103.36 miles, 8140 feet, average 12.9 mph, maximum 43.5 mph.
Up at 5:30, packed up and left before 6:30. It’s the day of the great Tour. Skipped breakfast in the interest of time, thinking I’d acquire some calories at the first rest stop if there were none at the starting point. Tim is certainly in no shape to ride today; Loren wasn’t sure. He thought he’d wait a while, maybe do one of the shorter courses.
At Ferndale I bid the others adieu and set off. A cold, foggy morning with a few droplets hanging in the air. I’m wearing a polypro undershirt and a Gore-Tex jacket just in case…
Wore the jacket to the 25-mile rest stop, which was at 27 miles and had hardly any calories to offer. Maybe skipping breakfast wasn’t such a great idea. At least I got a banana and a chocolate chip cookie, enough to keep me going.
Sunny now, cool and shady and pleasant in the redwoods. The next rest stop was at 40 miles, just before the first climb. They had homemade fig and date bars covered with oatmeal, along with the usual fruit. That’s more like it!
Stripped off the undershirt and gooped up with sunscreen for the hot, long, sunny, steep, 2300' climb to Panther Gap. I was surprised all day by the number of places where the road had slipped out, down the hill. I don’t know whether this reflects an unusually severe winter, or a shift in road maintenance funding, or…
A hot, difficult climb. I can hear my heart, one stroke of the heart for each stroke of the legs. Let’s see: if my cadence is around 85 or 90, which it probably is, my heart rate is maxed out for my age, or maybe a little over max. So it goes.
Halfway down the hill to Honeydew was a fire truck, light flashing. As I went by I heard a fireman on the radio asking about the availability of straps. Bicycles and bodies strewn about on the shoulder. At lunch later, one woman commented it should be called the road rash century. As for me, I’m happy to be riding separate from the crowds. The most dangerous thing about fast descents is the other riders.
I was ready for more food, but the lunch stop wasn’t until the county park at 65 miles, and the valley had a lot more ups and downs than I remembered. Pretty hot, too, so it was beginning to feel like work.
The lunch stop was about where the cold headwind from the sea, ten miles away, became noticeable. Stopped to put on the undershirt again, anticipating a cold ride up the coast. Unnecessarily. Amazingly, the wind at the coast was a stiff tailwind.
Today’s wildlife sighting: a snake crossing the road paused to stick out its tongue at me.
Stopped again at the final food stop before The Wall, aka Cape Ridge. It’s only 900' high, but it’s steep, and it’s late in the day. Down the other side, a steep descent to the one-building Capetown. Then up Bear River Ridge, only slightly less steep but more than twice as high. All this was getting to be hard work. The butt and the feet were hurting a lot.
I think I must have been spaced out when I rode this century last time – I didn’t recall the top of Bear Ridge, several miles of open forest, cold ocean wind, great distant views, and more granny climbs.
Finally the precipitous descent into Ferndale and the short ride back to the fairgrounds. Arrived around 3:15 to the greeting of Loren and Shannon. They and Tim waited patiently while I went in to seek out food: more fruit, soup, and a big plate of lasagna.
I suggested we go find a cabin for tonight somewhere in the redwoods. So we drove down the Avenue of the Giants. Got a place at Redcrest, but with no kitchen. Too bad: Shannon had offered to whomp up a big pasta dinner. I took a rain check; sounds good.
There was a friendly black pig, very pregnant. There was a trail going straight up the hill into the redwoods to a tree you could walk through. There were gift shops with redwood sculpture. But there was no restaurant. We were right across from the place I’ve eaten at before, the place with the burl that reminded me of a snail; but they’ve gone out of business.
There was a coffee shop, and we should have gone there. Instead we piled into the car, drove down the road, finally found Knight’s restaurant at Myers Flat. Crowded place: I’d forgotten it’s Mothers’ Day. Oh, dear! We sat at the counter to bypass the waiting line. The staff was harassed and the service was none too good, but the service would only have been worse had we been grumpy. So I was extra friendly and sympathetic and they took pretty good care of us.
The menu was mostly seafood, and it turns out Shannon doesn’t eat fish. She was raised by a Catholic father and fed fish every Friday by a mother who, one surmises, didn’t like fish or didn’t know how to prepare it. Tim doesn’t eat meat at all. However, we all managed to find something to eat, even if it was just baked potato and salad; no one starved. My salmon steak was pretty good.
