To Winchester Bay, and Beyond

A few days have passed since the last update. It’s certainly harder than expected to maintain this thing daily while riding 80+ miles per day.

We left Newport at around 8:30 on Tuesday morning and landed in Winchester Bay in the evening. Jas at around 4, me at around 5. Three of the bikers we met in Newport made the trip as well, and I saw them a few times during the day.

Oregon turned out to be quite hilly, with many short climbs followed by short spurts of speed. There was also some road construction a bit inland, and some of the stray tar chunks managed to get into my tires, causing them to pick up pieces of debris like my bike was a Katamari.

When we got to Winchester Bay, we were offered a ride down to Brookings the next morning, and since we’re cramped for time, we decided to take it. As it turned out, we got a ride all the way to the border and then rode down into Crescent City. Rode 80 miles Tuesday, only 25 or 30 Wednesday, but traveled a good 130 miles by truck. That bought us a day, letting us hit Arcata last night.

A slight aside, when loading the Bob trailer into the guy’s truck, one of the pins flew off, so I only had one proper attachment to my bike wheel. In place of the lost pin, I tried zip ties for the day. They didn’t work to well.

Rescuing Jas from the Woods of Orick

Yesterday morning we got a late start. Weather was shitty and overcast, so we were slightly unmotivated. We also toyed with the idea of riding to Klamath (about 15-20 miles) and then catching a bus the rest of the way if weather was bad. We ate breakfast at a place called the Good Harvest Cafe, which was delicious, but we didn’t hit the road until 11 or noon.

At the beginning of the ride, we turned off 101 to what looked like the bike route. After a mile or so, it dead ended and we found another couple of bikers. The road actually continued as a dirt road, but given my trailer’s deficiency, I didn’t want to truck it on the dirt.

Jas wanted to go, and I convinced him that if he wanted to, then he should go and that we could meet up after the dirt road meets up with 101, so I turned around and started climbing the 1200 foot hill while Jas followed the dirt path with the two others. On the way down to Klamath (about 1pm or 1:30pm), I ran into two more bikers at a road construction flagger for a single lane ahead. We went after all of the cars and had the downhill road all to ourselves.

In Klamath, I found some wire to use instead of the zip tie holding the other side of the trailer to my bike. It worked a little better, and at least didn’t break.

After Klamath was another hill climb, and I took a chance taking a Pacific Coast Bike Route path off Hwy 101 at Newton B Drury Scenic Parkway, which turned into Old Hwy 101, an amazing descent through the Redwood forest.

Between pretty much the first hill south of Crescent City, through Klamath and Old Hwy 101, there was no cell phone service, so when I got to Orick, the first town after Old Hwy 101 with service, I stopped for a Gatorade break and sent Jas a text message. Considering I hadn’t seen him go by during my delay fixing the Bob in Klamath, I figured he was well ahead of me, so I kept on trucking down 101.

The road between Orick and Arcata was curvy and hilly, with many ups and downs. I’m pretty sure yesterday I was in my lowest gear more than I have been on any other day. The late start didn’t help my motivation too much.

At about 6:40pm it was approaching dark, I was about 20 miles out of Arcata, and I got a call from Jas. He had just reached Orick, and he had taken the 101 the whole way, rather than following the bike route through the Redwoods. His decision meant another 1200 foot climb for him (as opposed to my 800 foot climb to Old Hwy 101) and many more hills. Since it was getting late, he wanted to stop riding before he lost cell phone service again and was stranded.

I got on the phone with Miranda and when I got to Arcata, we went to pick Jas up, since 35 miles in a car wasn’t nearly as big of a deal as 35 miles on a bike through dark and dangerous slippery-when-wet hills.

Disaster averted. Day off. Tomorrow, we have more climbing, and in two days, our biggest climb of the trip, 1900 feet. Definitely time to rest.