Time Marches On

It's been fairly eventful here recently.
My position at Casey Trees ended, as did my sublet, so I've found myself unemployed and homeless... again. Sometimes I surprise myself at how stubborn I am. You'd think that I would just get any old job and move on with my life. In fact, I swore at the beginning of August that I would do exactly that.
Of course, things aren't really that bad. I'm getting interviews for jobs that I really want, and it was down to me and one other candidate for a position with Bikes for the World (before they went with the other person). I scored a couple of house-sitting gigs for some friends, so I haven't been couch surfing too much. Hopefully, I'll land a job in the next few days to a week, so I'll know what I can afford for rent.
The other not so exciting excitement is that the week before I moved out of my sublet, someone broke into the house and stole my bicycle (and a bike I was borrowing from work). Fortunately, I hadn't brought my touring bike up to DC yet, and I still haven't. I probably won't do that until I'm living somewhere that I actually feel comfortable again, and after my fixie getting stolen, that might be a difficult thing for me to find.

R.I.P. cute little blue Schwinn. You will be missed.

My bike getting stolen was a mixed bag. First of all, it sucks getting anything stolen - especially from inside you own home. You feel violated. But at the same time, I have an excuse to get a new bike, and I actually have a little money in savings to do it. But, I'm not working, so having to spend some savings doesn't feel so great.
Whatever. I had to bite the bullet and get it done. I found a frame and bars at Phoenix Bikes, wheels at Bikes for the World, and a saddle at a bike swap. I already had some Shimano 600 cranks, a seat post, and some old Campagnolo bar end shifters my mom's husband gave me. I got a cartridge bottom bracket and headset at a shop in town and ordered cables, a chain and new hoods from Velo Orange.
Introducing...

My New City Bike

It's a 1983 Schwinn World. I think it's going to be a pretty good bike, but it needs some fine-tuning. I'm not stoked about the bar/break lever angle, so I might need ot move the brakes and re-rap the bars. The left crank is creaky (probaly why I didn't have them on my fixie), and I'm not enjoying using friction shifters again. But, the bike is pretty and it feels good otherwise. I rode it from Southwest DC up through Rock Creek Park to Takoma yesterday and it was a really nice ride. It's really great to get out on a bike now that I'm not biking for work and the weather is cooling off.

Fat and Money

I ran across these here, but they actually came from here.
They're pretty special.

Travel Map - how fun!

I can mark everywhere I've ever been.

• Create your own travel map or travel blog


• Vacation rentals at TripAdvisor

Catching up

So.
There have been some changes in my life since that four day ride to L.A. back in March. For starters, I'm not living in Santa Cruz anymore. The job market in Santa Cruz... well, it's practically non-existent, so I decided to head back to Jacksonville, FL for a while. I grew up there and my mother still lives there. The plan was to find a job and not pay rent at my mom's. Of course, all that is easier said than done.

