Pondering A Coast-To-Coast Ride

January 1, 2009 by Filed under Advice, Curious

So after tinkering and going on small rides for all of last year, and obsessing about equipment and reading trip journals and carefully testing my endurance, I’ve decided it’s time to start getting serious about my dream of a cross-country bicycle trip.

I’ve found that a good way to assess my situation is to have a Q&A session with myself, so that’s what I’m doing here.

1. Why the hell are you doing this?

Because I want to get outside and see the country, on a tactile level, and breathe the air. Because my job keeps me cooped up inside, and even though I love my job and would not trade it for any other, I need to do something to counteract the feeling of frittering my life away in a cave. Because I like being on my bike. It is a fantastic way to travel. I also like camping, I like futzing with my camera, I like audiobooks, I like snacks. It’s everything I like.

2. Great, but, no, seriously – across the whole damn United States? That’s insane.

It’s been done tens of thousands of times by people with similar experience levels. There are yearly events, even races, with dozens of riders. There are well-considered routes to choose from. As you investigate it, it seems more possible, not less.

I’ve already had many day-long trips and back-to-back trips… But I know I’m definitely going to have to keep training. At this point, though, I’m convinced that I have the fitness level to do it. I just need to refine my equipment to the point where it’s as comfortable to use as possible.

3. Fine, fine. You think you can do it. But still, that’s a very long distance. How about riding to Los Angeles instead? How about a trip to Oregon? Or Yosemite and back?

I may eventually decide that a shorter trip is all I have time for. It depends on how much time away from work I can wrangle. I would actually be keen on an arrangement where I do programming work from a laptop for three or four hours a day. Got to do something when the sun goes down, after all.

But I do get the point. If the idea is to work up to a trip like this slowly, there’s still an awful lot of slope left between my current track record and the three-month excursion that a cross-country trip will be. At any point in this preparation, I may decide, “I just don’t feel comfortable enough yet,” and switch down to something shorter. …Because though I have learned an awful lot about keeping myself safe on a long ride, I still have a huge amount to learn.

4. Well now you’re talking a little more sensibly. What more do you need to learn?

I need to refine my bicycle to the point where I can ride it comfortably for many consecutive days. Right now that means getting a better rear rack, raising the handlebars, and possibly finding a better seat. I’ll also need to keep iterating on my equipment: Better luggage bags, a better battery system and software, better clothing, a more complete repair kit, et cetera.

Also, there are dozens of little disasters that can happen on a long-distance trip that haven’t happened to me yet. I need to learn how to deal with all of these if I’m going to enjoy my ride. I need to learn how to deal with the following things when I’m out in the middle of nowhere:

  • A punctured tube
  • A ripped up tire
  • Broken chain links
  • A damaged rack
  • Sudden rain
  • A poor campsite
  • Loose dogs
  • Various medical ailments

There are other worse things that can happen – a stolen bike, a broken limb – but those things are what I would consider trip enders. At that point it’s time to flag down a car, find a payphone, and call for rescue.

5. Wouldn’t a lot of this risk be mitigated if you had trip companions?

There is a group of three that is going on a cross-country trip starting on the 19th of May. The route they are planning to follow is almost exactly the route I would choose, though their pace is a little quicker than I would consider ideal. They are also much more experienced than I am with long-distance trips.

The range of time they’ve chosen has the most favorable weather, but it may be too early in the year for me to get adequate time away from work. They’re also all retirees, and I don’t know how they would feel about having a young rookie tag along. I get the impression I’ll want to go slower and take in the sights longer than they will.

That group aside, I know of no one with the same plans. None of my friends seem interested in a trip this ambitious, or if they are interested, they don’t have the time. Have I missed anyone?

6. What about that trip to Nepal you’ve been talking about? Isn’t that in May?

Yes. If that comes together, I’ll probably do that instead of this trip. I don’t have enough time to do both this year. But all the same, I am going to prepare as though the ride is happening.

7. Do you have a preparation itinerary?

It’s slowly congealing. The biggest thing is, I need to attempt more multi-day trips, so I can get used to camping. These will happen over the weekends, and probably consist of me starting my ride at various points around the Bay Area, biking for a while, and then setting up camp for the night unassisted. Then the next day I’d pack up the campsite and ride some more, until I reach a pickup point. Possibilities include (in order of difficulty):

  • Bike to work, bike home, and camp in the back yard. Then get up, shower, and bike to work again.
  • Starting from work, bike home, then camp in the back yard. Get up, shower, and bike to the Tech Shop in Menlo Park. Then bike home again.
  • Starting in San Francisco, bike across the Golden Gate Bridge to the Golden Gate National Recreation Area, camp, then bike back across the bridge.
  • Starting in Carmel, bike south on Highway 1 to the Andrew Molera State Park, camp, then ride back to Carmel.
  • Starting from work on a weekend morning, bike to Sam McDonald County Park via Alpine Road (over the mountains), camp, then bike to the coast along Pescadero Creek Rd and turn south for as long as I can.
  • Starting at the top of Highway 9 at Skyline Blvd, head along the crest of the mountains until Skyline turns into Summit Road, then Highland Way. Enter Nisene Marks from the back entrance and stealth-camp at the trailside. Get up at dawn, pack things up, and ride down out of Nisene Marks to Santa Cruz.

