New P.R.! Today was off the bixcitement charts - better than finding Clif Bars on sale. We took our time getting going because we had the Sheridan's house at our disposal again. To our surprise, he and Sasha were gone by the time we woke up - apparently you're "on call" when working for the railroad. He left us a nice note offering us to stay for the day and relax/refresh - which was very enticing - but we decided to move on. We were planning to bike about 85 miles today, so the late start meant our first break would have to come late in the day. About 25 miles in, we ran into our biking friends Brock & Adele. We haven't mentioned them yet, but first met them north of SF and have been leapfrogging since, including a few nights of camping together, lending each other tools, commiserating over a recent climb, or celebrating the academic calendar. For the next 20 miles, their company helped the miles fly by. We were hoping to come upon a farmer stand for an excuse to stop riding - 45 miles without a break was starting to wear on us - but the best we could find was a deserted field of raspberries. After leaning the bikes against a pole and taking out the Nutella and Peanut Butter, we spotted a worker. After he responded "si" to our question, "Are these raspberries?" we knew we might have some problems communicating. He was excited to let us try the raspberries, and in trying to ask how much they cost, he gestured "hold on." Roberto came back with 14 empty Driscoll Raspberry containers and gestured us to help fill them. As we collectively finished filling our second container, we tried again to ask, "Quantos? Quantos para uno?" He gestured that he wouldn't take money and we didn't quite have the Spanish to argue, so forced him to take some granola bars in an epic bartering event. Our four containers of raspberries definitely beat out his three granola bars. Roberto's generosity - and food - gave us the inspiration we needed to get up a couple big climbs and 40 miles to our goal. Our day was supposed to end with a 2 mile bike path connecting two beautiful campgrounds on the beach. The Park Ranger warned us of an eroded section that we should bike/hike around. Getting around the fence into the construction zone was pretty easy...getting out of the construction zone was definitely not. There was no convenient gap/hole in the fence, so, since we were not about to turn around, we unloaded the bikes, hoisted everything over the 6 ft fence, packed up again, and kept going. At this point, we had about 75 minutes of sunlight left and had ridden 87 miles - Austin told Steph, "This is our chance to do 100!" We were energized by such an eventful day, so decided to get back on the highway and keep going. 6 ft of fence in three directions didn't stop us, but 2 inches of nail did. The nail jammed through Steph's tire, inner tube, other side of her inner tube, took a U-turn, went through the inner tube, other side of the inner tube, and then started to pierce the tire again before running out of its 2 inches. We think the nail came from the grassy knoll. It ended up being an incredibly difficult flat to fix and in doing it, we lost 40 minutes of daylight. If you're doing math at home and have been following the blog closely, you know that 35 minutes is not nearly enough for us to bike 16 miles. We guess we gave away the ending in our title, but definitely finished the ride in the dark.
Had we just woken up in a nice bed with a roof over our heads - Dayenu. Had we just ridden with our biking friends - Dayenu. Had we just met Roberto on the raspberry farm - Dayenu. Had we just had to climb the fence - Dayenu. Had we just ridden 100 miles - Dayenu. Today was definitely our most memorable day so far.
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Dayenu indeed. There should be a movement to institute dayenu year round. I just mapped your day - you're almost to LA. You should think about dipping your tires in Tijuana.
ReplyDeleteSteph, is i sore having your inner tube pierced?? sounds kinda painful.
ReplyDeleteIrish Austin
Reaching the century is awesome: I was getting worried that it wasn't going to happen, and hitting Mexico before the 100 would have been a pity. So WELL DONE: you're my heroes!
ReplyDeleteI'm not mentioning the last few miles in the dark, but if you do it again I will send out the Highway Patrol to pull you over or I will personally fly out there and lay down a whole string of nails right across your path.
But what a day: Meeting the biking friends was a definite Dayenu, but I think the best had to have been Roberto and the Raspberries. I'm seeing a road movie in this. ..Everyone out there, who should play Austin, and who should play Steph? What about the sound track?: Any ideas????
ah, finally figured out how to post here, thinking of you, yesterday sounds amazing and wild, have been so busy, but now hope to follow you through the end of your trip -- and catch up on the first 26 days, love all the photos, and you, Abbe
ReplyDeleteTook the Litespeed for a spin today but got a flat. Luckily I was close to home, and even more luckily the local bike shop had a perfect green a gold tire with "Notre Dame" stamped all over it as a replacement!
ReplyDeleteohh, my word verification for that post was "pedsicl" - surprisingly appropriate
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