My mother lives in the boonies. I mean, it is technically within Jacksonville city limits, but only because in the sixties Jacksonville extended its city limits to the county limits. Most of my friends and most of the places I would go to have a life are in what is legitimately the city, fifteen miles away. I'm a pretty serious proponent of cycling as a primary mode of transportation. While my mom kept talking about me needing to get a car, I would bike fifteen miles to get a beer with a friend and then turn around and bike fifteen miles back home an hour and a half later. It's exhausting. You expect it to be 85 degrees when you get on your bike at 6pm, but when you're biking home at 9pm and it's still 85 degrees, well, let's just say it started wearing on me pretty quickly - both physically and mentally.
I started writing for a website, but I wasn't getting much done (I could work at my own pace thankfully). So, I got a job wrenching at a bike shop. That was kind of cool. The people who owned the shop were really nice, down to earth people.
The problems culminated on Cinco de Mayo. I rode to the side of town my friends live on and hung out for a bit. I went to a bike themed art show (it was not impressive) and met my friends for a few. I then decided to ride home. Right when I passed the bike shop that I'd just interviewed at (but hadn't yet been offered the job), someone poured powered something out of their car window onto me. I still don't know what it was. I shut my eyes tight, did a long exhale, and pulled over. I had some in my mouth, but I didn't taste anything. I was pretty angry, and I got my bike and kept riding.
A few miles later I'm sitting at a light about to make a right hand turn and the girls in the car next to me threw a water bottle at me. They were right there. I turned around and looked them right in the eye. They were laughing. I mean, they weren't six feet away. That's when it hit me: I don't have any business being in Jacksonville - none whatsoever.
The next day I got on idealist.org. I typed bicycle into the search engine, and I hit enter with no geographic parameters set. There were a number of jobs that popped up, and I started sending out resumes. Meanwhile, I started working at the bike shop. I wasn't there two weeks and I got an email for an interview in Washington, DC. I packed a backpack with a few days worth of clothes, found a rideshare on craigslist, and I was off.
The interview was with an organization called Casey Trees. They are working to restore the urban tree canopy of DC. The position was for their fledgeling Water-by-Cycle summer program's Crew Captain. It involves pulling a trailer hitched to a bicycle around DC. On the trailer is hoses and equipment to hook up to fire hydrants. The Crew Captain then waters trees planted by the organization while supervising three teenaged employees who also bike around and help.
Fortunately, I had experience pulling around trailers for PedEx delivering food for Bike to Work week. I had experience working with teenagers when I taught outdoor ed for LAUSD. And, I had experience as a bike mechanic. They seemed as genuinely stoked about me as I was about the position. They offered me the job, and I called my mom to send me a few more things than what fit in my backpack.

So now, I'm working in DC for the summer. I'm repairing bikes, and pulling that trailer 40 hours a week. It's pretty great, but I don't have much energy for riding on the weekend.

4 Days to LA: Postscript

And what was the best part of a week in LA?


This girl. It was totally this girl.

Oh, LA...

Day 4 was a nice day. We woke up to the sound of the ocean. It was early enough for us to not have to deal with having not paid the full camping fee (we only had half on us the night before). We broke down and started southeast. We stopped in La Conchita for a breakfast of strawberries and sparkling apple juice then kept on to Ventura where I used to live.

It was still pretty early so everything was closed. We stopped at a grocery store and I got some coconut juice and a chocolate muffin (second breakfast is important on bike tour!). We used what I knew about the area to head in an odd direction. It's weird to try and navigate through somewhere on a bike when you've only ever done it in a car. I never really rode my bike south of Ventura when I lived there, but we managed fairly well. Leo and I munched on a chocolate bar that he'd picked up the night before. Having chocolate slowly melt in your mouth while you ride is great.

Finally, we made it though the flat farmlands of Camarillo and past Point Mugu.



As we got into Malibu, I started to struggle with fatigue. I just don't think I was ready for more hills. We stopped off at another grocery store at Point Dume and ate more food.



We continued on until we could actually see Santa Monica and thats when Leo got excited. He was thinking of the thing that he loves to do the most there and that made him sprint. It was all I could do to keep up! He rolled hard right into Santa Monica, onto the bike path, under the pier, and straight to...



All I could think about doing was getting my shirt off and getting some sun! It's a good thing that I remembered my lawn chair.



Well, here we are. The end of the trip. Leo stayed there in Santa Monica and I rode to my friend Anna's apartment to bring the total milage for the trip to 396 miles. My IT Bands felt like they had knives stuck in them and I figured out a few days later that the insert in my shoe was messed up during the entire ride which left me crippled for about a month.

The trip was amazing. I would definitely do it again, and I can't think of anyone else with whom I'd rather do it.

Day 3

Day 3 was the longest day ever.

We got up late and moved like people in an overly hospitable environment. We ate slowly, talked for a long time, and packed as if we had no where to be. In reality, we were going to push for the other side of the Santa Ynez Mountains. I had a flat from the previous afternoon that Id forgotten about, so even when we finally did get out to our bikes, it was another ten minutes.

Finally with everything together, we pushed out. We'd listened to two or three different people give us directions, so we were guessing which person to listen to at every turn. Eventually we ended up in Pismo Beach - Leo had to listen to approximately 15 Bugs Bunny references from me which he did not understand ("Wait a minute! This ain't Pismo Beach." Honestly, it was all I could do to not stop and get Leo to bury me and a map in the sand so I could pop out and say that it was Pismo Beach... oh, the hilarity).



