A Biker Gang and Three Peaks

Fort Bragg – Gualala River – Cloverdale, CA

I’m not sure we’ve ever experienced quite the confluence of bikers that we saw over the last few days. Sure, we occasionally see other people bike touring – although on our big trip a few years ago we didn’t see a single other bike tourer until we reached Austin, Texas – probably 1,500 miles into our ride.

Not so lonely on this trip. As soon as we reached the coast of Oregon we started seeing other cyclists. And then, once we reached California and the Redwoods, our small group has become a bit of a biker gang – camping together, visiting the same lunch spots, and passing and re-passing each other through the day. 

We ended up with eight cyclists packed into our little hiker/biker campsite along the Gualala River. 

Three Frenchies – Berengere, a charismatic young woman who married an American classical guitarist and now lives in San Luis Obispo, her dad, Laurent, and his friend Jean, retirees from the Chamonix region of France. 

Harrison, a young rock climber and mountain guide on Mt. Rainier, who has, as Diana says, an Adonis-like head of blonde flowing tresses, and his dad, John, a market research guy for a commercial real estate company in Colorado, who feels like he is straight out of our friend group back in Minneapolis.

And a mystery rider – Cleary, who only joined us for the evening. Cleary rides a ton – not quite as much as Bondo – but Diana was still impressed. He’s a Canadian who lives on Vancouver Island, planting trees. More on that in a second. So Cleary’s biking MO is as follows . . . He basically bikes as far as he can each day – which is pretty far. Probably between 120 and 200 miles per day. 

When asked if he carries a cook stove his response was: “Hell no,” and he swallowed some of the cold sandwich he was eating for dinner. “Why would I want one of those?” 

Cleary related that he eats about eight to ten chocolate bars and probably two pounds of gummy bears per day. He has a tent but he doesn’t usually use it – throwing his “bivvy sack” on the ground does the trick unless it’s actively raining. When he does set up his tent – which is built for two people and has no bottom – he brings his bike into the tent with him “because it’s [his] baby.” He even brought his baby into the bathroom with him when he showered. 

So that was our cast of characters for the evening. We made quite the impromptu social event for the night. I collected some firewood, but someone before us had left charcoal and lighter fluid – so we had a perfect fire to grill on. Diana and I made mashed potatoes, bag salad (which we serve out of the bag), pork chops (perfectly seasoned by Dr. Liu), and grilled asparagus. Harrison, who, as a mountain guide, is a pretty experienced campfire chef, made some kind of gyros, and the Frenchies made a variety of things – capped off by their first time eating  corn on the cob. We helped them with husking and seasoning. Oh, and they brought a bottle of chardonnay – not French, but “still pretty good.” Laurent and Jean explained that they were born in and became friends in the town of Chardonnay – so the wine has special meaning for them. 

Oh, I should say that there were four unwanted guests as well. A mom with three young ones. I guess maybe we should have had more sympathy for this young family, but instead we threw things at them and tried to get them to leave. Always good to have a common enemy – even in these turbulent times the French, the Canadian, and us Americans rallied together to fight off these marauding bandits. Cleary was especially good at this because, not having a tent, he ended up being the one to chase them off all through the night . . .

Sadly, though, Cleary left to start biking before any of the rest of us had even stirred – well before the sun came up. The upshot is that we don’t have a picture of Cleary, and without his vigilance, the stupid raccoons made off with the almond croissant that I purchased in the town of Guallala the previous evening. An event that, as we’ll get to, would have greater consequences later in the day . . . 

Oh, a little more on Cleary’s profession. He plants little tree plugs for a contractor who works for a lumber company. He can plant up to 3,000 plugs in one day – and he gets paid by the plug, so it’s pretty good money. The company helicopters him out into “the bush,” leaves him with a supply of plugs, and, if conditions are good, picks him up at the end of the day. If conditions aren’t good – like a dense fog or rain event – he spends the night in the elements. He works about four months a year, and spends the rest of the time biking. 

I think one of the great things about someone like Cleary is that he makes people like Diana and I feel so normal . . .

Well, all good things must end – and Diana and I turned off of Highway 1 to head up to wine country pretty much first thing in the morning. The basics of the ride were as follows: ten miles on Highway 1, turn left on Skaggs Springs Road – a tiny little ribbon of asphalt through the woods – and follow it for 36 miles, and then turn onto a new road for the last ten miles to Cloverdale. Sounds simple enough. 

