San Francisco to New York
April - June 2005
Week 1
25 April - Monday - 59 miles/59 total
San Francisco to Brannan Island State Park
Finally, time to
leave! During the past couple of months I’ve rebuilt my bike, put
together the smallest and lightest means of blogging from the road that
I could come up with, painfully figured out how to use it to upload
both text and photos to my blog, and of course, completely neglected
the need to train. Until this morning, I’d done only about 150 miles
this year. Last year I totaled about 3000, so although I’m not going
to fall apart on this ride, there may be some suffering involved toward
the beginning.
I got away about
nine in the morning, and my rebuilt bike felt good immediately. Fairly
soon, though, I needed to adjust the rear derailleur. Not a big problem.
So I headed down
to the BART station at the Embarcadero to catch a train to Oakland, as
the only bicyclable routes across the bay - the Golden Gate and the
Dumbarton Bridge - would have taken me way out of my way. But once
downtown, I realized that I had never taken the ferry to Oakland. I had
to wait a while for the next ferry though, so I got to Oakland about
eleven.
After a quick ride over to my old neighborhood near Lake
Merritt, I headed up Trestle Glen Road and then up Shepherd’s Canyon
Road. That was when I realized that I wasn’t immediately going to take
to climbing with my touring load of 45 pounds or so. Down through
Moraga (lunch stop at a deli where I used to eat a lot when I lived in
Oakland and did east-of-the-hills rides) and east through Walnut Creek.
Then I had to climb Ygnacio Valley Road, and I really began to feel it.
Then Kirker Pass, where I started to feel really wiped out. There were
a few rest stops going up Kirker pass, in fact. But from there, it was
completely flat through Antioch and across the delta on the Antioch
bridge to Brannan Island State Park near Rio Vista.
I set up my
tent, took a hot shower, and put my new Brasslite alcohol stove to the
test. I bought it to replace the big backpacking gas stove I’ve been
using for years, the Whisperlite International, which in addition to
being heavy and ungainly, is dirty and sounds like a blowtorch. The
alcohol stove is tiny, weighs a couple ounces, is disconcertingly
silent, and worked perfectly tonight. So far, I’m very happy with it.
Dinner was freeze-dried beef strogonoff. Not bad, but in the future I
need to put some effort into buying high calorie food on the road when
I’m not going to be eating in a restaurant.
And now I’m in my tent, typing this by candlelight on a Palm Tungsten T3 with a folding full-sized keyboard. So far, so good.
Docking in Oakland
My campsite at Brannan Island
26 April - Tuesday - 61 miles/120 total
Brannan Island State Park to Martell, CA
The moonlight
woke me around five in the morning, but I dozed until eight, finally
dragging myself over to the shower house to wash and shave. All that I
had immediately available for breakfast was some steel-cut oatmeal that
I’d bought in a hurry at Trader Joe’s. So I fired up the stove again,
this time noting that the wind is a much bigger factor with this
alcohol stove than with my gasoline stove. The windscreen was crucial,
even though the wind wasn’t very strong. And I need to get some instant
oatmeal, as what I have takes five to ten minutes to cook.
Leaving, I was
stopped by the ranger who was driving by, making his morning rounds. He
wanted to make sure I’d paid the biker/hiker rate (for this park, two
dollars) and not the full fifteen. I had, but I’d guiltily taken one of
the full-size campsites rather than trying to find the dedicated
biker/hiker campsite that some of the California parks have. But this
didn’t bother the ranger. And here was a man half my age, obviously
fit, telling me that he did a little riding with his wife on a tandem
but that he just wasn’t capable of doing something like a cross-country
trip. I know I’m going to hear that a lot over the next few weeks. In
fact, this is something pretty much anyone can do if they start out
slowly.
