was a poor choice. However, this bike is named "the Red Menace." And that makes all the difference in the world.

Speaking of "the world," here is a picture of a small portion of the world that was visible from my ride:

If you think gas is expensive, the small snack pictured below cost $7.75. And it is nowhere close to being a gallon! Even with the refill on the coffee, I bet it would all fit into my one liter bottle with room to spare. But I did manage to crank out quite a few miles from that fill-up.

I had never see a ghost bike before in real life. Now I have. 

Perhaps it is good to be reminded of the fragility of life at the outset of a long trip.

This is a map of the campground I stayed at in Monterey. I must have been tired because I couldn't find the hiker/biker spots. So I took a picture of the map to consult as I wandered, lost. Eventually, I found my spot. And a lot of bikes better suited to my ride than "the Red Menace."

This is where the joke about Kabuki brand sunscreen goes. Except, I don't have a joke. Just a punchline.

The next two pictures showed me a flaw in Facebook's picture preview feature. Both of these panoramas were previewed with a cropped-to-standard-dimensions image that looked completely stupid. As with widescreen videos, letterbox is the way to go! 

Here, I'm thinking I must have died. Because I was in heaven.

And here.

And again here.

This next picture is one of my favorites. It is Hwy 1 leaving San Simeon Village. I was riding into the rising sun, which made for a less than ideal riding experience. But the photo conveys the sense of quiet, easy, coastal miles that I had felt the night before. Full moon, sound of waves coming from "just over there," flat well-paved road, minimal traffic, cool enough to turn the cranks with ease, gentle breezes. I wish those few hours could have continued.

The moss covered trees just south of Cambria were a treat.

San Luis Obispo was the end of the line for me. Instead of getting on Amtrak's Pacific Surfliner, perhaps I should have walked into this house and made myself at home. Zoom in on the word arching above the door.

White Boy Be Lazy

No posts in a while.

Perhaps, I haven't had any good subject matter. Well, that will change soon. This Saturday I will start a ride down the Pacific Coast Highway from Daly City. I hope to ride all the way to Oxnard. White Boy best not be lazy with the camera!

It was the Best of Rides; It was the Worst of Rides

It seems like a lifetime ago, already, but it was only five days ago that I was riding on the Tour Divide. I was seeing some of the prettiest country I seen in my life (plus coal mines and clearcuts). I was able to trust the drivers when I was on the road. (Many drivers saw my sleeping bag and gave me a thumbs up!) I had no obligations other than to cover some ground, eat like a deranged hyena, keep myself dry (and failing that, to keep my spare socks and down cardigan, dry). It didn't matter what country I was in, paying with a credit card always worked and I had my passport in case I hit a border.

Haven't even started yet, and it's scenic!

When I did hit a border, it was to enter the US. Which was nice, because the prices are lower here. In Eureka, MT, I filled my bags with junk food, ate an ice cream cone, and paid a paltry $12. So I went back for a $5 footlong sandwich. On the other side of the border, I had just paid $16 for minor restock of beef jerky and nuts!

Life was so simple. And mostly, it was so wonderful. But when it sucked, I can't convey how badly it did.

First off, I had no idea what I was doing. I had ridden with my bike loaded, camped one night, and ridden home. That was my test.

I got cold, but I said, "If I bring gloves, dry socks, a wool beanie and a down cardigan, I should be fine."

On the Tour Divide website, it says to be an experienced bike-packer before signing up. To paraphrase, in the middle of nowhere (and in the middle of a race) is not where you want to discover that you don't like camping after all. This was very good advice that I ignored for two reasons. I was not going to (and I didn't) discover that I don't like camping. But secondly, if it's so darned tough to get a month off work to race the Divide, how was I supposed to get three months off to tour it? The part I didn't realize was that I was missing out on real life experience of improvising when things went wrong. Which made it SO much more stressful when things (inevitably) went wrong.

This is just to say that when I crashed, on the first day of the longest journey of my life, partly due to my own poor judgement, the first time I had ever mountainbiked (or biked at all) in a foreign country, it was devastating. I knew that I could ride on my bent wheels for a while, but that I needed a bike shop. At least I had disk brakes so my wobbly wheels would actually spin! And looking at my route map, the nearest bike shop was 90 miles away (not bad, but 20 of those miles were going off of the route). As soon as I saw a place to spend the night, I did. Let's see how things look in the morning...

Well, in the morning, it was snowing. The snow gave way to rain (which is worse) but the gusty winds persisted. So after making only 30 miles, I was ready to get a room and call it a day. Without getting a room, I wouldn't have a phone to call the bike store. Without calling the bike store, I couldn't be sure of how screwed I was. And besides, I was cold and wet  from having a broken zipper on my raincoat.

I could go on and on. But the reality is that the weather changed, the bike store hooked me up, I spent the night in a very reasonably priced hostel in Fernie, I met a Swedish woman who was touring east to west across Canada on a Surly Long Haul Trucker. I also decided to drop out of the race and take the easier "Fernie alternate" route to Roosville. Once there, I rejoined the route but my race was over. It was a good thing. I was riding the same as before but somehow it seemed easier.

Which one is the Swedish woman, do you suppose?

Once in the US (Roosville was the border), I had a nice climb up to Whitefish Divide. There were patches of snow but not much. And the sun was nice. From there, I knew I'd drop down to the Flathead River, follow that for a bit, and then climb up to a similar pass south of Whitefish Divide. Well, I dropped to the river, saw a bear cub (black, I think), followed the river. By the time I got to the turn to start climbing, the sun had gone down. And the temperature dropped. And conditions were perfect for a climb. The cool air kept me from overheating. I felt like I had just reached my stride. Riding with a light can be sketchy at speed, but at 8-13 mph it was perfect. Plus, there were mosquitoes at the lower altitudes, so a climb was the evening's special!

It was a nice climb--until I hit the snow. Turns out Whitefish Divide is on a south-facing trail. Red Meadow Lake, not so much. Pushing through the snow was not on my agenda for midnight (sun hadn't gone down till 10 and dark came an hour later). So camping it was.

It started raining during the night, so it was a good thing I had been right about the extra clothes being enough to keep me warm. Unfortunately, my morning started with breaking camp in the rain, followed by pushing through snow, followed by riding downhill in the rain. I was not so warm anymore. It was bad enough that when I saw a bathroom I got in just to get out of the rain. And I put on all my dry clothes, and  ate all my food, and waited to see if there might be a break in the rain.

And so it went, alternating good and bad. With the only constant being the eating. Oh, the eating!

I remember eating slices of dry salami as I rode 10 miles to breakfast. Once I located The Hungry Bear (which I highly recommend, btw, just north of Jette Rd on some highway in Montana), I ordered the greasiest thing on the menu--the meat lover's scramble with hash browns and toast. Just to be sure, I ordered some oatmeal, too. The waitress asked if I wanted half-and-half and brown sugar with that. I somehow managed to avoid saying "F'n A" as I answered in the affirmative. But when she brought it, there were also pats of butter. I put three on the oatmeal before pouring the half-and-half on. Just to be sure. And I put sugar in my coffee, which is unlike me. And when I saw all the food spread before me, I couldn't imagine finishing it, but I took one bite after another until the plates were empty and I was putting packets of jam in my jersey pockets (just to be sure) and looking on the map for the next grocery store.

I lost two pounds in a week and a half. And I never even got to the hard parts of the route.

But oh what a journey it was!