The first few miles on Skaggs Springs were amazing. Shaded and cool, Surrounded by Redwoods. Absolutely no traffic. The sun dappling through the trees. Gently rolling. 

This was going to be a great day. We congratulated ourselves on our brilliant navigational choices.

And then we hit the first of the three big climbs – the smallest of the three. It wasn’t too bad, but after cresting the hill, we decided that this must have really been the second, not the first – so we only had the one, somewhat smaller, big hill remaining. 

This was the point at which the day started going downhill – metaphorically speaking, of course. Because, in reality, our future held heights – in the most negative sense of the word – that we had not even imagined. 

We stopped for lunch along the side of the road. Pleasant enough, even if we were sitting on a dirt embankment in the middle of nowhere. Turns out our homemade salami sandwiches, on sesame sourdough bread, smothered in butter, with avocado, tomato, mayo and mustard are delicious – especially when you’ve worked up a pretty good appetite. 

It was after lunch when the s— hit the fan. 

We started heading up what we thought (hoped) was the third climb. Well, by this time we were high enough and far away enough from the ocean, that it was beautiful in that Georgia O’Keefe dry landscape type of way. But, like Georgia O’Keefe, it was harsh. Steep climbs – so steep I started worrying about Diana’s knees. You see, she has more limited gearing than I do because – and this is kind of insider baseball for those who are not biking die-hards – she has a one-by, meaning she has only one chain ring in front – no small chain ring, or “granny” gear for the steeper climbs. But I was just hanging on for dear life myself – so my solution wasn’t to help her directly, but to stop at the top and cheer her on as she worked her way up this ugly wall. 

Diana was, of course, fine. Her only comment was: “This is not the top,” as she kept pedaling past me. You see, Diana may have a one-by, but she also has more fancy gadgets than I do – and her Wahoo device was telling her that this was just a false crest – the “real” hill was still in front of us. 

Ugh.

I climbed back on my bike and we worked our way up still higher. 

When we finally reached the top and looked around it was obvious that, as we probably knew somewhere in our brains all along – but didn’t want to admit because we wanted the hope that this was the real end to help us keep our weary legs motivated – there would be another big climb yet to come. 

Now, normally you reach the top and you enjoy the well-earned ride down. But not when you know you are only going down so that you can go up one more time. Especially when you are now out of water and the temperatures are climbing rapidly in the unrelenting sunshine. And especially when the descent is so steep you are clutching both brakes as tightly as possible the whole way – and spending your time considering when was the last time you changed out the brake pads on the bikes – and considering what the options would be should they fail . . .

And then it was up once more. With at least three false tops along the way. And somehow more steep even than the last climb . . . Or was that just our growing fatigue – and dehydration – affecting our judgement? Probably that. But whatever. It was brutal. And we were broken. Body. Mind. And spirit. 

There was no triumphant selfie at the top. Only the grim realization that we still had sixteen miles to go. The top was not the finish – it was just a mirage of a waypoint along the way. There was no one standing there with water or even a “good job.” Just miles of empty road in front of us. 

The rest was a death march. Yes, we had some more brake-clutching descent – but somehow we still seemed to be going up most of the time. Worse, we had now turned into a stiff wind. And, thanks to our raccoon friend, I didn’t have the almond croissant I had purchased the day before – for just this eventuality . . .

By the time we reached Cloverdale and our hotel we were too tired to shower even. We both just collapsed onto the bed in a heap. Too exhausted to even celebrate our achievement. 

Later, Diana’s contraptions told us we had done 7,100+ feet of climbing. Let me just tell you, that’s a lot. Especially on a loaded bike.. Even our bad days in Colombia and Ecuador weren’t much worse than this – especially considering that we didn’t have our camping gear with us at that time. 

Our new plan. Take a day off in Cloverdale. Do laundry. Hopefully do some necessary work on Old Dan – which is, itself, a one-by right now. And do a little wine tasting spin on our bikes. Diana even found a magic show we’re planning to go to this evening. I’m optimistic that one of the tricks will be to remove all mountains from the rest of our journey . . .