Leg 1 officially complete

So we have for reals completed the first leg of the trip. It is
definitely the shortest leg, but I think it may have been the most
physically demanding leg. I could also be wrong about that one! I
guess we shall see soon enough as leg 2 starts tomorrow, and it is
going to be a rough first day haha.

Anyway, today was only a 35 mile ride from encinatas to San Diego
(well, where we are staying in San Diego). We took our time waking up
then hit the road. I wanted to see nighmare on elm street, so we
stopes in la jolla to do so. Zach didn't want to join me so he
chillaxed beach side with the tourists.

After the movie we lurched our way across San Diego to wherever we are
now. Fortunately about a mile from the house we are at we had the
luxary of climbing the absolute steepest hill of the entire trip thus
far. Not only was it steep, it was also long. I wanted to stop
multiple times but forced myself up with no breaks. Once we reached
the top I imediately got off my bike and breathed heavily for many
minutes. Shit sucked.

Time for high points and low points of the first leg!:

Most beautiful rides were Carmel and big sur hands down. Carmel was
fancy pretty while big sur was just straight up natural pretty.

Most enjoyable rides were the mega descents in big sur area and
leaving San Simeon being pushed by 46 mph winds. We were just flying
effortlessly. It ruled.

The worst day was going to gaviota state park where the ride was
boring all day and I got a tube stem stuck in my rim.

So far Zach and I are getting along just fine. No fights or bullshit.
Still laughing about stupid shit all day. We have both been looking
forward to Lenora joining the party though to change up the dynamic.

I think that about sums up leg one. Now off to leg two!

Ten hut

Today we rode from Dana point to encinita. Overall it was a pretty uneventful ride. So uneventful, in fact, that I don't remember very much of it. Either that or I forgot due to the romantic evening I just had with Zachary eating skittles and drinking dr. Pepper while watching the sunset on the beach. Whatever.

So yeah, we took a sort of half day and only rode 48 miles or something which leaves us a wopping 20 or something to ride tomorrow to San Diego. Originally we were going to trek it to San Diego today and have the day off there tomorow, but after just having 4 days off we weren't really feeling like loafing around another city getting in peoples way and loafing around. It would be nice to do shit in San Diego for a day, but let's be honest, the last thing you really want to do on a day off during a bike tour is go out running around not relaxing.

We started off today riding through san Clemente which was basically a million ups and downs where it is impossible to get in the groove. This also made hurties in zachys knees. Shortly outside of San Clemente we saw a brutal futuristic nuclear power plant with a magnificent ocean side view just sucking the life out of the planet. We then rode through a really boring park which lead to an even more boring and desolate bike trail leading through absolutely nothing that took us through a mud puddle laced tunnel which Zach almost ate shit in (Ha!).

After this stretch of boredom we crossed in to camp pendleton where we were greated by 3 of Americas finest. For those who don't know, camp pendleton is a huge military base. Our gate keeping greeters proceeded to ask us why the hell we would ever want to ride our bikes cross country and said they would rather eat a bullet than have to do what we were doing. Secretely we were wishing that bullet would be served.

I thought we might see some heavy shit up in that thar army base, like tanks and shit. However we mostly just saw tribal tattoos and unwelcoming glares.

Imediately after leaving the base we found our days salvation as we pulled up to our first (and probably last) del taco stop of the trip. We figured we better get our habits of eating cheap garbage out of the way before Lenora meets up with us tomorrow and makes us eat like adults. We ate our grub and went about our business.

It was not too long before we got all up  in to carlsbad where we stopped in at some bike shop and chatted with a super nice old man who was raging to Tom waitts alone in his shop. He came out and checked out our bikes and offered us restrooms or anything else we might need. Unfortunately I forgot the name of his shop to give him a plug.

Once we were in Carlsbad propper we were scootin along the 101 beach side and shit looked straight up like a scene from bay watch. Mass surfers and bikini babes. Even shit neck life guards cruisin the beaches in jeeps. I felt this was the time of day to start harassing people on the side walk so I started yelling at every other person we passed that "yo, this place looks like baywatch." Zach laughed until he peed his biker shorts, in turn giving him a bad moisture chafing all down his leg.

Finally we made it to Encinita around like 2:30 or something. Zach wanted to do laundry so we did. Then we straight up killed 2 large pizzas from little ceasers. We couldn't pass on the $5 large deal. We then headed over to our camp ground around 6 after piddling our afternoon away only to find that the camp ground wasn't offering hike and bike this evening. This put us in quite a pickle as there literally was no where else to go other than $90 hotels for miles due to our proximity to San Diego. This camp ground was pretty much our last resort. I felt pretty defeated and was totally in the mind set that we were done for the day so I went back up to the dude at the camp gate and pleaded some sob story that the camp ground was our last resort and we didn't know what to do if we couldn't stay there. My pleading, fortunately, worked and dude gave us a regular camp site for the price of hiker biker.

