Miscellaneous Thoughts

There is plenty of time to think while riding.  Here are some random thoughts.

Why are there so many bungie cords along the shoulders of highways?  Why is it just a cord and not the thing that it was holding in place?  Do people miss these cords?  There might be enough so that if I collected them, I could start a bungie store.

 So, all those screws and lug nuts that are scattered all over the shoulders, where they not important to the vehicle?  Why or how is it that things that are theoretically properly tightened are falling off?  If I continue down the road, will I eventually find the part that the screw was holding in place on the vehicle?

We rode down 'The 101'; bikes are allowed on over a 1,000 miles of California limited access and Interstate roads.  Why is it that Californians put a "The" in front of a route number?  Why isn't it just 101 or route 101?

When we started this ride, I was convinced that California had the worst roads in the country.  They don't have to deal with frost so they don't seal cracks and one could argue they don't fill pot holes.  You notice these things as a biker as you bounce and vibrate across these so called roads.  The shoulders of The 101 between exit 260 and 251 where horrendous; I thought my bike would start dropping parts like the cars.  But as we made our way further south the roads improved.

What is California's fascination with rumble strips?  Can't their drivers stay in the lane?  They need to remind the drivers that there is a lane?  To a biker, they are extremely uncomfortable and dangerous.

For those who haven't seen my rant on Facebook, why don't apps that allow bikers to lay out routes for their bike computers identify dirt roads?  And why are paths that run through orchards labeled as roads?  And why are there roads in the system that don't really exist?

Wind.  Back in 2012 my nephew Austin Fox and my brother in law Charlie Byers, Austin's uncle, rode across country east to west.  They got to Nevada/California and stopped riding because of the wind.  We have experienced that wind, but to our backs.  On our first full day we flew as we rode with the wind at our back; it was exhilarating.  There were times we needed to ride into the wind, that was horrendous as we had to work four times as hard to go half the speed.  But worse was when we had to ride across the wind.  We had to lean into the wind so that we weren't blown over.  

Sweat.  A few years ago I travelled with Steep Adventures which connects adventure travel with charitable causes, my niece Michelle's company, to hike the Annapurna Trail in the Himalayas.  On the trip Michelle made a statement about sweat that went something like this - people perspire, Dellers sweat.  On Day 3 when we were riding up  the White Wolf Grade, 5.1 mile Category 2 hill climb with several spots of a category 4 climb, I wasn't sweating, the water was just pouring off of me.  Michelle, that made me think of your comment.

Hill climbing.  I hate hill climbing; always have.  The more I ride, the easier it gets.  But I still hate it.  There are some really steep hills in RI, but they are short.  That's not the case here.  Hills are a challenge and are hard to train for in RI.  Rich excels at hill climbing - slow and steady.  I need to adapt my hill climbing technique and get better at it.

We changed our route for tomorrow and are heading towards Needles CA.  We are using the Adventure Cyclist's route.  We know there are no dirt roads.  We are hoping to end around 2 when the temperature is supposed to be in the mid to high 80s.

That's it for tonight.