San Francisco

After having San Francisco in the back of my mind for months on end, one would think that I would have been better prepared for the actual city upon arrival. While it is true to my nature to have planned things out way in advance, I left this one up to everyone else. I had no time or energy to really think about what I would do in San Francisco, but luckily my family had a lot of things they were looking forward to doing and so I got to tag along without having to put out much energy at all. This was also a fortunate plan of attack, as I was exhausted the whole time I was there! Guess that's what biking over 4,000 miles will do to you. We got out to the science museum and to a They Might Be Giants concert in the park, we ate lots of great food, strolled around a few different neighborhoods and drank copious amounts of coffee. It was a great vacation, with great people. It's pretty rare that we can all get together more then once a year, so it was extra nice that our schedules all lined up to be able to hang out for a few days!

VIP seating on a tree stump at the concert!

Packing her up definitely brought home the reality of the end of the summer..

After so much time picturing their faces to help me keep going, it was really odd to have them leave already!

WE DID IT!

We crossed the Golden Gate Bridge, and dipped our tires in the ocean! 4,200 some odd miles later our trip is finally completed! I don't really know how to describe what it felt like to see the bridge for the first time, and cross it all together. So many friends and family members were waiting on the other side to celebrate with us...it was absolutely amazing! What an overwhelming feeling, on so many levels, to have biked across the country and to end that trip in such a beautiful place. I was so lucky to have my whole family waiting for me on the beach, along with JP, the entire Altman family and an aunt and uncle! The thought of them being there really helped me push through the last week of riding, and I am so grateful they could all be there to help celebrate! I feel like anything I could write would just be inadequate so I will leave you with a couple pictures of the big day. Hopefully that will suffice!

That sign says "Golden Gate Bridge San Francisco"!

We almost never got to ride together in a big group, but on the last day we all waited for each other, and it was such a great feeling to see everyone all lined up together.

The bridge! We waited for everyone to arrive before crossing all together.



After our triumphant entrance, we dipped our tires, jumped in the freezing cold ocean, drank some champagne and promptly fell asleep on the grass.

So glad to see everyone and so happy to have finished such a challenging journey!

just rolling on through

I can't tell you how great it feels to be riding in California after slogging across Nevada. Yes the drivers are horrible, and the shoulders are still quite decorated with broken glass, but the energy is different, and the scenery is beautiful! We've been passing through wine country, seeing lots of vineyards and rolling hills. Climbing still, and taking some amazing descents, one of them was even a 13% grade! It's nice to not feel intimidated by whatever is ahead of us. We've got strength and endurance and resolve, even when it's really hard, we know we can do it and that's a really empowering feeling.

It's hot here! We took a break just outside a vineyard to catch some shade and eat a snack under a palm tree.

We have had some incredible lunch spots recently. The day we rode into Auburn we had two lunches, both at beautiful swimming spots. That almost never happens!

Spring Mountain, coming into Santa Rosa, was arguably the hardest climb we had all trip. It just kept going, with maybe an 11% grade sprinkled with turns that hit around 13%...it was insane, but getting to the top felt amazing. We waited in groups to cheer people up the last little bit.

Most of us drink a lot of coffee, but in CA we stopped often and lingered more then usual. Here's Robby and I outside a french cafe about 15 miles into the day.

californ-i-a!

We made it to CALIFORNIA!! We were welcomed to the state with the most anticlimactic sign that could ever be, but even that did little to take away from such a momentous occasion. California! The last state line! We made it all the way to California!! I think it was a little bit of a shock for all of us to see that sign. When you are on the road, it's really hard to think more then a few hours ahead and have those thoughts be very concrete. You just do it, and then do it, and then all of a sudden you're crossing into your last state. South Lake Tahoe is a beautiful place, and not only are we in California, we are also on the heels of our third and final day off. Spirits are definitely high. Here are a few pictures:

Nevada gave us one more long, hot climb as a going away present, but we handled it just fine.

Melon, Joel and I at the state line. If you squint a little you can see it!