So here we are! In our tents again where we feel safe. Tomorrow we are doing a super easy day to San Diego where I am hoping to take in a matinee showing of nightmare on elm street before we meet up with Lenora.

POOF

Back on the road

Hello again readers. We hit the road again after our little break in Los Angeles for the past 4 days. I must say, even though it was nice to have shelter for the past few evenings, I am pretty stoked to be out of LA. I will admit that I had a better time there than any other trip I have taken to LA, but I still really hate that city. Basically the only times that were good were when I was with someone that had a car. That city is just straight up unenjoyable without an automobile. I even tried biking around and I had to bike at least 14 miles to do anything. Pretty ridiculous. However, it was really nice to see andre, Paul, mike and Jason Harbert who I had not seen in a really long time. I even ran in to krissy piper at a taco restaraunt and officially met her after awkwardly sort of knowing eachother for years haha. Sorry to anyone out there that I missed, I felt completely trapped whenever I didn't have a car, so anyone who didn't live in silver lake or Beverly hills / Hollywood was out of luck haha. Also, thanks again to andre and Jason for letting me crash on their couches. Oh yeah, and it was also nice to see Alison Brady at her art show. Brooklyn raise up.

So yeah, now let's get back to the point of this blog which is the bike trip. We managed to ride 70 miles today from silver lake LA to Dana point which is just south of laguna beach. Today's ride was quite interesting. The first 30 miles of the ride was just getting out of LA. Give me a fucking break LA. 30 miles? We weren't even like the furthest we could have been either. 30 miles... Just to leave LA. not to mention all 30 miles were ugly as shit. LA isn't really a pretty city in the first place, but our route today was a tour of all of the ugliest parts! We went through down town, south central (which I couldn't stop thinking of don't be a menace the entire time) then we hit up Compton haha. We were riding on some bike path through south central through some park and got mean mugged pretty hard by some rough looking dudes at one point. I must say as a dude with a fully loaded touring bike wearing a half spandex outfit I wasn't feeling very in place. Not to mention we had to stop at some point to consult the iPhone for directions which made me feel even more cozy haha. Once we got to Compton though we were mostly on some bike path going behind houses where we were pretty much out of sight. I must say that was about the sketchiest looking bike path I have ever seen and the backs of the houses in Compton were pretty raw.

Once we finally got out of Compton we hit up some bike trail that followed the Los Angeles river. Let me tell you, that is the ugliest damn river I have ever seen. It is made of Fucking concrete and is filled with garbage. What an eye sore. Very fitting for LA. but yeah, for this portion of the ride we were going head on against some brutalizing winds which slowed us down to about 9 or 10 mph all the way to the coast at long beach.

Long beach was about halfwy through our ride and the scenery popped a 180 for the rest of the day. The last 35 / 40 miles were through orange county where we were blasting through the most yuppie ass shit I have ever seen. We strolled through long beach first on a bike path that was in the middle of the beach. Though we were now in a better situation or riding with the wind, this beach trail was basically a sand storm. We were getting peltted with sand pretty much the entire time and I was riding with my eyes barely open for a lot of it.

After long beach we hit Huntington beach where the sand continue to blast us. Zach was wearing short sleaves and said the shit was pretty painful on his arms. I just kept getting sand in my ear. Huntington was even more yuppie than long beach.

Then we hit Newport beach. Even more yuppie. Zach had his first tech problem where his rear deraellier would stay in his highest gear. We stopped and adjusted it pretty quickly now that I am some what of a broken Deraellier expert.

Lastly we rode through laguna beach which was the yuppiest of them all. That shit was like a really huge organic foods store mixed with the upper east side of new York. I couldn't resist screaming orcish at all the beautiful people on the side walk. Also, the people in laguna beach drive the worst out of any place we have been thus far. Today was the first day I thought I was going to get hit by an SUV.

I enjoyed today's ride quite a bit I must say. Riding through the shitty parts of LA was interesting and yelling at pedestrians in yuppie land was fun. Also, the wind ended up pushing us for a large portion of the ride making it easy to sustain a nice 22 mph pace.

Tomorrow we are biking through camp pendleton. I am curious to see what goes on in there. We will possibly go all the way to San Diego... Or we might split the ride up in to 2 half days since Lenora won't be there until Saturday night. We shall see!

Last Week Before...