8. How are you going to finance this?

It’s really not that expensive. Campsites with showers, supplemented with the occasional motel stay, are a cheap way to spend the night. And of course I spend nothing on gas. It’s all about the food.

9. Speaking of food, how are you going to remain vegan on a cross-country ride?

I honestly don’t know. In all seriousness I may have to go non-vegan not because of any current health considerations but because it’s what the territory demands. I’ve become very used to having fresh fruits and vegetables of great variety, and high-quality oils, and all kinds of vegan possibilities for big chunks of protein and fat. Variety is the keystone of being a healthy vegan. Out there in the world – I’m looking at you, Kansas – there probably isn’t enough variety for me to thrive.

Yes, I find that quite sad. This is the breadbasket of the world, not Alaska. There is absolutely no good reason for the landscape to not be brimming with variety. Instead, the middle states grow endless fields of government-backed wheat, soybeans, and corn, dusted by Monsanto and shoveled into cattle troughs, or made into 100 variations of the same loaf of white bread. It’s an unnecessary plant monoculture. If I’m going to go riding through it, I may end up eating it, and its dairy-based offerings. It has been so many years now that the thought really disturbs me.

If you can’t understand my feeling, imagine this scenario: You’re visiting a foreign country. You shake hands with the hotel concierge and when you open your mouth to say hello, he spits into it. He then stands there, slack-jawed, waiting for you to spit back into his. After a few stunned moments, he closes his mouth, clearly insulted by your lack of etiquette. This same absurd ritual happens with everyone you meet. You keep your mouth tightly closed, … and they just spit on your face instead. You end up insulting everyone, and feeling nauseous all day. The furious bellhop mangles your luggage. The waiters bring your food cold. Taxi drivers call you a boor and charge you double. You realize you can either join the crowd, or remain miserable.

10. Thanks, I needed that image. Thlbtlbthlpt. So how are you gonna deal with it?

Like I said, I don’t know. Maybe I’ll compromise and allow eggs from unknown sources? Or the occasional cheese sandwich? I guess I need to do more research.

11. Can you really do this?

Yes, it is well within my grasp. I just need to make sure I can do it with enough speed so that my employer will allow it. I could easily extend a journey like this into an entire year, by hiking and camping and zig-zagging over the land to catch every bizarre midwestern monument on the map. But at that point I would be unemployed, probably with no chance of getting my old job back. A terrible idea. No, when it comes down to it, my job is more important than this trip.

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To The Lick Observatory

December 20, 2008 by Filed under Advice, Curious, Happy

So today I rode for more than 12 hours, up 5000 feet, through the hills east of San Jose and up to the Lick Observatory at the top of a snow-covered mountain pass, and then back down to my front door. I wanted lots of hills to test out the new crankshaft and gearing on the bike. And I sure did get ’em. Hoohah!

All these pictures were taken with the iPhone, since I didn’t have the regular camera around.

Here’s the stuff I brought along for the ride (except for the laptop, smoke detector, and tape):

This is the view from partway up the East San Jose hills:

This is the view from further up the East San Jose hills:

This is the view from most of the way up the East San Jose hills:

This is the view from the top ofhe East San Jose hills, before I went down behind them and began to climb the REAL hill up to the observatory:

Things that Mr. Fins learned this day:

  • I can do it! I can do anything! Hot damn! Weeoooo!!!
  • The iPhone camera has some clever software driving it, but compared to my 7-year-old digital, it’s awful. If you tied it to a pole and nailed it down in front of a sunset and left the shutter open for ten minutes, you’d probably STILL get a bunch of gritty crap, like the bottom of a deep-fryer.
  • Large amounts of carbs becomes very dull after a while. You start dreaming of vegetables, and oily things, and protein. Hour upon hour of Fritos and crackers and peanut butter and chocolate just … sucks. Sounds good at first, sure, but … Not at hour 8.
  • Ski-glove fingers don’t work with the iPhone. Drat.
  • Frequent stops, where you get off the bike and sit down, or walk around, are really nice. My ride took more than twelve hours, but since I took so many breaks, I felt fine the whole time.
  • The more of your body you cover up and keep warm, the warmer the exposed bits of you will be, thanks to the magic of circulation. It’s MAGIC!
  • The new crankshaft that I had installed on the bike is totally worth it. It makes pedaling up large hills a pleasure, instead of the torture it was before. I don’t have to swerve around on the road anymore. In fact, I now prefer going up hills to going on flat ground – because when you go up a hill, you get somewhere with a view, and a nice fast ride afterwards, and there are generally fewer people around.

