I don't honestly have that much to write about today; I'm going to let the pictures speak for themselves. We're biking through some beautiful country. Today and yesterday were both easy centuries. That means I biked 100 miles both days. (OK, technically today I've only done about 97 but I'll get there as soon as I get back to camp). The fact that I can even utter the sentence that biking 100 miles was easy should indicate how far down the rabbit hole I've gone. But really they were; beautiful weather, tailwinds, relatively flat, great support. Today I was in a pace line with Mike and Jake. Easy!
Yesterday we rode into Monterey. I was driving the rest stop van but it was a short day so I got to drop the van off and get on my bike and ride back up the beautiful beach path that you see below. Bike paths really are amazing.
One of the things I've realized is that I really have to be in the mood to blog, or at least to blog well. My schedule has gotten a bit off which frustrates me but when I try to force it, it just doesn't work. Yesterday I sat down at a restaurant and I was starving and I wanted to blog but I basically just had to wait until I'd eaten or it was no good.
Nutrition has started to become an issue. I've been feeling the money crunch and so I've been doing...nutritionally unsound things. :0 And my body is starting to get fed up with me (fed up, get it??). When I get back to Portland I've got to start upping my nutritional game so to speak.
The views down here really are beautiful.
Yesterday was a very nice, if relatively uneventful ride into Half Moon Bay. We got to explore a lot more of HMB than I ever had before, usually I just drive through. And last night was, of course, our "Brom", or Bike Prom. The only thing I have to say about that is that I once again feel so incredibly grateful to get to hang out with such really cool people and have so much fun. It was just a really fun time. Today we headed into Santa Cruz - another really nice and uneventful but beautiful ride. The weather is finally turning warm which is great.
This afternoon I really wanted to go out to the Santa Cruz Boardwalk and ride the rides, but nobody else in the group wanted to do that. So I did it anyway. One of the really important things I have been learning is how to have fun on my own. Don't misunderstand; I would rather be with other people and have a long term relationship. But sometimes that just isn't going to happen. Even people in relationships sometimes have to spend time apart. And I used to be very bad at spending time alone. But I've been getting better. I had a great time, by myself, riding exactly the roller coasters that I wanted to ride. And if I got some funny looks as a single 39-year-old dude, oh well, that's those people's problem. :)
This is the longest time I've gone without updating my blog. My apologies to all my readers; I really intended to make this a daily affair, and so far I've done well but the last few days threw me off my game. Which is not to say that they were bad days at all. The first two days were riding days, and the weather was somewhat wet and uninspired. I ride well in weather like that but I find it kind of unpoetic. Then we showed up in San Francisco. There's a lot I could say about the first day in SF. I volunteered to take the whole crew on a guided bike tour of the city. It was really fun but definitely exhausting; 14 egos on 14 bikes! But everybody was cool about it. I got them to explore some of the sights that people don't usually see, like the Sutro Bath ruins. Then yesterday was a day off, so I got to see Star Trek with my brother at the new Alamo (it's really nice but the food is expensive). I wish I could remember more details about the ride but it's all a bit foggy (get it?).
One thing that's been really nice is discovering/re-discovering how much I genuinely enjoy helping people. I've had a few opportunities over the last few days to really get to help folks in small ways on the trip, and it's fun to find that you're a good person and that you enjoy it. It makes me feel really good about myself. One day we had a minor issue while I was riding and I ended up having to man the rest stop and make cocoa for people and boost their spirits. I've never thought of myself as much of a cheerleader but I really enjoyed it. And taking people through the city was fun; I liked the responsibility, I enjoyed being the leader, and I really liked having people say how much they enjoyed it.
Yesterday was a fun day of riding. Long, and occasionally cold and wet but a good solid day. There was a traveling musical act on bicycles that we played leapfrog with all day. And delicious Mexican food for dinner. I rode most of the way today with Alex, my new Captain Canada friend who wore a big Canada jersey all day for which I gave him no end of crap.