While I had been in the shower, the others had gone to the store and come up with a big bottle from Lagunitas Brewery: Bug Town Stout. We shared it around four ways, and declared it pretty good.
Up a little after 6. Left the others to sleep in, while I took a short walk down the Avenue. It’s a pretty place, but not much for walking: there are no side trails, just the road. Cool morning, the redwoods ghostly in the fog.
Loren found a brain floating in Lake Almanor the other day. Here’s Loren and his brain.
Went to the coffee shop for breakfast. Pancakes bigger than a plate: two was at least one too many. Tim ordered a cinnamon roll, which was also the size of a plate. They don’t believe in small portions!
It sounds like a smokers’ convention around here. All three of my companions are coughing and hacking. Loren seems to be mostly ok; Shannon is better; Tim is pretty sick. Loren got a prescription at Alturas for antibiotics: they decided they should get it filled today for Tim. So we stopped in Garberville, the first town big enough to have a pharmacy.
Picked up highway 1 at Leggett, stopped to visit the Louisiana-Pacific demonstration forest at Rockport, stopped again for a first look at the sea, shrouded in fog. Nice to get back into the cool again after the heat of Garberville.
Drove down the coast to Fort Bragg, which I nominated as today’s destination because of its great brewery. I remember the Rasputin Russian Stout from last time. The name attracted Shannon too, because she was born at Fort Bragg, North Carolina.
The C of C gave us a list of motels with kitchens. The Ebb Tide, toward the south end of town, had a suite for $90, a well-equipped kitchen, even a whirlpool bath. Pretty decadent. Tim crashed immediately. Shannon was going to make good on her promise to fix up a great pasta feed for us.
After a quick mini-lunch, Loren and I went out for a little sport ride. But which way? Well, one road I’ve never explored is highway 20… So we checked it out. A cold tailwind blew us up the hill. It has mostly no shoulder and quite a bit of traffic, including a lot of logging trucks. Otherwise it would be a terrific ride. By no means a monotonic grade either.
Jackson state forest is under active harvest. We pulled out when we heard a loading operation in progress, watched for a while.
There’s a red crane just out of the picture; it is used to drag logs up the grade. The yellow crane then piles them off to the right, and loads them onto the trucks.
After watching for a while, we headed back toward Fort Bragg. Just then a helicopter appeared on the scene. The forest was thick enough that we couldn’t really see much, but we finally found a small clear slot through the trees so we could watch. It was one of these monster five- or six-bladed sky cranes, trailing a cable. On the cable were five or six logs, which he was ferrying out of otherwise inaccessible sites. Fast and efficient. Dramatic changes in the sound of engine and rotor slap when he put down his load and headed back empty for another. A really interesting experience.
28.08 miles, 2070 feet, average 13.6 mph.
We got back just as Shannon was getting the meal ready. Ducked out quickly to the nearby liquor store for a couple four-packs of Rasputin Stout. Shannon did a great job. Even Tim showed a few signs of renewed life, but he’s still one sick puppy. Loren was going up and down a few days ago; now it’s Tim’s turn.
Loren and Shannon and I walked to Glass Beach. When I told her it was an old garbage dump, Shannon was revolted at the thought of going there, but after we were there, she thought it was great. The tide was near its high, so there wasn’t much to see in the tide pools, but the rocks and the glass were interesting and fun.
Came upon something I hadn’t noticed before. Above the high water mark were purple ellipses on the rocks. Attached to them were transparent white webs – had they been in the water, I would have taken them for jellyfish. The webs in turn were the anchors for little brown pods, about the size and color of acorns. We opened one, found it very tough and rubbery, and full only of air. It would be interesting to know what these things are and what their life cycle is.
As we wandered back through Fort Bragg, Loren and I each plucked a nasturtium and ate it. Shannon wasn’t sure nasties could be eaten, but spurred on by our example, she tried one. And spat it out! Too bad.
Stopped to phone Jacky. Back at the motel I tried out the whirlpool – pretty decadent!
64.01 miles, 3420 feet, average 14.4 mph.
Got up early, fixed coffee and cantaloupes. While I rousted out the others, I heated up the leftover sauce from last night, added some sunflower seeds, and served it over toast. Toast? The toaster had a very short cord: the only place I could find to plug it in was in the bathroom. Well, if you care…
No one else thought toast with spaghetti sauce was a good idea, which just meant more for me. Tim seems better this morning, but not up to riding. Shannon wanted to try the whirlpool bath. Loren and I rode out. We agreed on Fort Ross as a do-not-pass point.
