Cycle for Science begins!

Hey all! 

Cycle for Science is off, zoom! 

At the time of this posting, we have ridden just about 200 miles and tonight we’re posting up in Yuba City. We’re going to update here about every 2-3 days, but we’re a little behind. Bear with us because it’s been an incredible journey so far, and we haven’t even really gone anywhere yet. Our bodies already seem to have adjusted to 50-60 mile days (at least, when it’s flat). But we hit the Sierras this weekend, California’s bony backbone, a ten thousand-foot climb.

See I even broke Google trying to figure out the best route:

We’ve got a couple of posts written, and we’re going to play catch up tomorrow and Thursday in Chico. The stories: they’re coming.

In the meantime, a few quick tidbits to tide you over:

- On Sunday, we …. well, it’s a secret now, but it involves a red Chevy convertible. We say no more.

- On Monday, we taught our first class! Cal Middle School and Ms. Mafe Aguilar let us take over fifth period. Thirty 7th graders and five Sol Cycles zipped around the front of the school. Photos and details on that coming soon.

- Then a middle school science teacher recognized Rachel and her Cycle for Science stickers in a bike shop. “You guys on NPR?” hollered a bike mechanic from the other room.

- Yesterday, Rachel made friends with a pitbull in an orchard today, who was jealously eyeing the bacon bits in her sandwich. Farmer Greg called off Baby Girl and invited her inside to refill water (I was maybe five miles back toodling along after a leisurely lunch at a dock on the Sacramento River, where each station was marked by a rag doll).

Farmer Greg was a two time lumberjack world champion (more on this in Rachel’s upcoming post), and here he is in his infinite glory, with the infamous Baby Girl and his housemate Steven.

- And this morning, we squeezed in a teaching lesson with the grandkids of our amazing hosts (Rick and Sharon from Warm Showers, check out their cross country blog!)

They loved it, and christened the purple one “Sunny”. Some of their feedback afterwards:

“Can we power the internet with the sun”
“I want a roller coaster outside powered by the sun!”

That’s all for now, stay posted for our day-by-day updates. Happy Earth Day!

Day 2: Bike breaks down, car breaks down (Pt Reyes to Napa)

Quails are probably named as such because, man, they coo a racket in the morning. They were up collecting worms and running the kingdom long before the alarm (California, by The Kooks, set for an ambitious 7 am). We inched ourselves out of our warm sleeping bags and started packing. I’d hoped to leave camp by 8:30 – my dad had arranged to meet us at 9 to bike to Napa – but what with hardboiling eggs and the fog, not to mention the friends and the coffee and Rachel’s front rack falling off, we didn’t get out ‘til 9:30.

I was definitely feeling frustrated. Rachel and I have traveled before, and we’re close friends, but she hadn’t slept much in the days before we left, which made the leaving/organizing haphazard. So I was feeling a lot like a mom being taken for granted, neither of which are healthy for three-months of constant companionship. We’re in this for the long haul though, so we talked on the trail once we broke camp (Incidentally, the trail was beautiful when it wasn’t pitch black and uphill and at the end of a 3400 foot-elevation-gain day).

Because for the duration of these three months, we’re married, in it for the long haul, the good, the bad, the ugly, the stinky.

And there’s guaranteed to be lot of the first and the last (we oughta bottle the smell of our socks; like these are chemical weapons), so it’s just figuring out how to minimize the middle stuff and as with any partnership, it’ll take some work and getting used to.

Eventually, we made our way down to my pops in the Bear Valley Visitor Parking lot. Rach loaded her bike into the Prius – my mama was going to take her to Napa to get her rack mended or replaced, since it failed two separate times on Friday.

At the visitors center, the babies are confused. I think in the world they’re carefully learning, we fail to fit any object categories … we look like human buffalos.

For a hot minute, the bikes worked and the Prius failed, but a quick call to AAA scared the transmission into action and Rachel and my mom were on their way.