Here’s the bike as it looks now:

Stuff that Mr. Fins saw this day:

I passed an odd French-looking guy on my way across town. He stopped at the same signal light as me, but didn’t turn his head or wave. Serious looking fellow. On Le Serious Businesse, no doubt. His bike looked expensive. He also passed me on his way back down the hill later in the day, while I was still grinding my way up it. He stared, but didn’t wave. The reason I remembered him was not because of his stoic expression; it was because he wasn’t wearing a helmet.

I wanted to stop him and ask, “So, is that a political statement? Are you protesting helmet laws, or helmet makers, or something?” … But he would have probably though I was mocking him. No, I was genuinely curious. Even if I had hard data that my own helmet wouldn’t help me 99 percent of the time, I would still wear the thing because it’s damn cold outside, and the helmet keeps my head warm, is very light, and doesn’t fall off. And on hot days it keeps my scalp from frying. What could his reasons be? His hairstyle maybe?

I saw dozens of cyclists on my ride, and he was the only one without a helmet.

Also, just after dusk, I was passed by a woman going downhill on her bicycle with two lights on her handlebars – one of them flashing – and an extremely bright light on her head, which she pointed straight at me, making me blind. At fist I didn’t know what was coming at me, but whatever it was, it was irritating and I immediately felt angry at whoever was doing it. … Which is not something that you generally want to inspire in people when you’re heading downhill at them on a bicycle. When I saw it was a cyclist doing all that flashing and blinding, I wanted to yell something at her, but she went by too fast for me to think. Oh well.

I passed through an area of road that made me very nervous. It was curvy and had a gentle downhill grade, with thick forest on either side. I felt spooked, and had to pause my BBC documentary podcast about Afghanistan, and just listen to the wind.

The reason I was spooked is that on the 4th of July eight or nine years ago, I was driving my car along this same stretch of road in order to watch the fireworks from the peak at the Observatory, when a mountain lion jumped down from the bushes on the uphill side of the road and began running in front of the car. I slowed down so I wouldn’t hit the beast, and when the car drew close it leapt back off the road, into the foliage.

I did not want anything like that happening while I was on a bicycle. So I stayed in the middle of the road, and started singing “Doctor Worm” at the top of my voice until I was out of the forest. No deer here; just a lunatic human, thank you very much.

I’m going to have to learn how to repair a bike chain, I think. Today the chain slipped off the front gear and got caught under it, wedged around the joint where the axle meets the bike frame. If I’d tried to pedal even one turn, to try and correct it by force, the chain would have broken. Maybe there’s some way I can fix it so that doesn’t happen… A plastic wedge maybe…

While I was tinkering with the chain at the side of the road and getting my fingers all greasy, a guy in an old pickup truck stopped, backed up 20 yards or so, and asked if I needed a ride. I told him that it was a minor repair and that I’d be okay, but “thanks for stopping, though – that’s very good of you!” He said, “Alrighty, then” and drove off.

Hours later, I was stopped at the side of the road making a phone call, and another guy pulled up and asked if I needed help. I said no, but thanked him for stopping, too. Such nice people!

I’m also going to have to learn how to replace a tire. I passed another guy on a bike, who was on his way down the hill, and had his bike turned upside down with one tire off, and the tube out. He was working both his fists around the tube in sections so he could find the leak and patch it. We had a nice chat about the cold and tires and headlights, and he showed me a tiny bag that he kept under his seat, which contained a spare tube and all the tools to install it. “Huh,” I thought, “If the equipment to fix the problem can be that small, there’s no reason why I shouldn’t carry it around.”

I felt sorry for the guy – his hands were frozen stiff from rushing downhill with no gloves on. When I was passing through the preserve area after the sun went down, the air got so cold that my hands were sore just from standing still. If I hadn’t packed those ski gloves, I would have turned around and gone home. Yes! I am actually listening to my own advice! Heh heh heh.

Two sweaters over a long-sleeve shirt, and sweatpants over bike shorts with hiking socks, plus the ski gloves, turns out to be just enough to feel normal in this cold weather. Not hot, not cold. Also, with the bike helmet on, my head stayed warm. Some kind of air current or convection thing going on perhaps.

Here’s the whole route in 3D, via Google Earth:

And here’s a closer view of the hill with the observatory at the top:

If anybody out in the world tells you that “vegans are sickly wimps who can’t do anything”, refer them to me. I will pwn them.

Things Mr. Fins needs to do:

  • Get some kind of abrasion tool and cut a rough notch on the inside of the left pedal arm, so the magnet for my GPS tracker’s “cadence sensor” doesn’t slide all over the place.
  • Put together a “tire repair” kit.
  • Investigate getting a better rear rack.
  • Keep workin’ on that battery enclosure.
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Lost In Nisene Marks

December 20, 2008 by Filed under Curious, Happy, Stress

This marks the first time I’ve done back-to-back “training day”-style rides, with food, gear, and a destination. I felt surprisingly good afterwards, except for some minor butt soreness and a little tossing and turning overnight. I’m beginning to realize that my stamina is greater than I thought. Perhaps a lot greater, thanks to all my riding this year.