One of the things that came up today was Buddhism. We've crossed back into Mendocino county and so we're back in the territory of the Marin/Sonoma/Mendocino Buddhist enclaves, and we passed our first one today. Buddhism weaved it's way into and out of the period of time I spent in SF, at least the last half. For a while I was really into it. I never considered myself a practicing Buddhist and I don't think I ever will, but it resonated with me - and helped me - more than my childhood Catholic training ever did. I took bits and pieces from it, which Buddhism encourages you to do (unlike Christianity). To me, Christianity is like a really nice restaurant where you order off a limited menu and then the waiter tells you that wasn't what you really wanted and recommends something else. Eventually you probably get something tasty. But Buddhism, to me, is the all-you-can-eat Chinese buffet. You don't even have to know what you want to eat, just that you're hungry, and then they put all these dishes in front of you and say "well, what do you feel like eating?"
My apologies for not updating yesterday but we had no internet access and also things got a bit crazy. We rode the "alternate" route down to the Lost Coast through Petrolia. It was an amazing and awesome experience but also quite challenging (as many awesome experiences are) and it may take some time to process. It was a very challenging two days for my team, a lot more challenging than we've had so far. I think that in the long run they will all look back on it as their favorite part of the trip but there's no question it was a challenge. I ended up having to rescue someone from off the road at about 7 pm after hammering 11.5 miles back to camp to pick up the van. (Their back brake was messed up). It was a difficult road which I highly recommend for anyone experienced in cycling but for the same reason wouldn't recommend to any beginners. Mostly the issue was that the road quality was really torn up which is something you have to have some experience to deal with. However the road was amazing and the views were incredible. I didn't take many pictures because we were so focused on getting the job done but I'll show you what I have. I enjoy being out on the road so very much. Today after our long 80 mile ride I got to play miniature golf in the dark at the RV park for free and drink a beer and it was paradise.
Big props to Thermarest, who came through for me today by replacing my old Bas Camp sleeping pad that had sprung a leak with a new fancy ProLite version, for free. I know I've been talking a lot about gear lately but when you live with this stuff you start taking it seriously and even getting emotional about it. :)
It's been really cold and foggy, so I've had a chance to think about the eternal question: too cold, or too hot? I think I"m in for "too cold". I mean, it is annoying to be freezing. I don't like it. But being too hot really saps my energy and makes me not want to be active, which is a no go.
I have this dream of making clickable versions of all my blog posts so that you can just go to a map and click around and read the post for wherever I was that day. We'll see if it happens!
Today was a nice mixed day of climbing and flats traveling through the northern CA redwoods. I had some serious issues with my derailleur, both rear and front. One of my life goals is definitely to get to bicycle repair school; I'd love to know more about what's going on.
Speaking of knowing more of what's going on, I kept thinking today about my little eTrex 10 GPS. I spend so much time staring at the little numbers going up and down, both the distance and the elevation. I was particularly curious about the elevation part - how does it know? I had always had this erroneous idea that it used the coordinates to look up your elevation on a map but I realized today that would never work and it must work some other way. And so I read the Wikipedia entries (side note: is any modern invention better than Wikipedia?) about GPS and how elevation works. And, having read it, I have only this to say: science is basically incredible. When you read how it works - and you should - you will basically say "no f'ing way". Reading the description, it's like "that should never work". But it *does*. It works so well they can put it in a watch. It works so well they can sell one for $50 that works within 13 feet. It works so well that everyone has one in their cell phone. But it's insanely complicated. It relies on things like the speed radio signals travel in our ionosphere (whic, it turns out, changes all the time because of weather and god knows what else). It relies on fractions of a nanosecond timing and the position of 4 out of 24 satellites hurtling through space 20,000 miles up. If you start to think too hard about it your brain literally hurts, and yet it's one of the most reliable inventions of the modern age.
It almost makes me want to work for a GPS company.
Yesterday I stopped by a Mexican grocery store. There is nothing particularly notable about this grocery store. It was at the corner of Sarina and first somewhere in between Coos Bay and Crescent City. There was, and is, a nice little tree of some sort in the front where you can sit on the ground and eat. The only things remarkable about this grocery store is that I stopped in the same place on the way north in 2014. So I stopped again when I saw it. I bought some food and sat under the tree and ate it.
Things are special not so much because they are intrinsically so but because we make them so. Poetry may be in the universe, but certainly we are at least the lens to focus it. My life is stronger and more meaningful because I rode in 2014, and then acted on that to change my life in a way that made the ride in 2016 possible. And even though I am the same, I am different, and so that little market is different - through no fault of their own but only the growth of the observer.