From the state
park to Lodi was dead flat, at first across delta land and then across
the central valley. I did have to climb approach ramps up to two drawbridges across chunks
of the estuary, but that was it. East of Lodi, the terrain changed to a
more somber green, there were vineyards everywhere, and I started
seeing hills in the distance. Then the climbing began into the Sierra
foothills. Very soon I was really feeling it. Have I pointed out that
I’m not really very fit yet this season? I was feeling pretty dead
pretty fast. My goal for the day was Indian Grinding Rock State Park
near Pine Grove, but I began having dreams of a motel room, the sooner
the better. So after several miles of grades on which I was doing five
or six miles an hour, I pulled into Martell, at 1500 feet (1000 feet
and twelve miles below Pine Grove), and checked into the first motel I
saw. Well, this isn’t supposed to be a death march, is it?
Dinner was some
really bad mu shu pork at a Chinese restaurant - the only other
reasonable choice within walking distance was what the motel owner
described as “an upper-class Denny’s.” As I’m probably going to be
seeing too much of that sort of thing over the next couple thousand
miles, I went with the Chinese.
I had planned to
take tomorrow off, spending it resting and recovering. I’ll probably do
the twelve miles to the state park and take it easy for the rest of the
day. And I’m likely to be forced to take the next day off, as there’s
supposed to be some bad weather that may involve snow at Carson Pass.
The climb starts
27 April - Wednesday - 15.9 miles/136 total
Martell to Indian Grinding Rock State Park
I got up
comfortably late this morning and walked down the highway to have some
french toast. Re-loading the bike after a motel stay is easy; I haven’t
unstrapped the tent and sleeping bag from the bike and generally
there’s no need to take the panniers off, either. So I was checked out
and on the road around ten. It was downhill to Jackson, about 300 feet
downhill. It was a little discouraging to lose a chunk of yesterday’s
effort, but after all I wasn’t going very far today. At Jackson,
though, I neglected to make the turn that highway 88 makes, so off I
went, a mile or so in the wrong direction and over a hill. At least I
realized what I’d done in just a mile.
Just after
Jackson, I spotted a bike shop and stopped to see if they had a toe
clip to replace the one I broke on day one. I’m riding with old
fashioned rat trap type clips instead of clipless pedals on the theory
that there’s less to go wrong when I’m halfway across Nevada. The
proprietor had one and gave it to me for free. Not bad - next time I’m
asking for pedals. He also gave me some reassurance that Carson Pass
would be passable in spite of the snow predicted for tomorrow.
I stopped at a
very nice market in Pine Grove for a sandwich (very nice; they had
Scharfenberger chocolate for sale, always a good sign), then did the
last two miles, mostly downhill, to Indian Grinding Rock State Park. I
checked into a campsite and wandered around a bit to see the large flat
rock grinding surfaces, covered with man-made hollows, used by a local
tribe a couple of millenia ago - and since - to grind acorns into
edible meal. When I got back to the campground, I saw the other bike.
The campground
host had been a little nonplussed when I checked in and told him I was
riding to New York. What did he think when Jacob, a student from the
north of Germany, showed up half an hour later, also on his way from
San Francisco to New York? It turns out he’s taking a considerably
different route from mine, but we may be riding together for a few days.
The rain started
in the early afternoon, so after getting Jacob’s story, I was confined
to my tent for dinner, and then read and listened to mp3’s.
Ceremonial building at Indian Grinding Rock State Park
28 April - Thursday - 0 miles/136 total
Indian Grinding Rock State Park
It rained fairly
heavily last night, and although I stayed dry, my tent was a little
soggy inside. I can’t tell if it was just condensation or if the tent
itself was leaking a bit. It is a bit old, and I don’t remember sealing
the seams when I got it a dozen years ago. I have seam sealer with me;
when things dry out, I’ll see what can be done.
Jacob and I sat
(or stood) under a shed picnic structure in the main part of the park
to stay out of the rain. We were joined by a couple of guys who worked
for the California Youth Authority and who were there for a meeting,
but hadn’t been able to get into the park building so early in the
morning. One of them had worked for the park at some point in the past,
and once found a metal pipe full of twenty dollar gold pieces,
apparently secreted by the man who once owned the land the park was on.
Supposedly there were more.
Jacob and I
walked into Pine Grove to get some lunch, do some shopping, and attempt
to use the library’s internet access. Unfortunately the library never
opened - closed for renovation, we learned later - and we wound up
going to the Pine Grove Community Center, which had just had a half
dozen computers installed. A big deal in a very small town. We checked
e-mail, but there wasn’t any way to upload to the blog, as I have no
way to interface between my PDA and a desktop.