From there, we went south, and it was gorgeous. There were lots of views of the ocean. The coast was beautiful.

After a while the wind was hitting pretty hard on our right sides. I felt like I was struggling pretty hard, and Leo made it clear that he wasn't enjoying it either. We went through another tiny rundown town and finally made a left. Boosh! The wind was at our backs again. We kept a brisk yet relaxed 29 mph for miles and miles until we finally stopped in Orcutt for water refills and snacks. We sat in front of Orcutt Liquor & Deli and some random barflies wandered out of the bar next door for a smoke. The woman knocked on my seat and said that we must have asses of steel. I think that we agreed that we did, and she tried to get us to come in so she could buy us a drink. "Tempting, but sorry, no." We got back on the bikes. There are still a lot of miles left, and some mountains to climb.

25 miles later, we hit San Marcos Pass Road. We shot across the Santa Ynez Valley like two firecrackers. (Enter Troy McClure: "You might know Santa Ynez Valley from such films as Sideways.") I think we were both feeling how late in the day it was, and we both knew what the climb ahead was going to be like.



1500 feet of climbing and the most amazing views of the valley. It took a while, and Leo and I climb at very different speeds. I might have to struggle to keep up with him on the flats, but when were climbing, it a little different. I got the the top which is, I think, 2,400 feet, and it was nearing sunset. I was covered in sweat and it was cold. Unfortunately, I got quite a ways a head of Leo, so I had a ten minute wait for him in the cold wind and wet clothes.

Leo finally found me, and we headed down the mountain. We cut through Santa Barbara as quickly as possible. We arrived at the beach-side campsite in Carpinteria around 8:30pm - after 113 miles of riding. I was so tired that I didn't even eat dinner. We set up the tent, and I climbed in and fell asleep.

And now for the rest of the story...

OKay, you can say it. I'm terrible at updating my blog. I have all sorts of fun stories to tell, but first, I suppose I owe you the rest of the story from 4 Days to LA.

Day 2:
We woke up on day two and broke down camp as quietly as possible. We'd noticed that there was a house just over the side of the cliff from where we slept, so it was all whispers and hand gestures while we packed up. We walked our bikes down a lot of the fire road because of the shape it was in, deep ruts and loose gravel, and decided to try finding a short cut back to the 101 down a random road we could see from the vantage of our campsite. It worked out and we headed south.

I discovered that I was pretty stiff from the previous day's milage. No joke, it took me fifteen miles just to warm up. I've never experienced that before. I was completely out of water so we looked for a town. The first one we found was San Ardo.



San Ardo was kind of adorable, but a bit run down. We went to the only convenient store in town and I got some fruit and some juice. We started to refill our water bottles at the spigot on the side of the building, and I noticed the mold in my bottle - I'd been drinking from a moldy bottle all the previous day and who know how many weeks before. Yum!



I went across the street to San Ardo Café (the only restaurant in town) to use the bathroom and clean my bottle. I ordered a breakfast burrito and started cleaning the bottle with a napkin on the end of a butter-knife. The lady who took my order (and made the burrito) noticed what I was doing and offered to clean it with dish soap and a brush. With much gratitude, I agreed. She filled the bottle for me with ice-water and gave me my burrito. I told her muchas gracias to which she responded with de nada, and I left.



We stopped for a nice long break in San Miguel and Paso Robles. The terrain was rolling and the sun was hot at times, but we continued on until we hit the grade down to San Luis Obispo. We had a long stretch going directly into the wind as we made our way back to the 101 from a pleasant side road we'd been on, and I was exhausted. Leo thought it was a good idea to check his brakes before beginning the descent which gave me plenty of time to rest and stretch (and eat cookies).



We got in the bike lane on the 101 heading down into SLO. It was, in a word, scary. I remember, at one point, glancing down at the speedometer and seeing that I was doing 36 mph, then a gust of wind hit hit me so hard that the next moment I was doing 21 mph. Yeah, I think that about covers it.

We made it down in one piece and rode to our friend's house, the Establishment. The Establishment is a 19-room, former hotel turned housing co-op. If you're not familiar with the concept, just imagine 19 people and one kitchen. It worked amazingly well, which was probably a result of most of the people we met that live there being amazing.



