I'm pretty sure that my blogging has become less and less entertaining in correlation with the amount of time school/education requires. That being said, there is a noticeable lack of interesting experiences when you spend 50-60 hours a week working in a research lab. In order to return to my former coolness, I found a sweet little adventure I decided I wanted a part of this summer.
In what had much grander aspirations but became a small group of committed individuals, I biked a portion of the Pacific Coast Highway on my road bike from August 13th to the 19th. I flew into San Jose and stayed with a friend of mine I had the pleasure of teaching/baptizing while a LDS missionary in Pullman, WA back in 2004. He picked me up from the airport and we were able to catch up for a while. That was a great moment in my trip that made my life better for remembering the experiences I had those 6 years ago.
The next morning, I fixed up my bike and joined up with the other 4 guys for our epic trip. We started biking from a friends house in San Jose about eleven in the morning on that Friday. We found ourselves fighting a headwind out towards the coast. Eventually, we were pushed over a mountain pass to avoid the freeway, and made our way out towards Monterey. It was cool to cold and a beautiful ride. To explain the logistics, we had 5 bikes and a support vehicle. So, between the 5 of us, at least one had to drive each portion of the road. So, I took my turn at the end of that first day, managing to schmooze us a free campsite for the night, as we were so cool to bike the coast. As it turns out, we were in Monterey during the
Tour d`Elegance, an annual event involving expensive cars. So, we shared the road that weekend with dozens of Lamborghini's, Ferrari's, and other assorted rarities.
The following day brought us foggy weather and the hilliest portion of the trip. We had two big climbs to tackle that day, as well as an assortment of smaller gains and losses. Early in the day, a friendly gent let us sit in his 2010 Ferrari and take pictures... it was pretty awesome!! We then returned to the business at hand. All told, it was about 85 miles with 5000 feet of ascent mixed in. We ended up at a random field on the side of the ocean, cooking on the side of highway 1 and camping in the rocky meadow. It was a long day and a long night. It was great though, lots of pretty views that made it all worth it. It was 11 miles before the end when Jesse (our driver for the last leg) stopped us at the top of that first big climb near that mileage to tell us, 11 miles. This was an important announcement, as we didn't know where we were sleeping that night yet. Anyway, so I was thinking 'yeah, yeah, I can do that' while eating dried fruit and rehydrating from the sweat bath the last climb had induced. So, I start that downhill and then come around a corner to see the road dropping in front of me, but higher than me on the other side of the canyon. I was a little angst, but that last 8 miles, after the real final climb, were surreal. I was biking on empty roads, with the wind, my breathing, and the quiet whirring of my well-tuned bike beneath me. It was a spiritual experience. At the camp, we ate food, washed ourselves off with a wet rag to remove the sweat residue, and went to bed ASAP. Good times.
The next morning was windy and cold, but we started off early to make the 50 mile trip to church by 1pm. I only made it about 20 miles before my joints and legs said 'no more' and I elected to take a rest day. We snuck into a building on Cal-Poly campus in San Luis Obispo to shower before church. We found a campsite, and an In-N-Out that evening, and life was sweet.
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| Danny with our steak. |
Monday, we started pretty late, but biked the 90+ miles to Santa Barbara. There was a set of big hills, and a stiff headwind through the inland portion of that day. I drove the second to last leg. I got back on the bike, once again, having no idea where we were gonna stay. We dropped down out of a canyon onto the 101 with 30+ miles left to Santa Barbara. I had a 15mph average for the day thus far, and felt strong, so I broke ahead of the group and charged as hard as a could, to end up with a 16.3 mph average for the day. I felt really good about that, even as I pulled in at 73 miles for the day. It felt really good to try to bike hard and actually have my legs and lungs respond (the last three days had been rough on me...) We managed to find a place to stay in an on-campus, summer season hotel thing. It ended up being perfect, with access to 6 showers and a full kitchen so we could cook steak. I love food under normal circumstances, but on this trip, I think I ate every hour. I woke up hungry and stayed that way pretty much all day.
