One Month In

Today marks four weeks since we started riding from San Francisco. We’re also 33% of the way through our journey. So if we keep up our current pace, we’ll be done in eight more weeks. We have to be back at work in nine and a half weeks, so we’re feeling good about our progress. Especially since our first week was so slow with the heat wave in California.

Last night we planned out the next few days. We have a steep climb coming up to Monarch Pass that we will need to complete in one day. Since we’ll want to start the day at the town at the bottom of that climb, we worked our way back from there and picked out reasonable places to stop each day. We’re staying tonight at a hostel outside Placerville. We’re in ski country now. We’re all staying in four-bed dorms. Jordan and Kelly are sharing a room with an older couple from Lancaster County, Pennsylvania. They are in town for a corvette event in Telluride. Mike and I are sharing a room with a couple from Oregon. One of them is doing a two month road trip, with hiking and mountain biking. Her spouse joined her here for the weekend.

Our ride today included some really great scenery. Mountains with green and yellow trees on either side, a river running alongside the road.

At one point I expected to be climbing based on the elevation profile of today’s ride. I felt like I was climbing because I was in a low gear and huffing and puffing and barely moving at all. But it looked like I was going slightly downhill. And that was very distressing. I kept thinking: But why am I going so slow? Why is this so hard? Do I have a flat tire? No. Is there a headwind? If there is, the foliage is unaffected by it. Yesterday was easy and I slept well last night, why am I so weak today? As it turns out, I was climbing after all, but I wasn’t convinced until I reached the summit. At which point I was already quite grumpy about the whole thing.

Today was a bit chillier than it has been so far and it rained off and on for the last 15 miles or so. By the time I got to the hostel I was soaking wet and freezing.

Mike stopped at a liquor store in Rico this morning, and then stopped at Patagonia in Telluride, a ski town. It’s getting properly cold now so he bought bits of cold weather gear for us both. He also bought a new sleeping bag for himself. He bought his original one ages ago before he understood how sleeping bag rating systems work, so the bag he has been using has a “comfort” rating of 70 degrees Fahrenheit. Which… hasn’t held up to the weather we’ve had lately.

Highlights

• Mike stopped at a liquor store in Rico this morning. The guy working there was super knowledgeable and the store was very well stocked. The employee saw Mike eyeing a bourbon barrel-aged stout on the shelf and told him he had a special one in the back. Mike bought the one from the back and it was the best beer I’ve ever had.
• the hostel we’re staying at it super nice. We spent the afternoon and evening hanging out in the lounge and then playing pool.

Lowlights

• riding in the cold rain
• I had a flat tire to start the day. There was a tiny piece of metal, the size of a staple, that poked through the tire and punctured the tube. Mike, the handsome but very cold mechanic, put in a new tube for me.
• I accidentally swallowed something while riding again but this time I think it was a piece of gravel.

Julie’s food

• Breakfast: oatmeal and coffee
• First Snack: Clif bar
• Second Snack: Clif bar
• Lunch: Peanut butter toast, hummus and crackers, chips
• Dinner: coconut, kale, and chickpea curry with bread and butter

Stats

• Total distance: 46.36 miles
• Elevation gain: 3,319 feet
• Weather: cold and intermittent rain, high of 68 degrees Fahrenheit