This also marks the first time I have been able to use the battery pack I built, even though I don’t have an enclosure for it. I put the batteries and the regulator board in little plastic bags and then sealed the whole thing in a large bag with a USB extension cable running out. With the whole mess stowed in my luggage, I was able to keep the iPhone charged at 100% full the entire time. (I’ll be crowing about this later on in the story…)

Saturday I did a ride across town to the south end of the valley, then entered the rolling hills around the Lexington Reservoir. Along the way I listened to the full broadcast of the latest “Intelligence Squared” debate, about whether the government should be responsible for universal healthcare. It was an excellent debate, and very relevant, as I considered what kind of situation I would be in if I were hit by a car, or if my knees deteriorated. I spent one of my rest breaks sitting on a stone bench outside of a hardware store, and just as a debater was talking about the crowded conditions in emergency rooms, I saw an ambulance go screaming down the street.

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Night fell fast. I probably spent less than a mile biking in daylight, and had my headlamp on for the rest. That lamp continues to be a brilliant piece of hardware – literally. It lights up my bike and the road around me without being an eyesore to traffic and it stays lit for as long as I need it, no matter how long I ride. I feel very sorry for all the other night cyclists I see out on the roads. I worry for them. Their lamps are either pathetic and impossible to see, or blinding and annoying to drivers. I saw one guy who had what looked like a damned flashbulb screwed onto his handlebars, going FLASH! FLASH! FLASH! FLASH! every half a second. What numbskull engineer designed that? I can imagine a driver being tempted to run him over just to stop that damned flashing.

There were three “totally worth it” moments for the first ride:

  • Biking up into the private property of a church-funded “retreat” hospital as part of my route, and rounding a corner to discover an illuminated statue of the Virgin Mary embedded halfway up a gigantic hedge, then going a few more feet and being presented with an unexpected panorama of the entire south valley. Surreal.
  • Being stopped by a locked gate and a wire fence, and realizing that I was actually on the wrong side it it, then spotting a twisted hole at the underside of the fence just large enough to slide my bike under, which I did. I turned the iPhone brightness all the way up and shoved it under my chinstrap, then laid flat and inched backwards under the wire on my stomach. I’m all Special Ops and shizzlick.
  • At the south end of the reservoir, after riding up and down a lot of gentle squiggly hills, I stopped in the middle of the road and looked behind me. The black silhouettes of the trees framed a V-shaped wedge of dark blue sky that was glistening with all the millions of stars that I couldn’t see when I was at my house downtown, under the hazy air and streetlamps. It stunned me and I had to stop and just be there for a second, on that dead silent roadway, enjoying that private space. “It’s not really private,” I thought. “People have been driving up and down this road all day.” But then I realized, even if it’s a location that many other people go to, it’s not a time and a way that they do it. Right now, it was mine.

Now that I can keep the iPhone perpetually charged, I don’t have to worry at all about how intensely I use it. I can leave the GPS running and the display on all the time if I feel like it. And for the trip through the woods leading to the reservoir, that’s just what I did.

It was really quite incredible. I’d never been there before, but when I saw the road lose shape and change to dirt, I was not worried at all. I pressed a few buttons and instantly I had a daytime satellite photograph of the entire woods. My route along the road was drawn across it with a purple line, and there at the top was a little dot, showing exactly where I was. As I rode the bike I could glance down at the dot and confirm that, yes, there’s the tree I should be seeing, and there’s the spot where the road bends,… et cetera. All this with one device, and as I was navigating, it was playing music for me too. I even got a few new emails. I was so impressed that I just had to talk about it, so I began calling people up, and chatting as I rode.

One device. Frankly, it’s like having “god mode” for a bicycle. It turns my bike into a mobile command center, almost an extension of my home. DO YOU NOT SEE!!! I cannot EVEN CONVEY how impressed with this technology I am!! It is fucking amazing, people!!! I ARE SERIOUS!!!!

It also makes me overconfident, I think. I have often taken risks with my navigation that could have ended badly. It’s not that I expect the phone to get a signal all the time – I don’t depend on it for that – it’s the feeling you get from using it. With a few bars of signal and a data connection, I am just as connected to the digital world and my social network as I am when sitting at home, vegged out in front of a computer screen. That connectedness inspires a feeling of closeness to home, a false sense that no matter how deep into the woods I push my bike, I am still just a finger-touch away from all the trappings of modernity. On the second day of this weekend I was hit by this cognitive dissonance pretty hard, when I wandered very far into the back woods of the Nisene Marks nature preserve.

I was pushing my bike over a dirt-and-gravel road that looked like it had been literally carved through the woods. The press of branches was so thick that they effectively formed a wall, and I wondered how the animals could possibly thread their way between them. The canopy was closed overhead of course, so I was in total darkness except for my headlamp and phone. And every 30 yards, as the road lurched down the backside of another misshapen hill, the gravel was erased by a shallow creek that seemed to flow right out of the wall of branches on one side, and into the wall on the other side. Here instead of road was a corridor of rocks and pools of water lined with mud. At the first one I tried to ride my way through, lost my balance, and had to dunk my shoe in the water. At the next one I carried my bike across, simultaneously using it as a gigantic flashlight to see the rocks I had to step on.

