We're sitting around the campfire at the KOA in Manchester Beach, stuffed full of turkey meat-sauced pasta and beer. (I'm not stufed with beer, mind you, just pasta. Beer's for the other fellows.) Today's ride was only 26 miles, but it involved taking the trike up the steepest incline I've ever ridden. Route 1 skirts the coast, traveling up and down along the bluffs (seen here, looking north). At one point, outside of Elk, we gained 200 feet elevation in just under a quarter mile. One hairpin turn involved the aforementioned incline, and that required some serious effort and weightlifter-style grunting on my part.
But we all made it up, and the "we all" bit is what's making this portion of the trip a new adventure. Leggett Hill wasn't nearly as bad as the books and maps said, but it was bad enough, and better because we went in caravan, with Rich's little clamshell speakers stuck to the front of his handlebar bag, bleating tinny renditions of American tunes from the Forrest Gump soundtrack as we crept ever upwards. Alone, it would've been like Kentucky, or worse.
Still, there were some stretches of the road today, once the worst of the hills were finished with, when I was back in my solo trekking mode, imagining what it would've been like to still be on the road alone, with the pale tan and pine green coastal hills to my left, and the fields abruptly ending in sheer cliffs over the blue and white surf to my right. Riding up hills we tend to bunch up, as I set the slow pace. Today, we spread out along the road. It was good to get some space beneath the cloudless sky.
Like Leggett Hill, Route 1 isn't nearly as bad as the books and maps have made it out to be. Shoulders are narrow to nonexistent, yes, and the road does wind around quite a bit, but the traffic was respectful and low in volume. We had one somewhat dicey moment while flying down a steeply curving section before the murderous hill outside of Elk, where a couple of logging trucks were creeping around a hairpin curve on the other side of the road. The curve was so tight that the rear part of one truck's trailer was well into our lane. Unexpected! I flicked over to the right, taking the curve with brakes whining, and Tom managed to avoid bouncing his trailer off the truck's wheel by a good foot or so. But it's certainly something to be aware of in the future - that, and the occasional idiot who thinks he's a skilled driver in his fast car but nonetheless takes curves in the middle of the road. That hasn't happened yet, but we've been warned about it.
My weight loss continues apace...according to my belt, I've lost about seven inches off of my waist. By bringing the boom in on the front of the trike by about a quarter of an inch, I've put the pedals closer to me. It's the equivalent of lowering the seat on an upright, and it's brought my quads more into the business of pedaling, so that they're starting to bulk up, like my beard. The greatest physiological difference? I get cold now. I'm used to having my fat insulation, and I can really get chilled during the cool coastal nights here. As soon as we crossed the 1,900 foot mountain outside of Leggett, the temperature dropped by 25 degrees. Today was bright and sunny, with cool temperatures, but when we reached the KOA the skies closed up, hiding the sun. It's dark now, chilly, and I can see my breath fog in the air.
We've got several days of about 30 miles or so, until we reach San Francisco mid-afternoon on the 28th. I picked up a tiny multimeter in Fort Bragg when we cycled through it, and after testing various connections I'm fairly certain that I've managed to fix the problem with the big battery in the Black Box. Once I get it fully charged I should be able to fire up the cell phone amplifier and get online with greater regularity.
So: that's the news from this particular Picnic Table. Now it's time for me to put on my long underwear and crawl into my tent, there to sleep the sleep of the exhausted pasta-stuffed triker.
I'm at Benbow Lake State Recreation Area. I met up again with Tom and Rich in Eureka, and have been riding with them for the past three days. We're inland, so the heat is kicking up, reminding me of the bad old days in Kentucky. We're two days away from topping Leggett Hill, and then it'll be back to the coast with reasonable temperatures and ocean views and so on.