So this week has been stupid hectic, two house sits, the Teacher's Strike, six page paper to write, write and deliver letter to clients stating dates I will be away, get new medications, pick up camera from ups, get the last of the gear for my trip, bill clients, make dog walking schedule for Oliver, solidify person to take over Oliver's place when he leaves, make copy of keys for Oliver, get food for the trip, find lost bike shorts, and more that I can't really think of right now. WTF?!!!! I feel totally crazy! It's Wednesday night I leave Friday and I feel totally overwhelmed. Can't wait to take off and not have to deal with anything which won't be the case cause I'm sure clients will still be calling and Oliver will need a little assistance. I look forward to the bliss that comes with doing nothing but riding my bike. Dear self do not freak out! That being said I must get back to writing my overdo paper and all the other shit I need to complete before 6pm Friday FML

Leg 1 almost complete

We made it to LA! I am pretty proud of us. We killed it and made it
here in 8 days, four of which were sort of half days due to problems
and accomodating to schedule things. All in all I would have to say we
did pretty well. We kept to my original schedule that some said seemed
crazy, but honestly it wasn't that bad. We still technically have two
rides left to complete leg 1 so I will hold off on summations.

As for yesterday's ride, it went by pretty quickly and with no
mechanical blunders. We basically just killed it all day down the 1
again. Yeah, I thought we were finished with the 1 but it came back to
us! It was a decently scenic ride until we got to Malibu where we
stopped for lunch and hung out on the beach for like an hour and a
half. As we were leaving Oxnard we ran in to some airforce base and
took pictures of missiles and shit.

But yeah, after leaving Malibu we were basically just riding through
suburbs of LA. We were flying mos of the time between 18 and 20 mph.
However, there were a couple burly hills outside of LA that slowed us
down a bit. I managed to clock 41 mph down one hill which was pretty
awesome. I know we had to have been going faster sown the mountains
earlier on. I really wish we would have had bike computers then!

Once we finally reached LA we spent a little while just cruisin along
the beach until we got to some beach side amusement park in santa
Monica. At that point we decided to look up where my friend andre
lives which is where we would be staying. Turns out he lives 15 miles
from where we were. WHAT THE FUCK LA?! WHY ARE YOU SO SPREAD OUT?!
This in a nutshell is why I hate this city. We were all stoked that we
made it to LA and made great time only to find out we still had like
an hour and a half of riding up Santa Monica blvd to do, which turned
out to be the most exhausting part.

Due to us arriving in LA in such a timely fashion, we now have all 4
of our extra days to spend here. So we shall be in LA until thursday.
If you are out here give me a holler.

This city is currently my number 1 least favortite city so you have 4
days to prove yoursef otherwise LA. I must say I am looking forward to
hanging out with friends who I have not seen in a long time (because
they live in LA haha) and going to visit harkin's new masterpiece,
grill em all truck. It will also be nice to have 4 days of not hauling
around tons of shit on my bike up and down hills.

Los Angeles

Poptarts WTF!

So we are sitting here on the beach in Malibu eating pop tarts and we
check out the nutritional facts and each pop tart has 210 calories!
How the hell is that even possible?! These are like a super food for
our 5k calories a day diet. However, I don't advise eating them ever
throughout normal day to day life. Wow.

It's always something...

Yesterday we rode from gaviota state park to ventura. Ovarall it was a
pretty smooth and easy ride. Leaving gaviota we had some nice scenery
of off shore drilling stations as we killed it down the 101 with fast
traffic at our side all morning. It got a little monotonous so we
pumped some tunes. The ride went a lot faster while we were both
raging to jawbreaker.

Eventually we made it to goleta or whatever city that was where we got
off 101 and spent most of the rest of the day riding backroads through
various cities along the coast. My flat tire situation from the
previous day seemed to have corrected itself except for some reason my
front wheel was a bit wobbly. We pulled off to some bike shop in
goleta and bought some new tubes and I decide to rotate my tires. I
also broke down and purchased a cheap cycling computer to show our
mileage and speed and what not. I love numbers and shit like that so
clearly I couldn't stop staring at the thing all day always checking
how fast I was going and how many miles we had gone. Oh yeah, and Zach
has had one of these the entire trip but didn't think it worked but as
soon as I checked the trouble shooting secion of the directions we
instantly solved the problem that it needed a very minor adjustment to
work. We are idiots.

So after a nice break of bike maintenance, we hit the road again. In
no time we made it to Santa Barbra and were riding next to some beach
side walk way accosting all the people we were passing. Eventually we
decided to stop and hang out on the beach for a bit. We were soon
passed by a group on segways so we of course laughed at them and took
pictures. The natural reaction.

So yeah, we hit the road again and Zach realized that somehow he was
keeping up with me and miraculoulsy at some point he passed me! Like
the wise man he is he knew something must be wrong and saw that my
tire was flat again... This was the same tire that was giving me
problems the day before. We were only like 15 miles from Ventura so I
decided it was time to take it to a bike shop and have them examine it
and maybe they could see something I didn't. However, my tire's slow
leak meant that I had to stop every 2 or 3 miles to pump it up to get
to the bike shop. Really fun end to the day.