Anyway, the next day we headed out for Malibu Beach, 90 miles away. We didn't make it but 100 ft from the start when a bike collision with a beach cruiser on UCSB campus resulted in a broken wheel for one of our bikes. Jon and his bike hopped into the support vehicle to find a bike shop. My knee was starting to tighten up on me while biking, but I rode until late in the afternoon. I joined the chase vehicle for the last 25-30 miles and bought pizza for our dinners, and found an In-N-Out to replenish my personal energy again. We arrived at a RV campsite in Malibu to have the management tell us that one of us couldn't sleep there unless we paid for an additional campsite. We thought that was dumb, and planned on sending one of us to sleep in the vehicle offsite. It was about then that we met our friendly neighbors, two girls on a 6 week trip to the US from Ireland. They shared their site, allowing us all to sleep in the same area. It turned out rather perfect, as we were all able to have a great time discussing life, religion, traveling, and culture.
The next morning, some biker friends from back in Provo who were visiting the area joined us for about 15 miles of our ride through Malibu. We cruised along the beach paths for most of the day, but eventually, had to cross over a peninsula south of LA, near Torrence, CA. As we dropped over the top of the peninsula, we found ourselves entering a very different part of California. We were in the industrial part of Long Beach, dodging trash piles and road debris. It wasn't nice. Eventually, we got back onto a bike path, very near the West Coast Choppers shop. However, we had a flat at that point. So, we quickly fixed it and began using a second CO2 canister to top off the tire when it exploded between the four of us. Ears ringing, we counted our assets to discover that we had no more CO2 to fix the tire again. So, we called for the chase vehicle and waited under an overpass with the hobos. We were really excited to get back on the road. We kept biking along the bike trail and beaches until we made it to an In-N-Out (favorite stop, apparently) for some much needed calories. We were just north of Huntington Beach and, again, didn't know where we were staying. So, Jesse, the champ who was suffering from a very painful leg cramp that prevented him from biking very much, went on the search while we kept biking. We made it to Laguna Beach where we sat on the beach and discovered that Jesse had found a cheap hotel room for us. We all went and showered before heading out to find an Italian restaurant to carb load for what we knew would be a 100+ mile day to finish at the border the next day. We finally found a place, ordered what the hostess said was 'lots and lots of food' and discovered that we have vastly different definitions. Thankfully, they kept enough water coming (4 pitchers or so) and enough complimentary bread (8 loaves) to keep us from buying more food. We went back and went to bed in the hopes of making an early start the next morning.
At 9 am, we left from Laguna and headed out for our longest day. We biked through Camp Pendelton and met some very friendly bikers along our path. We made pretty good time, until about half-way at 2pm. It was then that we had 3 flat tires in short order and Jon bought a new tire to go with his new wheel. Once Jon's third flat hit, we left him to meet up with Jesse and fix his bike while Danny, Nate and I kept on. About 10 miles later, we noticed that I had a seriously out-of-true wheel. When I looked at it, I found I had a broken spoke, but we kept riding as we had many miles left. We biked over a sizable hill in 'Torrey Pines', just north of La Jolla and then dropped over the ridge towards San Diego. I found a bike shop and paid them to fix my spoke and then we were off again. As we were making our way out of San Diego, I got a flat and we didn't have any replacement tubes with us. So, we called Jesse. He came with a tube and brought Jon, who was able to borrow Jesse's bike to begin the last stage. We biked the last handful of miles to the Ferry, where we caught a boat for Coronado. It was 7:40 (sunset at 8) and we had 18 miles to make the Mexican border. We got off the boat and hauled. For a time, we were biking along a bike path on Silverstrand Beach with no lights, and were pushing 22 mph. That's fast for the dark, and at miles 85-95. Anyway, we pushed hard, I promise. We eventually found ourselves at a T in the road, with a Border Patrol truck parked at the corner. So, we talked to him. At first, he was kinda cold and concerned we were gonna try and goof off at the border. He told us numbers and about the types of people who try to cross there each night. Overall, he was pretty cool. He let us take a picture with him, told us about the cameras, infrared and visible which were seeing us, and gave us directions to get some cooler pictures. So, we kept biking. We eventually ran into yet another border patrol dude who we again had to convince that we weren't goofing off. He gave us more directions for cool pictures and again we were off. The second border patrol guy came tearing along a dirt embankment next to us for a sweet photo opp as we headed for the pedestrian gate. We took our photos and then headed to whatever restaurant we could find for our dinner (930 pm, and at mile 103). Finally, food. We drove to a Motel 6 and crashed. Jon and I had to catch a train at 630 to meet up with my brother and sister-in-law to drive to Utah, so it was a short night. Altogether, a very memorable trip that I'll never forget. I feel incredible.
