It’s been over a week since I rolled out my gate on my independent challenge Climate Ride. Four days later, I rolled back in my gate, tired but extremely happy. Thanks to my generous donors, I had raised over $2300 for climate action. Since then, my body has consistently felt like it got run over by a Mack truck. But the happy has remained. I am so thrilled I did the ride, and I will probably never do it again.
On any such endeavor, there are standout moments. Some moments stand out because they were funny or uplifting, and some for other reasons. Accidentally riding a century on day 3 was one of those. How do you accidentally ride your bike a hundred miles? I will give you a hint: it involves being a moron.
I planned my ride down to the last detail. I knew the mileage of every stretch. I packed just the right amount of gear. And I booked the hotels months in advance: Jenner, Mendocino, Jenner. So the distances in miles for the four days were 64, 87, 87, 64. Perfect!
The Jenner Inn didn’t have a vacancy for the third night so I had to spend a hideous sum on a room at The Inn at the Tides. Still, I had always dreamed of staying there, and I reckoned now was a good time to treat myself. But strangely, when we rolled into Jenner on the first afternoon, I couldn’t find it. This turned out to be because it isn’t in Jenner. It’s in Bodega Bay, eleven miles to the south. Adding eleven miles to Saturday’s ride put me at 98. How I laughed.
One of my other favorite moments was applying chamois butter in the middle of the road. We were stopped at a roadworks red light north of Jenner and there were two trucks right ahead. It was Day 2. My body was protesting that it really did not want to do this riding thing again today and could we not just lie down for a few weeks. Some way in to the ride that morning, I had decided that after my loved ones, chamois butter was my favorite thing in this world. I just hoped the truckers were not looking in their rearview mirrors as I applied it. If you have never encountered this butter, I’ll just say this: it does not go on your face.
Before I did the ride, people kept exhorting me to be safe. I ride a road bike in Marin, I know the dangers. But as the ride grew closer, the concern got more insistent. Several people asked if I had a will. Some wanted to know what I was leaving them in it. Like any fanatical road biker, I remained entrenched in denial. I’ll be fine, I kept saying airily. And no, you can’t have my jewelry.
But out on the road, the dangers of pedaling up Highway One were hard to ignore. Some of the bigger trucks passed so close I could apply my lipstick in their wing mirrors. The only problem with that scenario is I don’t wear lipstick. The RVs would come up behind me and crouch there, growling like cougars, waiting for a straight stretch to pass. I could feel their hot breath on my neck. Seriously: drivers of California, have you ever heard the term clearance? Do you have any concept of what three feet looks like?
I thought that Day 3 would be the hardest day, but to my surprise, it was Day 2 that nearly did me in. For one thing, my legs let me know pretty early that they did not appreciate this weird new daily workout. Then there was the Jenner hill, followed by a number of lesser and yet very challenging hills. I would ride around a curve and see a small mountain rearing up ahead. I would pretend I did not have to ride up it, that the road somehow went around it. This pretense would last a short way up the small mountain, then it would fall apart. On one hill, there was a short stretch that just seemed vertical. It felt like riding up a wall. I really wondered what the hell I was doing. But then I reached the top and saw the view, up and down the Mendocino coast. I remembered what I was doing.
The other reason Day 2 was so hard was that mid afternoon, about two miles out of Gualala, a mad wind kicked up out of nowhere. We rode into it for a half mile, then it turned to crosswinds with gusts that just exploded at our bikes. On one scary downhill we both felt we could have been blown off. By the time we rolled into Point Arena a half hour later, we were exhausted and clear: riding on to Mendocino was just not safe. Nor was it feasible: google maps estimated 5 hours to ride the 28 miles.
We installed ourselves in the co-op market on the main street and considered our options. They were not encouraging. There is one bus from Point Arena to Mendo and it goes in the morning. We tried to book a Lyft. Nothing. We asked around: nobody was driving north. I even asked in the one bar in town. This was a big stretch for me. I’m the kind of person who hates to inconvenience someone to throw a life-raft to me just because I am drowning. But here I was in a strange bar in a strange town offering $60 to anyone who would drive us to Mendo. A beer-swilling bar patron called out that he’d do it for more, and what was I offering. Yeah, no. As the barmaid quietly pointed out to me, it was a bit dim to be asking a bar full of Friday afternoon boozers for a lift.
I headed back to the co-op and we trawled the Internet on our phones. July 4th weekend, no hotel rooms for 30 miles around. I made a pathetic sign on a piece of paper and we stood on the side of the road for a while. Lots of trucks and vans, no takers. I was beginning to think we might be sleeping in a field. Then a dusty black Prius pulled up. It was Nick. We had talked to him earlier down at the co-op, a sweet, friendly guy who seemed unduly perturbed that he couldn’t think how to get us to Mendocino. Now he had a plan.
This was where the day turned a little strange. Before stowing our bikes, Nick had to empty his car of a month’s worth of recycling. He politely declined any help, so we stood about watching as he laboriously tore up cardboard boxes and stuffed them with endless empty water bottles into a blue wooden recycling bin outside the co-op. Eventually, the car was empty enough to fit our bikes and after he had carefully wiped down his dashboard with a wet paper towel, we set out for Mendocino.