Naturally we got
caught in a heavy shower while walking back to the campsite and got
soaked. Not really a problem; I have a fair amount of lightweight
non-bicycle clothing with me. The real problem is drying stuff out if
the bad weather continues.
The grinding rocks
Geese in the park
29 April - Friday - 49.5 miles/186 total
Indian Grinding Rock State Park to Kirkwood Ski Resort
This is likely
to have been the hardest day, and by far, of the entire trip. I am
clearly already in considerably better shape after a few days of riding
and a day off. Today's ride, though, took us from 2300 feet to 8000
feet, a climb of 5700 feet, possibly the largest single uphill I’ve
done in one day (not broken into pieces, that is) and certainly the
largest (again, unpunctuated by downhills) while touring fully loaded.
Jacob and I had
decided to ride together for a while, but no farther than eastern
Nevada, where our routes diverged. So we started off about eight, after
determining that the weather on the way up would be good, not knowing
how far we’d get that day. As there weren’t going to be any sensible
places to stay much above 5000 feet (probably no motels, and camping
would involve pitching our tents in the snow - not out of the question,
but I wanted to avoid it) it would be best to make it all the way
across Carson Pass, or at least to Kirkwood ski area, where there was
sure to be lodging.
We stopped for
lunch at one of the former stage stations, just a shack with a diner,
at about 5000 feet. We had done about 20 miles in four hours, about
what I expected. As it was just a little after noon, we filled our
water bottles and decided to keep going to the top.
At 6000 feet,
patches of snow appeared, and before 7000 feet it covered the ground
without break. I was pretty tired, but not nearly so tired as I had
been on Kirker Pass Road, on day one. The road now was going up mostly
in sweeping curves, occasionally with a passing lane that marked a
particularly steep and unrelenting section, up through pines, now with
the snow banked by the side of the road where the plows had carved into
it.
Eventually, it
started raining, but it wasn’t a very cold rain or very hard. Above
7000 feet an SUV going the other way stopped, and the driver got out
and ran across the road to provide encouragement and to tell me about
how he had bicycled from California to Peru. A little later, a woman
driving downhill slowed down to yell “it’s pouring up there!”
It was certainly
raining, but it was never a big problem. We hit a crest at 8000 feet,
dropped several hundred feet to the town of Kit Carson, or where Kit
Carson was supposed to be, but there was nothing there. So we pressed
on up to 8000 again, then down to 7800 and Kirkwood ski area.
I was expecting
some motels, but the lodging at Kirkwood seems to be a monopoly owned
by the ski area. It was about 6:30 on a Friday evening, but there were
almost no cars there. We walked into the lodging office and found out,
painfully, just what that monopoly did to the price of a room for the
night, in spite of the lack of business. But we had no choice.
The room was
tiny, but at least it was warm and dry. We each had dinner with us,
luckily, as everything at the resort was closed.
Real mountains
Yes, they're skiing at Kirkwood
30 April - Saturday - 57.9 miles/244 total
Kirkwood Ski Resort to Carson City, NV
Today would be a
short grind up to Carson Pass (8573 feet), although apparently there’s
a crest just before the pass that’s at 8800 feet. That would be
followed by a long downhill. I told Jacob that I wanted to go no
farther than Minden, NV, where I wanted to check into a motel and
vegetate for a day. As he wanted to go farther, we would separate
there, with the slight possibility that I would catch up with him later
in Nevada.
The downhill was
very nice. I had been having a front wheel shimmy at speeds above 20
mph, so at Kirkwood I balanced my front panniers better, removed some
weight, and tightened the mounting system. That mostly removed the
shimmy, which now appeared a little at 20 mph and then went away as my
speed went up. So I allowed myself to hit 35 on the descent, not as
fast as I could have easily gone, but at least a reasonable speed for
the slope.