We hung out, went to the grocery store, drank some beer, ate some food, made some friends, and went to bed. Our friend Brant put us up in his room. He gave me his bed and he slept on the couch (Leo refused to sleep on anything except the floor).

Another day passed - 85 more miles closer to LA and an unexpected bed in which to sleep - this is the good life.

4 Days to LA

I don't know how much time people normally take to get to LA from Santa Cruz via bicycle, but I imagine that it's more than four days. If I were to take my time and do it for as much fun as possible, I'd probably take six or seven days, but Leo and I wanted to do it fast. As a result, the original plan was to do it in three days. That might be a little extreme. It would've involved three consecutive 120-130 mile days. It's possible, but neither of us had ever done it. A few days before leaving, we talked ourselves out of it.



Day One:
We left early on a Sunday morning, and we aimed ourselves toward King City. We had decided to take the Salinas Valley instead of the coast to expedite the trip. The first day was bit longer than it should've been and I have to take responsibility for that. First I turned us east too early - somewhere around Pajaro. I think I was remembering the route from the Surf City AIDS Ride this past year. It made me think that the (unfortunate) left we took would be a good way to get to Salinas, but maybe not. It certainly wasn't the end of the world, but it definitely added a few miles. That combined with me getting us turned around once we hit Salinas rightfully made Leo kind of grumpy. Two things led to us wandering around Salinas for entirely too long. First, Leo is far too kind to suggest to me that I am totally wrong. The second thing was that 99% of the time my sense of direction does me pretty good, therefore it never really occurred to me that I was totally turned around. Thankfully, in the interest of time, Leo risked offending me and became a little more vocal in his assertion that we were going in the wrong direction.
Once out of Salinas, everything was great. The cloud cover cleared up and we found a strong wind at our backs. We covered more ground in less time than I ever have before. We stayed on the 101 as much as we were allowed and maintained about 25 miles per hour with very little effort. It's an amazing thing to go 25 miles per hour and not feel any wind hitting you in the face, but the tail wind kept it that way for miles.
We stopped for water/snack breaks here and there, and even changed a car tire for two ladies coming back from Big Sur who insisted on giving us ten bucks (which paid for our camping a couple days later).



Just outside of King City, we turned onto Jolon Road, and that's when it happened. The tripmeter on my bike turned over to 100 miles for the day. We had both just ridden the most either of us had ever ridden. By the time we snuck up a fire road on a cattle ranch to camp, it had hit 104 miles. Nice.
Day One:
Got lost, got found, helped some people, enjoyed an amazing tailwind, biked over one hundred miles, and camped illegally. Not too bad, but as I drifted off to sleep I worried that I might wake-up in the morning to discover that I was in no physical condition to repeat it. Leo would be so disappointed and I would be incredibly embarrassed.

I'd say "ford," but that would imply it was where we should've crossed.