The road was extremely uneven, so the recent rains had formed innumerable potholes filled with water. Whenever the beam of my bicycle headlamp brushed along one of these, some of the light would be scattered upwards and reflect off the trees in front of me, creating a wavery illusion of movement. The first three or four times it scared the crap out of me. I kept thinking that someone was coming down the road towards me, waving a flashlight. After I figured out what it was, I was impressed by it. It’s just the sort of unexpected material phenomenon that could make people scream, “THE WOODS ARE HAUNTED!! AAIIIIYYEE!!!”

Anyway, I got past this gauntlet, and the road tilted upwards. The phone began displaying ‘NO SIGNAL’, but the GPS still had my location marked on the map, which was already loaded into memory. “I’m still alright,” I said to myself. “I just need to stay on this road and I’ll pass through Nisene Marks without trouble.” (I was babbling to myself out loud in order to make my presence obvious to things like skunks and mountain lions.)

Then the road wandered off the map. It began to squiggle all over the place like a damned spaghetti noodle, and my path (as described by the line on my GPS tracker) did not match the map line at all. Then it got steeper. I had to dismount and push my bike uphill. Out of curiosity I launched the “clinometer” app and calibrated it, and it told me that I was going up a 22-degree slope. (Yes, the iPhone does that too! See? It is “god mode”!!) Since my wheel wasn’t turning as fast as the headlamp wanted, my light became very dim. Then the road forked, and forked again, and again, and again.

Each time I chose the fork that pointed back towards the line described by the map, but each time the road would turn and wander away, keeping me off course. Eventually the phone started showing a few bars of signal again, so I called up La (who was having dinner with Alison at her house in Santa Cruz) and whined to her about how damn steep the hill was… But I couldn’t help thinking in the back of my head about the potential severity of my situation.

Suppose the dynamo in my front wheel failed. I’m not sure how it would, since it’s tough, water-resistant, and relatively simple… But suppose it did. I’d have about five minutes of dim light on my headlamp left, and then I’d be in darkness.

Then I’d have to take the iPhone out of the holster and hold it in front of me, and push the bike with one hand. By itself, in ideal conditions, the iPhone would probably last about four hours this way. But I’ve got my battery pack. But suppose that failed too? Or suppose the backlight in the iPhone just broke all of a sudden?

Then I’d have to take the GPS tracker off my bike, leave my bike on the ground, and go blundering back the way I came in total darkness under the forest canopy, using the mini-map on the GPS to retrace my route along the road. Once I stumbled back out onto pavement I’d have to walk for a good long while until I found a payphone – or perhaps I’d get lucky and flag down a car. This is assuming, of course, that I don’t break my ankle or my neck by tripping over a deadfall back in the woods.

But say the GPS tracker craps out too. Now I’m in total darkness in the middle of the woods, with no shelter, and some meager snacks. I’d have to stay put until daylight and then attempt to backtrack along a road that now looks completely different from how it was in the dark. Maybe I’ll come out in a few hours, maybe it’ll take me all day. Either way I’ll eventually come home to a La who’s been up the entire night worried sick and probably called the police.

This all went tumbling through my head as I pushed my bike up that huge hill. I had not been expecting a road like this. All I remembered of the roads in Nisene Marks was the road leading in, from the front, and that was nice and flat and wide. This road was the opposite. I should have checked the route in satellite view before committing to it. Actually, no, my problem isn’t that. I’ve just been too stubborn again. I saw that sign at the head of this road, where it suddenly stops being pavement and turns into a sheet of gravel. I should have obeyed that sign. Instead, I thought, “Oh boy, another deep woods adventure! Last time this was awesome!” Apparently I’d forgotten that last time I was obviously pushing my luck. Now here I was again, pushing my luck. A couple of mechanical or electronic failures could endanger my life.

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“On the other hand,” I thought, “how is that any different from driving a car?”

I had to ponder that for a while. Eventually I reached the peak of the hill, and the road leveled out and opened up to a clearing. Then I forgot all about the danger I was in, and just stared.

There, before me, was the Monterey Bay, wide and black, swathed in the glowing yellow embers of civilization and the sparkling diamonds of the midnight sky. Transparent ribbons of cloud swept down across the stars and joined with the mantle hanging over the ocean, like fingers of a gigantic white hand. The moon lit the panorama from behind, sketching the jagged tops of the trees that blanketed the valley, all the way down to the fringe of city lights in the distance. As I rolled to the edge of the clearing and dismounted my bike, a soft breeze flowed down from the hilltop behind me, picking up the heat that was still bleeding out of the hills and drawing it across my back like a warm cloak. Right there in front of me was a pair of park benches. So I sat down.