For 28 long miles, I listened to him tell me about his health issues. They were legion, and I really felt for him, but I also longed to be stretched out on my hotel bed after a hot bath with dinner in my belly. Nick was in no rush. At one point, he pulled off the road to show us how the ocean at that spot appears to smile. It was all very lovely, but I caught Emma-Louise’s eye and I knew what she was thinking. Dinner. Bath. Bed. And please Nick, don’t be a serial killer.
Eventually we arrived in Mendocino. Nick drove us into the center of town and we reassembled our bikes, thanking him profusely. I tried to pay him with the $57 in my wallet, but he wouldn’t take a cent more than the gas cost. After painstaking calculations, he figured this was $2.16. I pressed my $57 into his palm but he would only take $2.16.
I rode away from Nick with some very confused feelings. Relief, definitely, but also sadness that he was having such a hard time in life. I wished him good health, and happiness. Then, just as our hotel room was swimming into my hallucinogenic view, he pulled up beside us again. He had recalculated and gas had only cost $2.02. He wanted to give us fourteen cents back. I am not making this up!
We checked into our hotel and the lady behind the desk told use we could leave our bikes in a room off the reception. Life seemed like it was kind of returning to normal. We hobbled up to our room, changed into real clothing, showered, and headed down the town to have dinner.
The Hillside Inn is a sister hotel to the Mendocino Hotel, but it has no restaurant so patrons are given a 15% voucher to have dinner at the Mendo Hotel and this is what we did. Imagine our surprise when we were tucking in to our giant plates of pasta and we looked up and Nick was standing by our table. He was holding my plastic water bottle. He was also holding a piece of paper with our hotel room number on it written in blue ink.
We warily invited him to join us, secretly hoping he would not, but he declined saying he had to get home. He had driven thirteen miles back with my water bottle. I felt bad. He disappeared off into the night to drive the thirteen miles home, and when we left the hotel after dinner, we left by a side door and scurried back to the Hillside Inn. I think both of us thought we might find Nick lurking in the grounds. I also think we have seen way too many horror movies.
After the trials of Day 2, Day 3 just floated by, despite being an unplanned century. By this time in a long ride, you get on the bike and your legs just start pedaling like that is what they do every day now. Because it is! Twelve miles south of Mendo, we met up with our friend Kendra who had driven up from Marin to join the ride. Emma-Louise sadly stashed her bike in the car and set off back to Marin to pick up her kids. Kendra and I set off.
I already had 135 miles in my legs. Kendra was fresh as a daisy. Plus she is a really strong rider. Feel free to go at your own pace, I told her. We can meet up at the next town. She said that was fine and then she promptly streaked off into the blue yonder. I watched her go with a little envy at her freshness. I had learned the importance of pacing myself. It felt to me that if I had to do a single extra mile, or arrive home a minute later than my goal of 2pm Sunday, I just wouldn’t be able to deal.
The ride south on Highway One from Navarro to Bodega Bay was stunning, stunning, stunning. The weather rocked it, 70s sunny and calm, and the hills seemed more down than up. I know that this makes no sense, but I was in a great headspace and that makes all the difference. Yes, I accidentally had 98 miles to ride instead of 87, but the scenery was so spectacular and the people we ran into so great and I was eating half my body weight in delicious food at every snack stop and really, life was excellent.
The Inn at the Tides was worth the extra 11 miles. It had a pool, and a hot-tub and a fabulous restaurant that looked out over Bodega Bay. I felt so lucky. I was heading into the home stretch, and we had all survived.
This nearly changed outside of Tomales the next morning when Kendra was almost run off the road by a giant RV. Cycling a hundred yards behind her up gentle hill, I watched in horror as the RV passed too close by her and then left her so little space her bike wobbled dangerously over a huge drop-off. Both of us screamed at the driver but I doubt he noticed that he had almost just killed a bicyclist. Sobering. Some giant pastries and coffee at the Tomales Bakery were in order, and we rode the last 30 miles to San Geronimo quietly and carefully. Life is sweet. Neither of us were at all in the mood to give it up.
Like I said, headspace is crucial on a ride like this. As I rode down Nicasio hill into San Geronimo where Kendra lives, I realized that if I got off my bike for more than a few seconds, I would not get back on it. I would have to call my boyfriend and ask him to come pick me up. Five miles from home.
Kendra and I said a quick goodbye and she took a pic of me heading off to Fairfax. Some random biking dude had stopped and asked us directions to San Francisco. Ordinarily, I would have been happy to fill him in. But I couldn’t even explain to him: dude, I just rode 271 miles, if I stop and give you directions to San Francisco, it’s all over. He must have thought me kind of rude. Sorry random biking dude trying to get to San Francisco from San Geronimo last Sunday!
I rode in my gate at 2:22pm. George was there to meet me, a very welcome welcoming party of one. I made it! I kept repeating. I did it! George agreed, yes indeed, I had done it, and I was safe. He politely refrained from telling me what a wacked out nutter I was for having attempted such a thing and eased me to the couch where I decided I would stay for several months. And there I still am. Apart from having had to go to work every day this week. I still feel like my body was run over by an 18-wheeler.
If I have one takeaway from my epic ride it is this: don’t ride alone. I’m eternally grateful to Emma-Louise and Kendra, and the other friends who started the ride with us on Thursday. Their company was crucial and even though I planned for it, I just don’t think I could have done it alone. Thank you riding buddies! Do it again next month? Yeah, no.