My roommate Leo and I went on a bike ride yesterday. He had been out of town for a race over the summer that a friend of ours put on (the annual Wild Cat), so I took him on the route.
I remember the route that we took being about 30 miles (everyone's route could be different because there are check points and not a route so much). We ditched most of the in town points and headed for the off road ones. We hit the archery range near De La Veaga Golf Course, then we bike directly to the disk golf course (a path that I was unaware of during the race, but Leo and I explored yesterday). We then road down the "Top of the World" single track to Branciforte. After that we road up Glen Canyon, through Scotts Valley, and into Henry Coe State Park. That's when we said goodbye to the road for good and delved into some rough riding for our road bikes (we were on our touring bikes with road slicks).
It was kind of a blast. We road from the car camping site, up to the lookout, snuck past a ranger who couldn't hear us over his electric sander (there were no bikes allowed on the trails we were on), and down a very sandy trail towards the San Lorenzo river. The only reason were able to sort of stay on our bikes in the sand was because there's been a bit of rain lately, and that packed the sand down. We still had to walk some though.
As soon as the path neared the river, the thought occurred to me, "It was summer when we crossed the river during the race and it was three feet deep then." I said something about it to Leo. He considered suggesting that we turn back, but he did say anything at the time. We continued on down the very steep trail. My hands and forearms began to ache from the amount of braking I was doing. It was hard to maneuver between all the loose rocks in the path and continue braking so hard.
Leo stopped halfway down to give his hands a break, so I reached the river alone to look at the situation at hand. It was a raging torrent compared to what we'd cross over the summer. I estimated that it was at least four feet deep, and just above and just below where we were, there were rapids. I went ahead and took off my shoes and helmet as Leo caught up.
There was some discussion of turning back, but I had no interest in doing that. It would've been so much walking to get back up that steep, loose trail.
Leo went upstream about twenty feet, so if the current pushed him, he would still land on the sandy beach on the other side and not in the rapids downstream. He striped naked, strapped his clothes to his rack, threw his bike on his shoulder, and waded in. I watched from the bank, my clothes in hand, as the water level quickly went up past his shoulders. For a moment, the water caught him and he looked in trouble. There was a few people on the far bank, and the young guy in the group jumped to his feet and ran down to the shallow water. I threw my clothes back toward the shore from the wet rocks I stood on, and prepared to jump in to help. But then, he quickly recovered and made it to the beach on his own.
I had a different set of problems ahead of me. I wanted to keep my cloths dry. I hadn't noticed yet that when I tossed them back toward the shore they'd not made it and were a little wet. I also had my leather Brooks saddle on my bike. Letting that get submerged was not an option. On top of that, I had my mobile phone and bike computer. I put the bike computer and phone in my seat bag, but I had no way to strap my clothes to my rack. I decided to make two trips - one with the cloths, swim back, and another with the bike.
Now naked, I gathered my clothes. I was about to make my way up the bank to cross and my phone rang. It was a text message from my former partner.

"Where did we get our clean canteens for a good price? I can't remember the place."
I responded, "Camp world. I'm about to do the gnarliest river crossing ever. If I die, I love you."
I stuck the phone back into the seat bag, and took the plunge.

The water was freezing. The stream was flowing from my right, so I held my cloths on my shoulder with my left hand and paddled from my right across my body horizontally. I quickly found the spot where Leo had trouble. The rocks dropped away from my feet and I couldn't touch at all. I got a mouth full of water, but I didn't float down stream much because of how forcefully I was paddling with my right hand. Two-thirds of the way across, there was a shallower spot. The water flowed more rapidly over the rocks that were only a few feet below the surface. When I hit that spot, I shot down stream. I kept moving toward the bank, and made it before I was past the beach. I got up and threw my cloths onto the sand. Leo stood there, still completely naked. He was skipping stones to warm himself up. As I covered up my genitals, partially because they were cold and partially because there was an audience of hikers, I glanced back toward my beloved touring bike and said, "you know, I never really liked that bike anyway."
If I could've left it, I would've, but that wasn't an option. I walked up the bank. I cupped my hands over my crotch as I walked past all the hikers seated on the bank and said, "hey, sorry about all the penis." They laughed and said they didn't mind, and I waded back in. This time I had nothing in my hands and I shot across like a dart. With the current and my starting upstream, I landed right next to the bike. I carried it, barefoot over the rocks, back to the launching spot.
I started with it completely over my head because Leo had said that the wheels in the water made it much more difficult for him. I only went about five feet like that. I needed to do those hard horizontal paddles with my right hand or I couldn't imagine making it across. I lowered the bike onto my left shoulder and took a few more steps. The only part of the bike out of the water was the seat, the seat bag, and the top of the bike rack. I managed to avoid the deep hole the second time, but a wave caught me right in the face. I made that face that babies make when they unexpectedly get water in the face but tried to keep moving. This time my feet stayed on the river bottom the entire time, so I leaned against the current and walked at a forty-five degree angle - fighting the pull of my bike the entire time. When the more rapid spot caught me, I took off a bit. I saw Leo grab a long stick and get ready to fish me out, but then my fingertips caught a rock. Thank god for ll the rock climbing I've done in the past because that's all I needed to stop myself. Getting up was a different story. I was in only two feet of water, but I couldn't hold myself still and stand-up with the bike. Leo rock-hopped over, still naked, and grabbed it from me. I made my way to the bank and started drying off with my already half-wet t-shirt.
Leo had cut open his toe, so he suggested we not do the remaining ten miles of the ride. I quickly agreed. We got dressed and climbing out to Highway 9 and rode home.
It was a pretty good bike ride, and once home, we were both pretty tired.