Our day off was spent lazing about. We went to the beach, ate good food, watched the sunset and rocked some karaoke. I also got my bike fixed, and after crossing almost all of Nevada in granny gears it's amazing to be able to shift again! Only four days left until the trip is over, and I still can't believe how fast it's all gone! San Francisco, here we come!

b&b does prom

One of the ways we broke up the monotony that is Nevada was by having prom in an elementary school gymnasium in the small town of Eureka. The build up to the big event was arguably as much fun as prom itself. We held a competition to determine who would be elected to prom committee, which was more just people competing for the sake of competing and less because they actually wanted to do anything with the committee. Nonetheless, people partnered up as potential presidents and running mates. The competition was a three-parter: First came the granny gear race, which is exactly what it sounds like. Participants raced each other in their smallest gear, spinning wildly and not moving very fast, in short a ridiculous amount of hilarity to watch. Here's a shot of the finish line, and some of the spectators:


The second phase of the competition was cut short because of an accident, in which Drew was a bit overzealous in his attempt to secure the position of president of prom committee and managed to shove his leg directly into his spokes, causing him to flip over the front of his bike. The video clip of this fall is absolutely amazing, which I can say now because Drew was relatively fine except for some bumps and bruises and the need for a new wheel. After a day in the van he was back on the bike using a temporary wheel that was mysteriously in the trailer with no one claiming ownership. In any case, the second phase in the competition was a trackstand-off, in which participants were timed doing track stands, and the third phase was a no pedal race in which participants competed to go the furthest from a slight incline without pedaling. This is how we entertain ourselves, and even though I'd like to blame Nevada, it's really something we would have done anywhere...

Another great part about prom was the creative ways people asked each other. People used chalk, wrote poems, took pictures and made prank phone calls. It was so much fun to hear people scheming and devising ways to ask each other, everyday at lunch there was a new story to hear! We voted on a theme which turned out to be ABC, Anything But Clothes, and that provided entertainment as well while we all plotted our outfits. I wish I could post more pictures to show you the creative costumes that people came up with, but I've only got this one for right now:

Some people went as the lunch tarp, cutting up and duct taping dresses together, people wore old tubes, bike parts, flip flops, ect. Robby and I went as the Med Kit and wore ace bandages and plastic bags. It was so ridiculous and amazing. We had the coolers as decorations and made an aisle out of our bike shoes. It was so much fun, dancing in a gymnasium in the middle of Nevada after really tiring days of non stop mountain passes and endless valleys.

Nevada, Nevada

We got caught in a crazy lightening storm about 17 miles into a 101 miles day. Luckily we were all pretty close together and there happend to be a cafe just before the climb started. We all piled in and occupied every seat and table. We got to eat real breafast and play cards while we waited out the storm. It was Zach's birthday too so we sang to him and hung out for more then an hour. Once the sky started to clear up we tried to head out, but were quickly sent back to the cafe because of another storm rolling in. We passed the next few hours dancing on the sidewalk and taking dumb pictures. It was such a fun morning!



Lunch was only at mile 35, but the headwind was so intense that we were all crabby from exertion and hunger by the time we made it there. A nap was in order before finishing the last 6 miles of the mountain we were climbing.


We were also climbing a mountain with a road that was freshly tarred, and a some of us were lucky enough to catch a ride past one mile of oiled road with a friendly construction worker.

The Loneliest Road in America

Oh Nevada, no thank you. This whole trip we were all waiting for Colorado. It was the promised land, it was going to be so beautiful after all the rows and rows of corn, and so many people on our trip had never been there. After Colorado we knew that Nevada would be hard, it would be chalk full of head winds, really hot and flat as far as the eye could see. How could we have ever been so wrong about that last part!? Did you know that Nevada holds the title for most mountains per square mile then any other state? Well, it does, and it most certainly does. Holy mountain climbing! At one stretch we did 13 passes in 4 days. Isn't that insane? In between the passes are these long stretching valleys, some of them go for ten miles or more before the next mountain. What a strange feeling to come over a mountain and see the next mountain right in front of you, but know that it will take hours to get there. Depth perception in Nevada is such a weird thing, you can see so far that it seems simultaneously as though you are right next to your destination and as though you have been biking in place for hours because it sure isn't getting any closer. It was so frustrating, and at times the wind nearly blew me over. Slogging through Nevada was such a hard thing to do, and so discouraging. We took Hwy 50 the whole way, and it sure is a lonely road. We went the whole day without passing through a town, just going and going in the middle of nowhere. We camped a few times, and didn't see much civilization anywhere. It was just plain tough, and we had ten straight ride days in a row. Nevada is also a state that doesn't have many bike shops, and my bike chose this time to rebel. I haven't had many big problems with my bike on the trip, but of course I did when we had no way to fix it. On maybe day one of the ten day stint, a cable snapped on my bike and I lost the ability to use any of my gears except my granny gears. I quickly learned that there are few things more annoying then having to pedal, pedal, pedal, coooooaaaast, pedal, pedal, pedal, coooooaaaast for days on end. Drew helped me get a few more gears, which came and went with no real pattern. Luckily (?) we basically climbed all day long, and that meant I was sitting in my low gears any way. We did it though, and though some of us are a little worse for the wear, we made it across the loneliest road in america.

