kak on wheels: 2008

so me and brent got into san francisco two days ago. we're staying with the incredibly accomodating sarah and gregg johnson. they're two nerds--sarah is an electrical engineer and gregg is a programmer. they worked for garmin before moving here. we're in a building broken up into four apartments in downtown berkeley, just under ten or so minutes from the BART system or downtown berkeley or campus. I just got back from rambling around the wharf (ate some japanese food; worried about my bike being stolen) and golden gate park (was okay) and then an indian buffet (ate way too much indian food and was disappointed that they didn't have the raisin-nut-milk dessert so I ate so more gosht vindaloo to fill the void; worried about my bike getting stolen) then rode down van ness with the glittering waves of threeland 7 o'clock sunday night traffic, turned on market, went down to montgomery station and got onto BART, carrying my bike down the stairs, switched stations at macarthur, got off at north berekeley, and rode home. was crazy--partially because it was intense and partially--let's just admit mostly it's crazy because I didn't end up in the wrong city. or the wrong airport. but yeah, taking the mopac downtown will be quaint after that.

getting into town, into san francisco, was a 50 mile day. I did a 69 mile day the day before that, the longest of the trip, where I rode ahead of a worn out (three months on the road will do that to you) brent to a campground while he stealthed. camped in the redwoods for the fourth time or so; was still pretty fantastic in the morning. took a camp trail to a boulevard from there and then over a hill and twenty miles later you're in san anselmo, ready to turn left to go inland, east to oakland and berkeley or go straight through three more towns and another intense 1,000 or so foot hill til the golden gate bridge. we opted for the bridge for symbolic reasons, though practically it was kind of stupid. the bridge was fun but packed with people, lots of them on wobbly rented bikes wearing crooked helmets, jamming their knees way out because their seat's too low. then there were the asians with cameras. also many intense west coast road bikers. it was a cool moment and also a very loud, long one. after we crossed this long blanket of fog rolled in and curtained off the roadway. we went on for five miles or so and then we had to deal with being spit out onto the embarcadero and downtown san francisco friday night at 6. two nebraska boys with bulging panniers and crusty clothes and tents strapped onto their bikes. then when we goto a BART station (stuffing our bikes into a tiny elevator) it was rush hour, and we had to sit around because they're banned by BART at those times. while we were doodling around, we push slowly, boringly out from the sidewalk and brent's chain crunches then falls off in one of the most bizarre mechanical failures of the trip.

anyway. not sure what else to say about pre-san francisco. there were quite a few hills as we got further into southern california. one day was leggett hill (a cartographer over-demonstrated google earth to me at the peg house 9 miles south of the hill) which is a 1,000 foot climb, then a dip back down to sea level, then a 2,000 foot climb over 9 miles and then a drop to sea level and then another 1,000 foot climb. that was a crazy day. then, just two days before san francisco, the route to pt. reyes station was the most intense coastal climb of the trip, I think. I wish I had pictures of it but when you're sweating and tired and constantly climbing you don't want to stop and lose your teaspoon of momentum. but you have to go down and then back up at every little bay or inlet, 500 or 1,000 feet down then 1,500 back up again. sometimes you can work the curves so that you get ridiculous momentum (because at the bottom of the inlet hill you're at a 25 degree angle to the road and you slingshot up) and you can climb in the third chainring like a badass.

that's all I can think of now. brent just opened a bottle of wine. here's way too many images in no particular order.

bike polo in the park

a bike path along the park. it's blurry because I'm really, really drunk

a squirrel in the park eating my thrown away strawberry tops

going to berkeley the first night there

an old guy decided there was room for him in the handicap accessible elevator that we barely stuffed our bikes into

the last hill before the last few miles to the golden gate bridge--in the next picture you can make out buildings along the road we had to climb up to from the other side of that mountain

a pretty easy inlet drop/climb

I am fig and banana powered

this is what brent does when he is not touring

here we are at michael and wendy's in arcata, california. it's a town of about 12,000. humboldt state university here. it feels like haight ashbury of san francisco downtown--lots of greasy warm hearted nappy headed hippies walking around, looking kind of dazed but optimistic. plenty of cafes and cheap mexican and a great bookstore.

michael and wendy live at about twelve or so minutes from downtown, traveling by bike. two ginormous hills capped off our 45 or so mile day yesterday. but a sauna, built by michael, awaited us. also seclusion and warm beds. they have two dogs, weasel and lucy, as well as a rooster and chickens. the rooster crows in the morning and it sort of makes your day, if you're a city boy like me. speaking of the city, it feels weird to be back among so many people--we went for two days without cell phone coverage through the redwoods (the "trees of mystery" and "the avenue of giants"); through two towns--Klamath, pop. 827, and Orick, pop. 640. there was a theatre marquee in orick that said NEIL YOUNG, and I asked the waitress at the diner there what that meant. she said, "well, if it says neil young, he must be coming," filled up my coffee and strolled away. I called my dad and found out he'd be in san diego friday (we were 600 or so miles from there) and by god, I thought, it seemed possible he'd be there. turns out it was a joke. anyway. my dad thought it was pretty funny.

here are some pictures; looks like dinner might soon be served for us here.

on the right there is battle rock. apparently in 1850 some white guys tried to take this area--the town of... I can't remember. gold beach, maybe? we camped that night at mt. humbug.

leaving mt. humbug park in the morning. you can just see brent on the right side of the road there. the next few pictures are us on the way to brookings, california (I think.)

here's a picture on the wall of a pizza place in brookings. called "wild river pizza," I think. they were also a brewery. it was basically valentinos with no buffet plus a brewery. here's the "gourmet pesto chicken" pizza we had (which was rather tasty and eaten quickly). the table next to us was a little girl's birthday party, and the special, incredibly american birthday treat was a whole bunch of cupcakes in the shape of a unicorn (three and a half feet long, one and a half foot wide) and it was ALL, and I mean ALL OF IT, it was all absolutely covered--three or so inches thick--with frosting. pink and white frosting. tried to get a picture but it was blurry.

the tall order of the day after brooking was a 4.4 mile, 1600 foot climb through the first section of the redwood state park. it's that huge foresty mountain thing in the background, there. for scale, you can just barely see brian on the left behind the surfer standing behind the truck. you really have to zoom in. but cycling up to that thing--incredibly intimidating. as you can see, it was sunny. about 68 outside. once we got insidc, it seemed like sunset and we lost about 15 to 20 degrees. ewoks loved, fought, and died in this forest in a galaxy far, far away. that is, they filmed part of return of the jedi there. or whichever one it was. the next few pictures are from that 8 or so mile stretch (4.4 up, the rest down). they could have been better--but I was working my ass off to get through. took an hour to get through all that.