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Banning CA to Twenty-nine Palms CA – 70.36 mi – 4240 ft climbing

Early to bed, early to rise. Up by 4:30 am for last minute checklist items. I pulled my cue sheet for the day’s ride. This is just a backup in case the GPS unit fails. I also pulled out to tool kit to lube the chain.

Once again the ride started out at daybreak. It was rather chilly at the start of the ride, so I put on my windbreaker/rain jacket for a little more warmth, but I only needed it for about half and hour before I stowed it on my backpack. I did this just after cutting through to an unnamed road while on the ramp to the interstate highway. I had scoped this out on Google Earth and it looked like a possibility. I was right. It must be a common thing to do because I saw a few others on the road.

The road though was extremely rough and I had to take it easy riding the brakes frequently since it was a rapid descent that would easily exceed 30 mph otherwise. Some of the first few bone jarring ruts in the road – much more than a crack since most of them were several inches wide and partially sand filled. The scenery was magnificent with mountains on both sides.

There was a second place where I was on the interstate ramp. This time two lanes were merging on and then again off, so I just followed along the shoulder and exited again. Shortly thereafter I was greeted with the churning of windmills.

Where there’s windmills, there’s wind. And oh how windy. Our motel manager says this is the windiest places in the US. There were gusts that must have exceeded 60 mph and nearly blew me off my bicycle. Since it was coming from behind me and to the right, I was frequently pushed off the shoulder and into the right lane of traffic. When cars were approaching, I literally had to stop on a few occasions to let traffic by instead of taking a chance of losing control. For several miles my progress inched along at under 7 mph. The road’s shoulder was still bone jarring and also had plenty of broken glass as well as “rams horns” – a spiny plant that roots itself in the cracks of the highways in California and causes havoc on cyclists tires. I am not sure what did me in, but I did get my first flat. Changing the tire was relatively painless by moving off into the sand and making sure I anchored down by helmet after removing it since it started to get pushed away with the wind.

I thought the first 25 miles would be an easy, no-brainer coast downhill as I dropped 2000 ft in elevation. Instead, I had a choppy, nerve rattling adventure. I was so glad to get to the bottom, start heading north and begin the ascent of 3000 ft. I didn’t count on a headwind of close to 30 mph though which at times caused me to inch along at under 5 mph. About halfway through the climb, I passed a huge wind farm that stretched for as far as the eye could see.

Shortly thereafter, Karen passed me on her way to the motel and then stopped to get my progress update. By then I also had shed my arm warmers.

When I arrived at the motel, I met Karen at the car to change into my Crocs footware. Once I dismounted my bicycle I discovered the source of the rattling in the front that I couldn't locate - it wasn't the GPS mount, camera mount, an item in the handlebar bag. It also wasn't the reflector on the front wheel. Much to my embarrassment, but more to my relief over my ignorance, I discovered that the front wheel literally fell off when I tried to rest it against the car. Note to self! - always check the skewers frequently when on bone jarring stretches.

Settled in for the evening, I had to prepare for what may be the most risky day of 112 miles straight through the desert with nary a town in between. The forecast is for headwinds much of the way of 12 mph, But the rest will be from my left so it will tend to push me off the road rather than into traffic at least.

I am switching to my larger hydration backpack which carries 100 oz instead of my normal 72 oz pack. I also mounted two bottle cages and added another 64 oz in water bottles – one filled with Gatorade. I had a headache today from the wind and dryness and want to make sure that I am able to cope with a trip that will be 60% longer than today. I am also heading nephew Jason’s advice and taking a bandana, eye drops and also nose spray deal with contingencies.

Once preparations for tomorrow were complete it was time to get the stress out of my back and neck by spending some time in the hot tub. Karen then found a great BBQ take out place so we relished on back ribs and pulled pork with enough to spare for a snack tomorrow.

Huntington Beach, CA to Banning CA – 85.36 mi – 4879 ft climbing

The first stage is now complete. When finished up last night with a very forgettable dinner on Main Street in Huntington Beach. The server was horrible and the food was not much better. We did, however get back in time for a beautiful sunset over the ocean from our balcony.

The day had its share of technical difficulties. The batteries on my GPS died after 20 miles. Karen's GPS also locked up in almost exactly the same location as it did yesterday, but this time she was alone and couldn't get it to turn off to reboot. Additionally, Karen drove for the first mile and a half with the parking brake on. The valet set the brake on, but didn't drive our car back since we kept it in front of the hotel for easy access. He didn't think to tell us that they set the brake and since we never set the brake, checking for it would be unusual. Hopefully, we still won't need new brakes until we get back home. Hopefully the strange happenings will leave us now that we have left the hotel along the shining sea.

The morning started out with packing the car. The Co-Motion bicycle went on top of the car with most of the bags. We didn’t want to have to wait around for a bellman to bring the cart around. We can’t touch their carts “for liability reasons”. Yeah, they’re liable to not get any tips if they didn’t impose such a contrived rule.

Breakfast included smoked salmon and oatmeal. I dropped the lid to the oatmeal and it made an enormous racket throughout the restaurant. In most of the other Hilton products, the container has a hinged top, so I just tilted it upon. Karen just shook her head.

Just after sun-up I headed off along the ocean to the Santa Ana River. The first 30 miles of the 85 mile trip today was on one continuous bike path with no street crossings – just a few river crossings as the path changed from one bank to the other. The scents along the way were varied and mostly short lived. I detected hints of citrus similar to my rides in Bradenton, FL. There were also occasional scents of flowers, sewage and manure. The sounds were just as varied with the bird songs playing on top of the urban background noises of planes, trains, and automobiles.