Moustache Monday helped get us through the day..


Our camp site, the morning after. We used the rocks to hold down our tents, the wind was absurdly strong during the night.

1 mile down, 95 to go..

In the first mile leaving Green River, the road was flooded and we got to cross it as we saw fit. Lindsey had a momentary brain lapse and crossed it shoes and all, some people biked through, Robby and I stripped our shoes and socks and carried our bike over the water..you never know what you'll get on this trip!

Moab!

The ride into Moab was gorgeous, but a bit lost on me as I was battling a migraine for the majority of the day. We were out of cell phone service for most of the day, and through a mix up with the van I missed being picked up twice. It was kinda horrible, but I booked the last twenty miles at about 27mph, showered in a daze and promptly passed out on my thermarest in a back room of the church at about 8:00. I woke up feeling back to normal, in fact probably better then normal because of the large amount of sleep I lucked into! Moab was our first break after a nine day stint of riding through colorado. We were fortunate enough to have back to back days in town, with our first being a build day and our second being a real day off. It was nice to feel so normal, sleeping in a little, grabbing coffee, poking around the bookstore...in short, a much needed break! First I'll tell you about the build day. We were all excited to get to work on/see our first straw bale home. Hands down the coolest site we've been on this whole trip. We met with a family who are building their own home along with Rebuilding Together, an affordable housing program in Moab. We learned all about the architecture planning that goes into all the different stages of this kind of house; orientation to the sun, maintaining constant temperature in the walls, overhangs, maintenance. It was amazing, and the house itself was gorgeous. The family took so much pride in their work and it really showed. We toured their house and then shuttled to another site to help lay parts of the foundation down. We had a radio, also a first for a build site, and worked on tamping dirt into the floors.

Here are two pictures of the straw bale house we toured.

These two are from the actual build site, the tamps and Rudy and Robby working hard on the flooring.

Our second day a bunch of us got to go rafting, and of course the sun that had been blazing chose that time to go behind the clouds. We had so much fun though, the rapids were class one and two, so we mostly just hopped out of the rafts and swam around while knocking each other out of the kayaks and splashing about. It was a perfect way to let loose and relax off the bikes.

photos

Late to the Colorado sign party, due to vanning, but here it is!

Makeshift rain jackets..remember how Colorado changes weather every ten min? We forgot..

As you might have expected, in Colorado we climbed and climbed. I was surprised at how okay my body was with it. I have even gotten to a point where I can enjoy the climb for the climb and not just for the descent. I've gotten a lot stronger and am much more confident that I can handle whatever gets thrown at us next, but I still can't believe I crossed the Rocky Mountains!

Trail Ridge Road

From Estes Park we climbed Trail Ridge Road, the highest paved road in the US, which entailed 25 miles of straight climbing! It was a gorgeous day, and the climb was long but steady and beautiful. I can't tell you how different it is to take that road by bicycle as opposed to car. It was amazing, such great views at every turn. You can really see your progress as you climb mountains, especially because of the switchbacks. We stopped a lot just to take in the scenery and snap some pictures. Getting to the top was the most amazing feeling I have ever felt. It was windy and pretty cold, but I had so much adrenaline going and the actual realization that I had climbed that far for that long was a crazy rush. I can't even describe it really, and the descent was so great too. There weren't many cars by the time we shot down the other side, so we were able to enjoy the ride all the more. Here are a few pictures of the day:

Starting off!

Climbing, climbing, climbing...


First to the top! Kinda bad ass...

Just taking in the view..