We stopped at one bike shop ran by red necks in flip flops and they
were like "we will just put a tube in it.. Problem solved." I didn't
like his answer at all so I just turned around and left and didn't
even aknowledge him. Luckily there was another shop down the street
and they were nice enough to take a look. There was a tiny piece of
wire poking through that honestly I have no idea how I missed it. I
ran my fingers all through the inside of that tire multiple times and
found nothing. Dude found it like instantly. So yeah, hopefully that
chapter of shitty is over.

The other "something" that happened yesterday was that we were suppose
to stay with one of zachs friends last night but she decided to not
answer his phone calls or texts all day. Shitty! So here we are
camping in the cold again.

Anyway, we are off to LA today where we do actually have a place to
stay. We will be there for the next 3 or 4 days until we go to meet
back up with Lenora in San Diego for leg 2 of the trip!

Disaster strikes v2.0

Aye aye aye. So this morning we actually left at a decent time. Got up
after a good nights rest in our king sized hotel bed, hit the road by
like 9:45 or some shit. We rode for a couple of hours through hazy ass
weather in about the most boring setting known to man kind. All we
could see were fields filled with various crops as far as the eye
could see. Everything was flat, the sky was grey, the ground was wet,
the air was thick and moist. Boring as shit. Then we pulled up to one
of the most depressing looking towns I think I have ever seen, called
Guadalupe, which was just filled with red knecks (which I didn't even
know existed in California). I seriously thought I was back in Ohio
but worse. I also finalu understood why gay posi bills never get
passed in California and why Arnold Schwarzenegger is the governer
(though I would have had to have votes foe him myself). All of the
towns we have been passing through the past couple of days seem to be
filled with ass holes.

Anyway, we got through Guadalupe then made a couple huge climbs back
in to the mountains which had no pay off views whatsoever. Just climbs
up in to tired ass scenery.

After descending to the bottom of the valley we stopped or lunch at
lompoch where we were greated with the highlight of the day... They
have avocados at their subways! That shit made our day.

So after that we were riding with anticipation for a long ass time as
we were expecting the final, and highest, ascent of our trip. It felt
like it was never going to come... Then I got a flat tire. Womp womp.I
checked out the tube and tire and saw no obvious reason why the flat
would have happened so I was a little nervous as I put a new tube and
took off again. My nerves were on point as, two miles later, my shit
was all droopy all over again. Now I was a bit frustrated. However! I
had one of those stupid 99 cent presta converter bullshits on my tube
end and guess what!? Somehow it was on so tight I could remove it even
with pliers. This meant I couldn't even remove the tube from my rim to
put on another one.

The first thing I tried was just ripping the tube off the stem to see
if I could just pop the stem out of the hole. Unfortunately tube
designers were too smart for me to simply do that because there is a
nice little base that keeps the tube from slipping through. Zach and I
then struggled some more trying to loosen the attachment to no avail.
At this point I was starting to panic and thought we were stranded and
would have to hitch a ride or something as we were in the middle of
nowhere. Then I calmed down a bit and decided to use some wire cutters
to destroy the stopped on the end of the base. After chipping away at
it for about 15 minutes I still couldn't pull the damn thing out so we
used an Allen wrench and my bike lock to hammer it out. The shit
really sucked.

So anyway, I then put in another new tube. Rode 2 miles. FLAT! I got
pist again. Took everything apart. Examined the tire, rim, tube...
Everythig. Nothing was wrong! I still don't know what the hell was
going on. At this point we were out of spare tubes. Luckily I bought a
patch kit a few days ago so we patched up one of the bad tubes and put
it back in hoping somehow the problem would fix itself. It seemed to
have done just that as we managed to make it the rest of the ride flat
free. I am crossing my fingers that we can make it to Santa Barbra
tomorrow with no flats and get some new tubes.

With all of that said... The hill we were waiting all day for never
seemed to show up haha. Either we climbed it and didn't realize
because of all the tire bullshit, or we are justn pure animals and are
completely unphased by mountains. We definitely raged on the descent
though because we got to blast through the last 4 miles of the day in
about 10 minutes to pull up to the camp ground at gaviota state park.

All in all, though the day sucked, we rode like 65 miles or something
through the mountains and we made it to the end of US 1. We will miss
you US 1. We shared so much time with you over the past week. How
unfortunate that you got so ugly and boring during your last leg.

So yeah, feels good to be in my tent! Tomorrow we are off to ventura
and the next day LA where we will be chillin hard for 4 days due to
our crushing stamina allowing us to plow down the coast. It better be
warm there. This cold weather bullshit has got to go.

This just in

We were riding in 43 mph winds today. Holy shit.