Clear and cool, a beautiful day. I promised myself I wouldn’t shoot yet more pictures of the same old coast – but as always I couldn’t resist.
Short choppy up-and-down country, nothing very difficult, but it adds up to a lot of work. 28 miles down the coast resulted in more climbing than 28 miles along highway 20 into the mountains yesterday!
We stopped at Point Arena, 45 miles, for a grocery store lunch. Loren decided to wait there for the car. I rode on, made it a few miles past Gualala before they caught up with me. It turned out they hadn’t spent much time in Mendocino, and had skipped the Point Arena lighthouse completely, so they were earlier than expected.
Loaded the bike on the car and we drove on to Fort Ross. I’ve been here before, but it’s still interesting.
The fence was built on the tinkertoy principle – they had a sketch of how the pieces fit together. Pull out a few pegs and you could take the whole fence apart, just like that!
I liked the pattern in the old floorboards.
Drove on, getting hot and tired. I only ride with the car a few hours, and it’s too much for me. I can only sympathize with those who spend the whole day in it. At the mouth of the Russian River is a tandoori restaurant! How about that! It was too early to eat, though – too bad. We stopped at an oyster bar in Point Reyes Station, because it had a Pizza sign. Shared a small veggie pizza and a small southwest pizza, could not eat it all. Very good: the veggie pizza came with big slices of eggplant; both had slices of bell pepper. Onion, pesto sauce, chicken strips… Not bad at all.
We’ve been staying in cabins and motels. This is partly because we have sick people on board… but with everyone getting better, it seemed a shame not to camp at least one more time. And where better than amidst the redwoods of Samuel Taylor state park!
Pretty tired and grumpy by the time we got there, found a campsite, took care of the housekeeping. But a hot shower, the redwoods and the cool of the evening transformed us magically. Tim crashed again, but Loren and Shannon and I found a trail off through the redwoods that eventually took us to a wide place in the stream known as the swimming hole. Wandered further down the bicycle trail, came back in near darkness to a quiet camp.
Pretty nice. No complaints.
I was the first one up, as always. Gives me time for my interminable dental rituals. We broke camp and drove to Fairfax looking for breakfast. There were a couple of coffee shops open, but nothing with a real breakfast. So we drove on to San Anselmo. The first place that was open and had food (my two inviolate criteria) was Bubba’s. What a name! – not a place I normally would have given a second thought. But I ordered an omelette made with toasted corn bread and herbs, and it was excellent. That, with a plate full of chipped potatoes and a couple slices of thick whole-wheat toast, made for a good meal indeed.
The plan was for Loren and me to ride Mt Tam, and meet the others in Sausalito or at the Bridge. But Loren twisted his knee getting out of the car, and was in considerable discomfort even just sitting there at breakfast. So we drove instead.
Halfway up we lost a hubcap. I ran back down the road to get it: first time I’ve run for a while. Felt good. We hiked up to the lookout tower at the top for nice views of the area. Everything to the west was still covered with a thick blanket of fog; to the east all was clear and bright. Downtown San Francisco had become visible during the time we drove up the mountain, and I was hopeful that the Golden Gate would clear by the time we reached it.
But it was not to be. We parked at the south end. Tim and I walked across – the Marin observation area was bright and clear, even uncomfortably warm, but the fog hid even the north tower. On the bridge itself it was cold and windy. What a great place!
No one was particularly keen to drive, so I volunteered to get us through the city. First time I’ve had to drive all trip, sorry to spoil my record. We stopped at a Szechuan restaurant along 19th Avenue, got a pretty good meal. Then a fast shot down 280 to reach home about 3. Unloaded the car, gave the Kids a recommendation for the Fitzgerald Marine Sanctuary if they wanted to explore some more, and got myself ready for tonight’s German class. A good tour.
I went to work today. The Kids were all there when I got home. They had spent the day here mellowing out, resting up before their marathon drive back to Nebraska. I fried up some potatoes with onions, threw in some rice, added bell pepper and frozen corn at the last minute, and dared anyone to complain. No one did.
Spent some time sitting around chatting, then the Kids left, planning to drive straight through. Au ’voir, auf wiedersehen, bis nächstes Mal.
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