After years of heaping praise on my army navy surplus bags, I broke the bank on a set of Ortliebs. Plus a handlebar bag, something I’ve previously opposed. There’s so much room for activities.
Planes are landing a half mile away from me at like 5am. I’m still on a New York State of time zone; I’m up and out of bed as a Delta airliner descends in an overcast sky just above the little courtyard I’m in. I mean just above. I hope the next one ain’t the one to interrupt me chugging a liter of water by landing a bit short. It does not. Damon and I connect thoughts over a large pot of coffee. His YouTube research pays off and he’s devised an adjustment allowing him first and second gears! He feels confident to head out. Candy’s friend Janice arrived yesterday. Only two of us are leaving on bicycle, but everyone’s up and at em… Hello lunar new year. You’re the motherfuckin new year that counts, and we all know it.
My previous typical bike tour morning ritual goes something like this: Awaken. Caffeinate. Poop. Pack. Roll. Today’s rendition includes some photos and goodbyes sandwiched around what won’t be the last utterance of “you guys are crazy” that Damon and I will hear in the coming months. I wonder if “Same Same But Different” T-Shirts are still a thing on the streets of Kathmandu.
We hit a Whole Foods on our way out of town… and I now hate myself more for typing that. But peanut butter and oats, yo. It starts to rain fairly solidly and I have reason to believe that Tony! Toni! Toné! — despite their excellent stage-name curation — are shitty weathermen. I was told California has been in a drought for 20 years and it’s pouring on my head. What’s next? Is the Earth not round?
Lets science our way back to this climb out of Saint James City presently colonizing my legs. Shit is no joke, especially on a first day of a first winter tour. Rubber legs. I check my back tire every five minutes thinking that it’s gotta be flat. My cardio is there but my muscles are feeling like it’s mile 55 or 60 on a usual first day, and it’s only mile 30. I’ve previously averaged 77 miles on first days of my last 4 tours. And I’m not shitting you. 77 miles is my actual average. Right here, on this site, one can scroll through and verify 74 mile, 77 mile, 63 mile and 94 mile totals respectively. And then one can do the required math. But that person that does all that would be a real asshole, and that is why I did it.
We gain more elevation. The rain has given way to a partly cloudy 55°; still even the level sections now feel like we’re ascending. First gear for hours. Straight six mile an hour steez. I’m making Slow Roll look like Tour de fucking France here, people. Excuse my French. My legs start to cramp as we take our break in Alpine CA and hit a Rite Aid in search of electrolytes.
With two hours of daylight left and only another 16 miles of climbing to Pine Valley, our designs on spending the night there are fading. Having run a half marathon together, Damon and I agree to call that this to coast jaunt is not a sprint. We call it a short day. We’ve got another day or day and a half in these mountains and I don’t wanna feel like totally drained shit the next or the next. If you’re setting you VCR to record this, the next five hours include such highlights a motelling, stretching, mapping, hydrating, and some bomb ass Chinese food. Head. Pillow. Buenos noches, bitches. If you’re keeping score at home, my mile-to-luxury ratio is way off the chart compared to what it used to be. Slum Village’s Raise It Up blares out the Boombtix and I remember that I’m taking every advantage I can get this time around. Thank Dilla, you saved my life again. Bonus nachos.
On a long enough time line the survival rate for anyone drops to zero. Pedal powering long distances is basically an opportunity for everything that can go wrong to go wrong. The best defenses against these situation are proper equipment and good luck.
Sun is Shining. Weather is sweet. California Soul. Laura is a distinguished member of the Buffalo diaspora now living in Ocean Beach. So in the spirit of Rick James, I shipped my bike to her place a little over a week ago. We catch up a bit, then I go into retrieval mode…. A beloved but a bit beaten up boxed up bike. (Say THAT seven times fast.) I wanna hug it. I’m a bit jetlagged, so I lob my airline-checked box next to it. In what is clearly an objective act of animus, the tape pops loose and that box — containing only clothes, sleeping bag and tools — spills out sideways. Fuck that box. Geometry and geography now occupying my brain space, I brush it off and try to focus on the fairly complex remote reassembling task before me. O. K. One. Two. Open. Remove.
Damon shipped his bike to a nearby shop – he heads out to Coronado Island in similar retrieval mode. Laura goes back inside as she’s mid-working-from-home shift. Candy pulls out a copy of Jennifer Government and digs in. I mention that Julia Roberts was cast to play the lead role nearly 20 years ago. Secretly, I hope Candy reads it and figures out a way to make a film Clooney and Soderbergh couldn’t. I realize that she’s a Nurse Practitioner and that maybe I expect too much – so instead I settle into ensuring I attach the reverse threaded-pedal correctly.
A times B times C equals X.
A. Fully reassembled, it’s clear my front brake’s rotor has been bent in transit. Damn UPS, this is definitely not what I mean when I say “good enough for Union work.” I disable the break a bit for now, knowing I’ll have to deal with that shit later. Time travel to later, when San Diego Bike Shop bends it back for me. Then time travel to even later, when Moments Bikes sells me a new rotor. Whew.
B. Damon’s report first back comes in as “less than ideal”. His front rack is toast. He pops for a new rack from Holland Bikes. Whew.
C. Nevertheless. However. Although. Damon’s front derailleur is fucking toast as well. Too much toast. It’s a Sachs Huret 4989, and the vintage nature means that hipsters love it, but also that the available replacement derailleur only gets him first and second gears. No third gear on the chainring for him. Fast forward to us at San Diego Bike Shop, Damon getting a bad ass motorcycle-style kickstand, but no luck on getting back a third gear. Fast forward again to us at Moments Bikes, Damon having two guys at that shop figure a shortcut fix for him. Whew.
=
X. Fast forward again and again and again to a few miles up, Damon and I riding WEST from the Airbnb to the official route start point on the Pacific. We’re gonna ride the first 7-10 miles of it and then head back to our place near Balboa Park, then start our long haul due EAST in the morning. Damon shifts and the replacement derailleur rotates around the seat tube a good 30-45° into near suicide. Fuck. I’m not at all derailleur-inclined, but I reposition it the best I can, tighten it down. Now he’s got no first or third gear – though we are mobile, heading back eastbound after bidding adieu to the Pacific. Imagine the sun setting and fast forward just one last time: after returning to already closed Moments Bikes, Damon rolls back up to the Airbnb. He digs into learning about derailleur adjustments on YouTube. Little mileage, but heavy issues. We survived the storm as best would could. Day one is done, Jimmy Castor. Tomorrow we hit the mountains and climb to 4000 feet, one way or another.
“A man on foot, on horseback or on a bicycle will see more, feel more, enjoy more in one mile than the motorized tourists can in a hundred miles. Better to idle through one park in two weeks than try to race through a dozen in the same amount of time. Those who are familiar with both modes of travel know from experience that this is true; the rest have only to make the experiment to discover the same truth for themselves.”
Hoping for a Tail Wind 