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The urge to sit there for the rest of the night, caressed by this warm breeze, staring up at the stars… Was almost unbearable. This had not been on my to-do list, or even a stop on my route. I drank some water and ate a little bit of chocolate, and thought to myself, “I can’t believe I’m actually here. It’s midnight on a Sunday and I’m here, all by myself, miles from any paved roads… And somehow I feel as safe as if I was sitting on my couch at home. What a strange feeling.” Then I looked over at the iPhone and noticed it was displaying “3G” and five bars. “Hell yeah. Best invention ever,” I said, and called up La for a while.

I was so impressed with the phone, once again, that I opened up a voice recording application and began to rant out loud about it. “It’s perfect! Perfect for a bike! It’s like the software was chosen specifically to complement riding! Even the size is perfect!” Rant rant, rave rave, et cetera. I felt kind of foolish talking out loud, but I kept doing it since it helped me avoid mountain lions. I’ve only ever seen one up close once (and that was while I was in a car), but the paranoia never fully leaves you…

Anyway, I eventually kept riding. The downhill route out of Nisene Marks and into Aptos, then Santa Cruz, was easy going. I sang They Might Be Giants songs out loud. I went through every single one I knew, and had to switch to Weird Al for a while, before finally being free of the forest and potential lions. Then I found it hard to stop blathering out loud to myself, since I’d been doing it for so long. I felt a little crazy. So I called up La and talked to her, which helped. She eventually met me at the Cabrillo exit, with a change of clothes and some snacks.

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She really is an excellent pit crew. :)

Other highlights of this trip:

  • Setting up a night-time photo and having a 40-minute chat with Mr. Breakpoint about camera technology
  • Lying on my side next to the camera to photograph a long exposure of the house across the valley from me, and attracting the attention of a concerned motorist. The pickup truck stopped, then reversed 50 yards back up the road, then the window rolled down and after a while a woman’s voice asked, “are you okay?” Since I was almost completely blinded by their damned headlights, I waited until I’d gathered up my camera, then I stoop up all at once and waved at them, smiling. The woman apparently had not been expecting that, and she let out a scream that sounded like, “BGAWK!!!!” … and then she (or her friend at the wheel?) drove away. I wonder if my camera looked like a gun or something.
  • Going 18mph down a curvy forest road, screaming, “DAMMIT, WHAT’S THE SECOND VERSE TO BIRDHOUSE IN YOUR SOUL? I KNOW THE SECOND LINE, BUT HOW DOES IT START? SOMETHING ABOUT KEEPING BEACHES SHIPWRECK FREE? CRAP, WHAT IS IT!! NAA NAA NAA NERRRR SHIPWRECK FREE… SOMETHING… I SWEAR I KNOW THIS SONG. SOMETHING ABOUT SCREAMING ARGONAUTS.”

All these pictures give some sense of just how dark and creepy it really was … but they also make me think, “Wow, I definitely want a better camera…”

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A Jaunt Around Roseburg

November 28, 2008 by Filed under Curious, Happy

Visiting my dad in Roseburg kicks ass. We get to lounge around the house, talk about photography, make puns, and play Wii and board games. A good way to spend a holiday. But this time I was ambitious, and brought my bike along, making use of the super bike rack that The La got for the Accord.

And so it was that on the second or third day of lounging around I decided to break with tradition and go for a ride. Then, a couple days later, I went on an even longer ride which lasted well into the evening.

Instead of doing my usual minute-by-minute recount of events, I’m just going to describe the photographs I took, and whatever other details they bring to mind.

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This is what you see when you look up the road after exiting the gated community. Those kids play ball in the street a lot, I’m told.

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This is the view from the top of the hill, leading down into one of the valleys that Roseburg is spread across. There’s still some nice color in the trees, even in November.

This big section of drainpipe was sitting off the main road in a beat-up looking field strewn with litter and glass. Roseburg, or perhaps Oregon in general, has a strange dichotomy between conservationist people who are more serious and well-informed than their California equivalents, and rural folks who are content to abandon trash anywhere and leave old structures to dissolve and corrode slowly into the ground.

Sometimes I think the real difference is just one of money. A shorthand rule I’ve discovered is that the smaller the lot, the dirtier it tends to be. I passed huge tracts of farmland without so much as a gum wrapper by the roadside, then came upon little square plots just big enough to hem a manufactured home, choked with garbage.

I rode past a dilapidated home and saw four little kids playing in the back yard. The area was ringed with hurricane fence which ended flush with the walls of the house, like a prison exercise yard. The four kids had taken a bunch of long flat boards from a collapsed storage shed and were laying them at an angle to the fence. As they passed from my sight, I saw one of the kids try to walk up the ramp, only to lose his balance and fall back onto the grass. A few more boards and they might make it over the fence.

I didn’t know whether to shout a warning … or shout encouragement!

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Alright… See that little box with the three holes in it? Can anybody tell me what the heck that box is for? I can’t figure it out.