Once I reached the end of the river bike trail, the real work began. There were two mountain ranges to cross on the way to Banning and both of them were worthy of classification by Tour de France standards. The residential area just before the first major climb had its own challenges with a climb of 500 feet, but it had a bike lane almost the entire way. The first major climb was not as accommodating. With a climb of well 850 feet and next to no shoulder, I had to rely on the good behavior of the drivers, which in almost all cases was a pleasant surprise. There was one truck that rattled my cage a bit though by coming way too close for comfort.

The last climb of 1100 feet was on a highway with much more traffic. It also had a very wide shoulder that made the arduous ascent much more bearable.

The last 5 miles just had a minor ascent, but after the grueling trek up to the summit, it was a reward well earned, I also could hear the vehicles dial back on their laboring engines so it was a much more serene conclusion. Just before my last turn to the motel, I saw Karen at the corner coming back from some grocery shopping. She gave a congratulatory kiss and then met me at the Hampton Inn entrance.

Karen scored one of the top rooms in the motel with a whirlpool tub and plenty of room to stretch out. This coup was in spite of the fact that the motel was fully booked due to the PGA tour being in town. There are cameramen, golf pros, and the like all over he place here.

Karen found a great restaurant online and we had a healthy meal of mahi mahi and scallaps, a salad and broccoli. Well, it's getting late as I have had all sorts of problems with the computer, rebooting twice, and having to jump through hoops to shrink the photos so that Google Docs would accept my Word doc. I compose iin Word, upload to Google Docs and then publish to this blog from there. Otherwise the blogger interface or ever Google Docs is really lame when it comes to uploading photos. Well, time to hit the hot tub.

We made it to Huntington Beach CA and unpacked at the Hilton Resort that overlooks the ocean. Karen and I have rearranged the furniture so that the couch and desk face out so that we can see the waves roll in to the beach. After unpacking, we proceeded down to the shoreline for the ceremonial dip of the rear wheel into the Pacific Ocean. The ride will be complete when the front wheel is dipped into the Atlantic Ocean.

I noticed a problem with the rear wheel alignment. I was supposed to have been trued (that means to remove any wobble for those non-cyclists) when I took the bicycles in to the shop the end of August. Well if they did anything it was a really crappy job, but I suspect they didn’t even attempt to do anything. Their (Performance Bike Shop) policy of lifetime tune-ups for bicycles purchased from them has been dumbed down to be practically worthless. They had a disclaimer that they only guarantee to do adjustments, but I guess they have been trying to squeeze a few extra dollars by dinging their most loyal customers for things they used to get for free. I should have been a bit suspicious when I took the bikes in and they were the only ones scheduled to be worked on that day. A rather stupid approach by some corporate morons I surmise.

There is one more maddening thing about this particular bicycle. The Scatante Brand is Performance Bike’s own label. The rear wheel adjustment is made by tightening the skewer on one side and loosening it on the other. In other words, if the wheel is hitting the brake pad on the right side, then you want to pull the wheel towards the left side by tightening the skewer on the left side (the one with the lever) and loosening the one on the right side (lefty loosy, righty tighty) The poor design of the frame requires you to drop the wheel in order to adjust the left side (the one with the lever that locks the wheel into place. So a quick adjustment is made all the more complicated, especially since you have to deal with the chain and derailleur as well.

I never had this problem before.  We have taken this bicycle off the car three times before this on the trip and there were no problems wheeling it into each of the motel rooms before this one. Just one more of those minor glitches that I hope will disappear when the ride starts tomorrow. And it only seems to happen when I wheel it through the hotel. I adjusted it again in the hotel room and it once again seems fine – perhaps this hotel is haunted. I did bring my bike stand along in case I need to investigate the matter further, but I may just bring the bike into a shop and see if I can have it looked at and trued on the spot. If I was really worried about it, I would have taken it to the Performance Bike location here in Huntington Beach, but that is probably more hassle that it is worth. I’ll spring for the shop cost at some more convenient bike shop along the way. After all, I have two bikes, so I have backup plans. The ride around Lake Michigan was completely done on the Co-Motion bicycle. This was not the original intent, but the wider tires were an added precaution due to all the wet riding on that trip. I won’t have that problem for the first part of the trip, especially through the desert.

Anyway, a quick 4 mile ride to run through the gears and get a feel for any other issues that may come up with my full ensemble of GPS, camera, handlebar bag, etc all loaded as they will be for the ride tomorrow.

Oh, I almost forgot…Karen had her own ceremonial toe dipping into the ocean. She just told me it's her left foot in the Pacific Ocean and the right foot will be in the Atlantic Ocean.

We started out at daybreak in Grand Junction CO at 46 F and arrived in Henderson NV with the temperature at 102 F. Hopefully this will be the hottest weather by far for the entire trip. The trip through Utah was full of postcard worthy panoramas.

When we reached the outskirts of Las Vegas, a traffic jam brought our progress to a grinding halt. We worked our way through Sunday afternoon traffic that felt a whole lot like a weekday evening commute home on the Eisenhower Expressway. Once we got to the hotel, we were convinced we did not want to venture out into that traffic again so this scene of the strip by the car was as close as we figured we would get. However, it appears that we can take the hotel shuttle bus to the south end of the strip at Mandalay Bay. So that's our plan.... and yes, those are cycling gloves -- well actually they are waterproof so I really just use them for kayaking. Since I started burning yesterday, this is just some prudent protection.