Garbervile to Fort Bragg, CA June 18 2012
67 miles We stopped off at one of the many roadside tourist attractions along the 101, bigfoot’s house. I was itching to pedal. I didn’t even go inside to look. I don’t know what’s happened to me but all I want to do is get into my rhythm and spend the day riding. Wow! Apparently I have a rhythm! I broke another spoke nipple while carrying my bike down the hotel stairs this morning. Alloy nipples are a no no for touring. Sandy and Nick fixed it for me. All of my cycling friends told me that on a big ride like this, “you just need to find your rhythm and stick with it.” This wisdom made no sense to me. How can I keep at my own pace when I have to keep up with these other two guys? Now I guess I get it. There’s a some serious ebb and flow on a ride like this. You don’t all hang out and ride together all the time and you don’t need to match pedal for pedal your buddies speed. Sometimes a narrow shoulder forces you into a long drawn out single file. Sometimes two of the guys are riding side by side talking and one guy is ahead or behind on his own. The unspoken rule of thumb is just stay on the road if something goes wrong. That way the others will see you and help you out if need be. My amateur knee sleeve chain prints. Today I think I found my rhythm or pace or whatever. It’s funny because I’ve been riding with the guys for only seven days and already I feel completely different on my bike. I feel so much stronger and no climb or distance or time in the saddle intimidates me anymore. We passed by a fire being put out. And… Another helicopter! Thats two helicopters in two days! We headed out this morning from Garberville and rode the last chunk of highway 101. We pretty much got that over as fast as we could. When we hit the split to the 1 at Legget, CA things got much quieter and WAY windier. The road started climbing and twisting. Like I said, I was feeling it today so and up out of the saddle I went. I soon put some space between Nick and Sandy and kept on pushing. The road continued to climb and climb. I passed a few other touring people laboring up the pass and all I could feel was my breathing. The weather felt perfect and I was barely sweating but not cold. I just kept climbing. I reached a peak and thought about waiting for them to catch up but felt too good to stop. At this point I’d have to say it hit me that it is weird doing this whole trip with no map, no computer and generally no idea where we are going. We never know if we have a climb ahead of […]