Today's post is going to be a grab bag of random topics delivered to you from a rocky crag overlooking the ocean. I rode into camp in the van feeling really cranky and I figured out that it was because I hadn't ridden my bike for two days so I went out on a joyride of about 35 miles. I ended up riding next to a guy on the team who was recently a grad student in biochemistry and we talked about how screwed up academia and pure research are in this country. Which is a shame because it's so important.
As I spend more time outdoors I really am changing the way I look at my gear and equipment. A lot of the stuff I own works fine in the comfort of an office but fails out here on the road. Like my phone and case, which are now broken (again). Or this Apple Watch which is fine I guess but the battery is always dead and it just isn't that useful. Or my thermarest which has a leak. Stuff like that. All I want now is long battery life, easy repair, and for it to just f'ing work!
Sorry, Coos Bay. I didn't really like you in 2014, and I'm not a big fan this time around either. Today was OK but fairly dull; I drove the rest stop van. The ride was really easy, a nice flat 47 miles. Nobody had any serious issues. We got here to a church that - for the fourth time in four straight days - had no wifi, so I once again had to go sit outside a closed public library to finish watching the training videos for my new job (which I finally finished - yay!). I pulled out my Gear VR last night which is always a crowd pleaser. But basically it was just not a very memorable day.
Yesterday I crossed over into the territory I covered in the ride that I did in 2014. In 2014, I rode north from San Francisco to Florence and then turned east on the TransAmerica. This time, I was coming down from the south and headed to SF and points beyond. On this occasion it's easy to compare where I'm at now to where I was in 2014. The biggest and most obvious difference is that in 2014 I felt like I was searching for something, whereas in 2016 I feel like I've found something. Every day I wake up with a list of issues, not least of which are the financial ones. But what keeps me going is the realization that I'm so much happier and more fulfilled than I was back then. I don't fear the future as a general rule. I have anxieties but they don't dominate my life. Often I think about how nice it would be to go back to the life I had then. There was a lot to recommend it, on paper. But being here provides an acute reminder of how unhappy I was back then, and the contrast to where I am now. I am literally and figuratively headed in a different direction.
Ok, I finally gave in. Everyone has been riding around with these cute little totems - a lizard, a stuffed animal, whatever. I wasn't going to do it, but then in the cushions of one of the couches at one of the churches we stayed at I discovered this adorable little powerpuff looking lamb thing and now...well, see for yourself.
Last night one of our riders was playing pickup basketball and tore his Achilles and had to go home. It's another reminder of how lucky I am to wake up every day healthy and ready to go and not to take it for granted.
Yesterday I got to drive the van with the trailer attached for the first time. It's quite a responsibility. The hardest part is backing up and navigating in tight spaces. But the scariest part is passing the cyclists on the road, because of course the consequences are so dire.
One of the things that I love about the road is the simplicity of things, especially in the mornings. You think of a task, you complete that task. When you complete enough tasks, you're ready to go. Then, when you're done with that, you start all over again. There's room for philosophical contemplation in between, but the tasks of daily life are fairly easy to understand and relatively easy to complete. That's a stark contrast to normal life.
And, once again, the Tillamook factory makes amazing cheese curds and ice cream.
The ride into Oregon was beautiful. It was a full day riding so we got in about 75 miles. Still wet and rainy. Had a delicious meal at a place called Murphy's with a woman who knew how to cook and made a mean green chile stew. Today was a rest day in Astoria. I enjoyed bumping around Goonies town. It's quaint and seaside-y. The maritime museum was awesome and had this cool exhibit about the Japanese tsunami in 2011 and all the stuff that's washing ashore. Tomorrow I get to drive the van and trailer!
