92 miles in 9hrs 25mins (incl. 1 food stop)
Total distance - 774 miles
Well, my Tourettes is back.
It's been a long, long day!
As I awoke at 7am having got out of the comfiest bed I've been in in a long time (at Ireland's Rustic Lodges) I wasn't best pleased to see the rain dancing in the puddles. Still, it's early, the forecast is good so it'll be burnt off soon, I thought.
So, I set out from Gold Beach, cinnamon bagel in hand, a bit miffed but set for a +90 mile day. Pretty soon the road pointed up into the cloud. I rode up. And it rained. I rode up more. And it rained more, and the visibility got worse (30-50yrds) and it stayed at 3C. After 2 hrs of numerous, wet 200-500ft climbs to viewpoints which my guidebook was raving about but which were today all showing the same shade of grey, I hit real mental low point for the trip. That's when the verbal affliction came back and this time I didn't even have any pain to take my mind off everything. I felt physically great a case of the flesh is willingly but the spirit is weak.
The meteorological and mental gloom continued for the 28 miles into Brooking (I think, I didn't care to look) where I stopped for my first franchise food of the trip in DQ. As I set off again the rain stopped, and a beautifully eerie mist started rising from the ground. Then, I spotted another rainbow fish of Yachats' ilk hung from the porch of a passing house. This one wasn't dancing but, when I looked up, the sun was starting to break through. It would take another 35 miles to do so properly but is was a start and enough to stop the flow of expletives.
I then essentially stumbled on the state line, crossing over from Oregon into California some 10 miles earlier than I had expected. 20 miles of cow-filled fields later I was in, and rapidly out of Crescent City after which the road ramped up sharply into the forest. Then something strange began to happen. It wasn't obvious for the first few hundred feet of climbing, but at around 600ft up I began shrinking, and by 800ft I was three year old again, riding a tiny tricycle through the woods. I was into the land of the giant redwoods, and I felt small. Seeing the size of them I now don't think there is such a thing as tree huggers here, they're just passing hikers who've been caught in the gravitational field of one of these leviathans. While in the forest the sun finally broke through and the road rolled out to glorious sunshine at the top of 700ft cliff overlooking the ocean. A rather hairy descent back to the sea followed - hairy cause at 30 mph it's difficult to tell if it's the shadow of a branch or if it's a large wheel-buckling crack in the road. I continued on through the sunshine and past the Trees of Mystery centre, complete with the not-insignificant wooden sculptures in the pic. Now I can understand the lumberjack, but the sky blue bull? Nope, I don't get it.
I was feeling great, enjoying the sunshine and thinking the stage was basically in the bag. But, it was far from it. As I started on the climb out from Klamath, with 10 miles to go, my engine spluttered to a grinding halt. I was empty, gone, finished. It's known in the cycling world as bonking (don't ask cause I don't know why) and is basically the same as 'hitting the wall' in running, only much more debilitating. Graeme Obree wrote that only a cyclist that's been through it can truly understand just how exhausted you can get on a bike in this situation. And I was there. A couple of bits of red liquorice and the remainder of my Gatorade got me very, very slowly, up the next 4 miles to the top of the Newton B Drury road - a truly stunning descent through the the Redwoods and down into the campsite for the night.
However, things still weren't finished there. Now for an area that's into it's outdoor pursuits you'd have thought that finding freeze-dried camping meals wouldn't be difficult, but every outdoors store I asked in all the way from Coos Bay looked at me rather strangely. Even the ranger in Crescent City couldn't help. But, he assured me there was a shop of some sort down here at the campsite.
Eh, nope. Nowt! If I'd had the energy then the Tourettes would have been back. I didn't.
So, dinner tonight has consisted of; one 330ml bottle of strawberry milk, 2 bits of red liquorice and half a pack of ham jerky. All told about some 500 calories vs the 7000 or so I burnt today. I'm seriously contemplating trying to tap a redwood for some sap.
Thankfully it's only a short 69 mile day tomorrow into Ferndale, my base camp for the +9000 ft day that is the Mattole Monster. However, I'll need to find food fast in the morning.
No signal here of any sort so will post this tomorrow when I find a motel with free WiFi that I can linger outside of.
On that topic, for those of you who've called/texted me in the past few days, I've been stuck on some phone network (Edge Wireless) since Tuesday that doesn't let me make calls or send texts. I not ignoring you.
Off to bed now, hungry.