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Also, on the subject of things I can’t quite figure out, my only theory for this is that the little cement wedges stop brush from piling up all at the same time, so the drainage pipe that passes under the road doesn’t get plugged up. Am I guessing right?

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Lots of rolly hills around here. The grass has thick roots to survive the snow, and my theory is that the roots hold these little hills into shape despite a lack of trees or bushes. Elsewhere on my ride I saw open ground that had been flattened into pools of mud by the rains, but each time it was on a construction or refinery site where the vegetation had been torn away.

Highway around Roseburg, Oregon

Mmmyep. Rolly poly. Pardon the oversaturation; I was processing these pictures on an old fuzzy monitor with poor colors, and the camera I used was rather noisy to begin with.

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Mmmmyeah. Come see the three arks. Please. We need the business. Buy a Noah Burger or whatever the hell we serve.

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I enjoy the juxtaposition here. Religion and power mix easily.

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Squash for sale! Or gourds! Or mini pumpkins! I’m not sure what these are, but the sunlight made them look taaaasty.

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The fire department was supervising a controlled burn of some kind in a local park. The smoke from the fires caught the light nicely.

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This appears to be a railroad-mounted snowplow. It reminds me of something a four-year-old would play with in the living room, except this one is “actual size”. I can practically taste the rubbery paint over the cool die-cast metal, and nubby sound of the wheels rolling over the carpet.

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I didn’t have to ride through this, thank goodness. Just saw it while taking a breather.

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Some wheels take more energy to turn than others!

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This vehicle is probably known by it’s owners as “The Woodchucker”. Bicycle included for size.

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Dig those crazy spraypaint colors, yo. And those hornet’s nests. I’m not entirely sure what this doodad is for, actually. I’m guessing it has something to do with guiding very heavy cables along mineshafts.

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Hand included for size. That’s some bigass chain. Probably a valuable amount of metal just lying around, if anyone had the means to shift it. I could probably carry … let’s see … four links of it home, on my bike. Any more and the weight might blow a tire.

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The ritual mantra reverberates around the hillside, as Smokey bellows it out:

DROWN! STIR! DROWN!

DROWN! STIR! DROWN!

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Lots of earth-movin’ going on around here!

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I was gonna keep going up this road to see the view from the top, but a large dumptruck rolled by, fully loaded with grey mud that slopped over the edges every time the truck hit a bump. It ground to a halt halfway off the road, then began beeping and reversed across the other half of the road, then a hatch sprang up on the back and the grey mud went jetting out under pressure, spattering on the hillside. It matched the mud of the hill exactly, and seemed to merge with it as I watched.

Not wanting to disturb this ceremony, I about-faced and went back down the hill. I passed the fork in the road that I’d turned up earlier, and arrived on the back lot of a lumber processing plant. I’m not sure where they get so much mud or why they need it – or perhaps it’s a byproduct – but apparently, when they’re done with it, they spill it out over yonder.

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All kinds of weird old equipment is scattered in this lumberyard.

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The yard covers many acres. No one on the grounds paid any attention to me.

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They keep the ground constantly wet to prevent the wind from blowing away their land and dirtying the lumber stacks. Judging by the algae, this pipe has been gushing water constantly for several years at least.

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There is an incredible amount of wood here. I’ve gone browsing through satellite pictures of Oregon and seen the sad patchwork of barren or scrubby land that much of the state has become, in the regions set back from the major highways where the tourists don’t go. I wonder how much of that forest has lain stacked on this lot over the years, awaiting transformation into houses, scaffolding, and cardboard boxes.

I had an encounter with a security guard here, who rolled up in his truck and politely asked me to delete any photos I’d taken of the buildings. He was almost apologetic about the security condition, though I could sense he was working under strict orders and could really screw me if I became belligerent. He recognized my camera by model, and we chatted for a while about amateur photography and wildlife before he gave me directions to the road.

One of the interesting things he said was that it was illegal to take a picture of the facilities even if the picture was taken from adjoining public land, like a highway. He said that the law was partly in response to “those eco-terrorism people”. He spat the phrase, like it was an epithet.

Something about that made me quite angry, and I wanted to say something, but I knew that this security guard was not the person I should be saying it to. I don’t know who the right person would be, really. But when private citizens destroy private facilities with the intent of interrupting what they see as environmental wrongdoing, I am not comfortable calling it “terrorism”, as if it were equivalent to detonating a bomb in a concert hall. “Sabotage” would be a good word, and I could definitely use “misguided” and “unproductive” … but “terrorism”? Is Al-Jazeera airing talk shows where furious extremists call for the destruction of lumber mills? I don’t [expletive] think so.

Use of that label is just … corporate crap.

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Mmm, delicious mud! Note the charging wire for the iPhone. That goes to the battery in my saddle bag.

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The refinery was spraying a huge amount of hot water into the air. My guess is that they were exposing some additive in the water to oxygen, or carbon dioxide, in order to safely neutralize it. Sure looks pretty though.

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A few pools over they were spraying the water out of long pipes.