Today I got back to the bike. It was wonderful. I was still sweeping, but the group has their sea legs under them so it was a lot easier than the first day. Today, my thoughts turned to the Internet, and how much I take it for granted. When I was in the Mecca of San Francisco, working in the tech industry, we just all took it for granted that people had internet connections. Sure, we made some contingency plans for occasional internet outage the most typical scenario being someone working on an airplane - but the fundamental assumption that we all operated under was that the normal state of affairs was to have a quality broadband connection. But that simply isn't the case. Traveling through the country you become acutely aware of the quality of Internet connection that most people, especially folks in rural areas, have on offer. Because I've been trying to save money, I've been using the low-tier free internet service that Verizon offers, so even when I have service, I'm limited to 128 Kbps. This of course is twice what I used to have 10 years ago! And yes, we do get to wifi connections from time to time. I'm using one right now. But the transmitter is probably about 500 feet from me in the office of this RV complex, and when I upload a picture if takes about 4-5 minutes, which might not seem that long but in Internet terms it's an eternity. Online dating, Uber, Yelp - all these wunderkinds are predicated on the idea that we will have ubiquitous quality Internet. But that's just not the reality most people live in.
Also, Washington is very, very wet.
Today was my first day without riding; I drove the rest stop van, which means that, along with Eddie, we were responsible for manning the water and shelter stops - there were 2 of them today. I can't say I was too upset to miss today's ride, because in typical Pacific Northwest fashion it rained buckets almost the whole day. Still, it was weird and unsettling, both physically and mentally, not to work out and get exercise. I wanted to run when we got into camp but the weather just didn't cooperate. I can still honestly say that rain and cold are not as bad as the crushing heat and sun of Utah and Nevada, however, the truth is that I kind of don't like either one. Beautiful weather is a huge turn on for me, what can I say! Still great to be out here in the cycling spirit, and I'm starting to meet and gel with a few of the riders and teammates. It's fun to surround yourself with fit people who love to exercise.
When I originally signed up for the TransAm ride, I knew that, for me, the biggest challenge was going to be getting along with a group. In signing up to route lead the Pacific Coast, I wanted to take that even further. I wanted to push myself along the dimension that was most difficult: dealing with other people and getting along with others. Now that I'm route leading it's even more critical that I double down on emotional intelligence. Today, as Day 1 for all our riders, was a stressful day. A really fun and incredible day, but definitely a day full of new things. Many of our awesome riders got lost and some of us - including me - ended up riding a good bit more than we needed to. But the good news is that everyone is safe, and home, and in the end I think it was a great learning opportunity. I personally got through it all with flying colors, and I think I really helped everyone, so I'm proud of myself.
The road today was great Pacific Northwest riding: cloudy, pine trees, beautiful lakes. Once we got out of the Seattle/Bremerton area it was smooth sailing on beautiful back roads. Shelton is a cute little town with a Walmart and a Taco Bell. And my bike is still mechanically perfect.
Tomorrow I get to drive the Rest Stop Van for the first time!
Greetings from the start of 1852 miles of sheer West Coast joy. I wish I could say I had some profound things to comment on about today but I'm exhausted so my brain is on a surface level. My BoltBus ride from Portland was very smooth. Seattle is like Portland crossed with San Francisco. McDonalds here puts kale on their burgers (no joke). And everyone seems nice; it's a much older crowd in general. Look for more starting tomorrow.
oh, also: the REI here is baller. They have their own jungle.
In the movies they would call this the intermission, but I prefer interlude. I got to spend about 48 hours being a somewhat normal person. Tuesday morning I had breakfast with my TransAm crew and got to say my final goodbyes, then hopped in the car for a 1-11 hour drive to Portland. I've been staying the last two days with Kip and his family in their amazing condo overlooking Portland - a few pictures below. It's great to have friends and especially ones as caring and giving as Kip.
In between these two trips, thinking about my last trip, the thing that strikes me the most is context. Here's what I mean by that: one of the hot new things is this game Pokemon Go. IT's an augmented reality game, which means that it uses reality, but it adds a layer on top of it. So your favorite park bench or public library might suddenly also become a center for good or evil monsters, or some such. And this same idea applies to touring by bike. Walk out your front door right now, or look around you, wherever you happen to be. What you see, what you notice, is defined by how you got there: walking, car, train. On the way in to San Francisco I rode through Vallejo, and the very next day I ended up driving back across that same stretch of land and highway. But from a car it looked totally different. You could barely even see the bike path that I'd been on next to the highway. The point is this: there is a whole secret world out there, right under your nose, and the only way to see it is to ride your bicycle. Stores look different, roads look different, towns look different. The sleepy town of Davis becomes a bustling metropolis. Bike shops become outposts of civilization. Diners are the Taj Mahal. It's fun, and I personally love it.