It was flat when
we hit Nevada, and at Minden I said goodbye to Jacob and went to look
for a motel. Oddly, there were motels but they all had their no vacancy
signs lit. The last motel I tried there was a Best Western, where the
clerk told me that there was a big girls’ soccer tournament going on
that weekend, and that all the rooms from there to Carson CIty would be
booked. But he gave me the numbers of some other Best Westerns, and I
found a room (a cancellation) a little bit east of downtown Carson City
in a casino hotel. So I went on another easy fifteen miles, found the
place and checked in.
At last, I found
a laundromat, and now I have clean riding clothes. I then ate the sort
of huge meal you expect to eat at a casino motel in Nevada, and fell
asleep bloated.
I think that
having come this far, I might as well go on to Fallon tomorrow and rest
there, as the motel I’m in, while not outrageous, is a little pricey in
comparison to what I would have found in the absence of girls’ soccer
tournaments.
Descent from Carson Pass
More descent
Nevada
1 May - Sunday - 61.6 miles/304 total
Carson City to Fallon NV
I will begin
today by mentioning the soccer mom in the room next door yelling at her
daughter at seven on Sunday morning that if she didn’t put on her black
socks, they would just go home. I probably should have been out of bed
by then, but it was Sunday morning.
The goal for the
day was Fallon, about 60 miles east over flat terrain, so I didn’t
check out until a little after ten. There were two towns on my map
between Carson City and Fallon, Dayton and Silver Springs, and I wasn’t
expecting much from either one. I had three full water bottles, a
couple of Clif bars, and a few other miscellaneous items to eat, so I
knew I could make it all the way to Fallon if there was no place for
lunch in between.
The weather was
perfect riding weather. In spite of what both the Weather Channel and
the local television forecast had said, I saw no rain, just clouds to
keep me out of the sun, and the temperature must have been in the
fifties. So I was wearing what I’ve mostly been wearing since San
Francisco - wicking fiber t-shirt under jersey, and tights and goretex
jacket.
Dayton was close
enough to Carson City to be a suburb. After 25 miles, I was in
Stagecoach, where I bought some fig bars at the gas station market, and
looked into the local saloon to ask if there was any place open for
lunch. There wasn’t, as the pizza place next door was closed, and the
rest of the town appeared to consist only of a few scattered houses and
mobile homes and a huge volunteer fire department building. On to
Silver Springs,then.
The landscape was now
pretty empty. There was vegetation everywhere, but nothing was green -
just a muted grey all the way to the snow covered mountains in all
directions. Somewhere around here is where I saw my first tumbleweeds.
It would have been nice if they had been tumbling along behind me -
indicating a tailwind, of course - but in fact there was only a light
headwind and the tumbleweeds stayed still.
Just before
Silver Springs there was a sign suggesting that I not stop for
hitchhikers because of the prison there. It seemed like a good idea,
but I figured that if I was going uphill, a running escapee might be
able to catch up to me, knock me off the bike, and have himself the
perfect escape vehicle. What state cop would be suspicious of a touring
bicyclist?
Silver Springs
had a casino and therefore lunch was a possibility, but I was only 25
miles from Fallon, not hungry, and I just felt like riding on. Fifteen
miles out of Fallon, the countryside started getting greener, there was
agriculture (alfalfa and cantaloupes, according to the blurb in my
motel room), and traffic picked up. Once in town I quickly found a
Comfort Inn, checked in, and went out for an early dinner.
Today I did 60
miles in five hours, 12 miles an hour average, with either no wind or a
light headwind - this is much more like the kind of speed I expect to
be doing the rest of the trip, now that I’m getting back into shape.
My plan for
Nevada is to stay mostly or entirely in motels. There just isn’t a very
good state park system here the way there is in most of the other
states I’ll be in. For me, a good state park system means campgrounds
with hot showers - I don’t want to ride 60 or 100 miles and then get
into a sleeping bag without having had a shower, if I can avoid it. And
although my original thought was to go for cheap motels (when I stay in
them) to save a few dollars, I’ve now decided that there’s no reason not
to spring for a little comfort on this trip.
Tomorrow will be
a rest day. My motel room has a huge easy chair on which I can collapse
and watch Queer Eye for the Straight Guy. I’m not sure those guys would
approve of the chair, though.
Desert deco
Carson City to Fallon