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I found this fellow just a few steps from the road while I was taking a break. I’m guessing it was a sheep, about a year ago. Now it’s an art installation.

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If you ever meet a man who boasts proudly of his “strong jawline”, just remind him to consider the average sheep!

Just after finding this, I rode down the hill on a two-lane road into the forest east of the highway, and began listening to an old vinyl production of “Murder In The Cathedral”, by T. S. Eliot. I was expecting some kind of lighthearted comedic mystery in lilting prose, but that was because I hadn’t done any research whatsoever. “Murder In The Cathedral” is not a mystery, not comedic, and definitely NOT lighthearted. But what it does have is some deliciously creepy, brooding, atmospheric verse about poor devout farmers and the haunted gothic countryside they inhabit. The sections of the play are framed by a chorus of three women, speaking in rounds, lamenting their fate and the fate of the archbishop, and a plague of foreboding omens. They moan for a while about “living, and partly living”, a phrase which rang like a bell in my brain. I’ve heard it somewhere before…

Hearing this, and seeing the hillsides roll around me in the gathering dusk, spotted with animals and broken-down stables and mist, was clearly the highlight of the ride. Once I went down a huge hill and spilled out into a small valley that was lit by the barest yellow light along the fringe of the oak trees to the west, and everything was dead quiet except for rushing wind and the occasional very distant “moo”. I played some piano music and wished there was some way to bring all my friends here, and stack them up in sidecars along the bike, so I could share this perfect moment with everyone. But it was just me.

Perhaps some other time, friends.

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Wandering Around San Francisco

November 22, 2008 by Filed under Curious

My original intention with this ride was to cross the Golden Gate by bike, fart around on the north side of the bay, and cross back over… But I got a late start, and then wasted too much time hanging around in the park. By the time I arrived at the bridge it had been dark for quite a while, so I ended the day’s riding there.

I also underestimated the hills. Not the hills in the city – those were exactly what I expected – but the hills north of the park, which went up and down like the waves in a storm over deep ocean, forcing me to take many breaks. I hadn’t seen those hills on the 3D map when I was planning the route.

Another thing that messed me up was the lack of a “granny gear”. The folks at the bike shop were due to install one, in the form of a small 22-tooth gear mounted on an adapter, fitted to the inside of my current crankshaft assembly. But the adapter wouldn’t fit. So I ordered a new crankshaft with different gears, due to arrive in a week. Meantime, I went on this ride … and sorely missed that low gear.

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Here I am outside the hotel where La attended her anthropologists’ conference. Instead of riding, I had to push the bike for three blocks or so, because the sidewalks were crammed with people, most of them tough looking, like that bruiser over my left shoulder, or unfriendly looking, like the girl next to him in the hip sunglasses, knee-high leather boots, and “vintage” Star Wars t-shirt. As I moved away from the taller buildings, the toughies and hipsters became more ragged in appearance, and soon faded into the background of busy 30-somethings, musically-inclined beggars, and the occasional tough old lady.

When walking alone, each lady used the same grim expression and stiff gait that said “I might have a fireplace poker under my sweater, and I just might be unhinged enough to hit you with it. Do you feel lucky, punk?” I recognized it immediately, because it was how I used to walk between classes in Middle School.

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Anyway, the crowds thinned, and I rode upward just for the hell of it.

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Pretty soon the nifty architecture began to appear.

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The sunlight was fading fast, though.

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This was the last picture I managed to take before the “magic hour” sunlight faded away.

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Then it was all downhill riding to the park.

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I waned to explore the Japanese Gardens, but bicycles weren’t allowed inside, so I contented myself with one picture and then changed into warmer gear and hung around snacking for a while.

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Then I rode on, until some cute ducks forced me to stop, with their wiggly tailfeathers. It was getting very dark, so I made a loooong exposure on a group of them … which is why one of the ducks in this picture appears to have two heads.

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The fog was pretty thick by now, and would get even thicker.

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I tried to get one more picture in the park, of the windmill. That turned into almost a dozen 30-second exposures as I fiddled with knobs and tripod placement. Eventually I gave up and rode out to the sidewalk along the shoreline, which was totally lost in fog. A few bonfires were still sputtering in the distance, but people were quickly abandoning them and wandering in, staggering over the sand and out of the mist like zombies in a cheap horror film.

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After a lot of uneventful riding and rest breaks, I ended up outside an art museum whose name I currently forget. Please excuse the ham-handed color correction of these photos; I was attempting cleanup with a fuzzy, decade-old CRT monitor tethered to the end of a 50-foot VGA cable. Everything came out over-saturated.

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Despite the heavy fog, my dynamo, headlamp, iPhone, and battery all performed fine.

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Near the museum, at kind of an awkward spot near the entrance, was a Holocaust memorial.

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It was a strange approach, but an effective one.

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After ten zillion hills and an unplanned ride through a golf course, I made it to the cusp of the Golden Gate Bridge. But it was way too late, of course, and the bridge was closed to cyclists. Oh well, next time perhaps. Next time when I get a decent “granny gear”.

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