Long time since a post

Well, it's been a while since I've posted. I've deleted my facebook account, so all of a sudden I have all this extra time. I guess I'll do a little catching up.
In the last six months, I have...
...become professionally unemployed.
...become a core mechanic/volunteer at the Bike Church.
...broken up with my girlfriend.
...moved into a house with five other roommates.
...done a lot of riding.
...started subbing for PedX.
...done very little riding.
Uh, I think that's the right order.

Around Thanksgiving, I started doing a lot of riding. One week in particular, I did over two hundred miles worth of day trips around the area. The brother of one of my roommates was in town and the three of us did a few trips. That roommate, Jon, was doing an internship with Specialized, so he was able to borrow a couple of bikes from there. We went out and I rode my touring bike, which of course weighs about 28 pounds. The bikes they were on weighed 15.92 and 16.3 pounds and were geared for moving very fast. My bike is geared for carrying a lot of weight, so I struggled to keep up with them. It really made me want a lighter more aggressively geared bike.
Another roommate, Sasha, was moving to El Salvador the first week of December and I had promised to ride from San Francisco to Santa Cruz with her. We did a little "training ride" to Moss Landing, which included us killing a bottle of wine at the restaurant we stopped at before riding all the way back to Santa Cruz in the dark. Just a few days after that we took the 17 Express, Fremont Bus, and BART to Oakland where we stayed with a lovely friend of hers, Aubrey. Aubrey is studying music in between doing triathlons. She was going to ride with us, but had locked up her bike the day before and lost the keys to the lock. The next morning we had a beautiful, relaxing, uneventful ride back to Santa Cruz. Sasha seemed to really enjoy it, though unlike me, she enjoyed riding by herself a ways behind me (I like chatting while I ride).


After all that riding and starting to feel like a pretty strong rider again, it was off to visit family and friends in Louisiana and Florida for the holidays.
Holidays = weeks without my bike = unhappy me
I need to build up an extra bike and send it to my mom's house so that I have something to ride when I'm there. It's too expensive to ship it back and forth with me every year (I've done it).

I got back to Santa Cruz and then of course the winter rains started. So, I spent another months and a half not riding my bike. On top of that, I've been eating lots of dumpstered bread. It's hard to pass up free bread, but not being on my bike and eating lots of carbs has had an expected effect on my midsection. I'm so skinny that most people wouldn't notice what I'm talking about, but I sure feel like crap when I put on 5-10 pounds in the winter.

The last two weeks, I've stopped riding my touring bike all together and I've started riding my fixed-gear again to get back into shape. I barely rode it in 2009 at all, and my knees were grateful. It is getting me strong again. My roommate, Leo, and I have been getting out on tour fixies quite a bit. There's been a lot of off-roading; I've had to hose-off it off twice now. It's the first time that cleaning my bike has ever begun with a water hose, but those farm roads north of Wilder Ranch get pretty muddy.

After returning from a mud ride this past Saturday night, I ended up on West Cliff Drive with another Bike Church volunteer, Thad. Thad is a machine. When I say machine, I mean he moves really, really fast, and he keeps that pace. I was able to keep up for a little more than half the time, but he lost me after that.
I think I'm going to go digging around for a larger chain ring. I've had a chill year of doing slow relaxing tours, which I'm still going to do, but I think I'm ready for moving a bit faster. Riding with Jon and his brother, and riding with Thad has given me a need for speed, I guess. It could only get me stronger, right? We'll see.

Next month, Leo and I are planning a three day ride to Los Angeles. I have a memorial service to attend and a chance to do some paid modeling. Doing it in three days is a little crazy, but I don't feel like I can commit a week to riding south when I need to keep up the job search. Each day will have to be 120 miles, and I don't think that either one of us has ever ridden so many miles in a day - much less had three days of it. We have a fourth day for either recouping from the trip or dragging it out for an additional day. I've got the occasional 50 mile day of bicycle deliveries with PedX to help prepare. We'll squeeze a training day or two in there, and hopefully, it won't kill us.