My dad and I took to the Pt. Reyes-Petaluma road, and it’s a gorgeous ride that’s chivalrous to mind and body. The hills roll with grass that’s somehow still green, the reservoir is somehow still full, the hawks circle by the dozens, their great big wings stretched out like a morning yawn.

But man man man my legs were on fire and just tired from the mountain before, and the hills were high and tall and each crest, that flat bit right as the parabola turns over, like the softest red carpet welcome.

Meanwhile in Racheland:

Jan, Liz's mom, was so sweet and offered to drive me to hunt for a new front rack. I figured it was worth it -- I had felt incredibly unstable on my bike yesterday with my cheap Racktime rack (what time is it? NOT Racktime, but rather it's time to invest in a hurdy gurdy front rack.) Or, as I joked about seven too many times, it was time to go get myself a "nice rack." I was also feeling really overwhelmed and unprepared from yesterday, and so it was nice to have some time to pick up some of the things I'd forgotten.

So we zipped car-speed to Petaluma to prowl the bike shops. First stop: Bruce Gordon's Cycles, a fancy custom bike shop known for their, well, nice racks. What followed was a fat slap in the face. We met Bruce in the parking lot of his shop. He told us it would take several days to get a rack ready, and painted, and that we had "no chance" of finding one anywhere else on this short notice. That's about when he poked his head into the car, took a look at my bike, and LAUGHED. CHORTLED even. "China, huh?" he said, and then something along the lines of "cheap shit." He then began the long list of things wrong with my bike and why it was too crappy to take me across the country. I told him I'm a scientist and fresh outta college and I don't make enough money for a custom carbon frame bike, and that this was going to have to do (sidenote: my Jamis Aurora is the best bike I've ever owned, I bought it new after my old one was stolen in Berkeley and it's probably the most expensive thing I've ever bought). The last thing he said, which he repeated several times, was cemented in my memory. "I feel sorry for you," shaking his head. Gee, thanks Bruce! I can't wait to send him a postcard from New York in three months.

We tried a few more shop, but nada. So I called ahead, and arranged to pick one up when we got to Sacramento. Problem solved!

And back to Lizland:

We made it to Petaluma by 3 and ravaged meaty sandwiches from the deli. Then we clown-car piled three bikes, 17 bags and 4 adults into the family Prius and booked it to Napa, where we were staying with our first couchsurfing host. She took us in, greasy hands and stained jerseys and all, and then drove us to meet my parents for dinner.

Josh and Jenn joined us for an Italian feast accompanied by an 80’s-covers rock-and-roll band, complete with a digital drumset. Helped make that goodbye good.

Day 1: The Sea to the Sky (San Francisco to Point Reyes)

A thousand feet above sea level, maybe, and our thighs are burning, so we pull off the asphalt because we can’t heave our 90-pound* bikes any further up the mountain without fast and heavy calories.

Day one and we’re climbing Mount Tam and it’s just straight on the up and up for four, five ten twenty miles (who knows how long it actually was). Rachel and I vow never to follow beauty over mountains again.*

At the top, a pint-sized public bus pulls up to the ridge and out climb a dad wearing a Bruins cap and a girl who went to Wesleyan. There’s a bus that drops you off at the top? They wish us luck; we give them stickers.

*no accurate weight available
*we’re going to do it again with the Sierras; 11,000 feet of climbing in 3-4 days

Finally, we throw ourselves down the backside of the mountain toward the Pacific (our second meeting that day; our first ended with shoes, socks, cleats, gear sets, drenched in salt water, a Californian baptism before we turn east), the whole word rattling under our wheels, vibrating, buzzing with dissipated potential energy. 

At the bottom, Amanda welcomes us with  sour cream and onion sun chips and Paul scoops some dairy-free pesto onto a hunka bread while drinking a beer out of an egg carton. We’re just tasting the beginning of being hungry all the time.

After Stinson beach, the road runs along the water for a couple of miles and the seals are laid out like tootsie rolls on the sand bars. The rolling hills feel like wicked mountains.

Then Olema, great, tiny little town, we’re close to camp, and we’re just about out of steam. Paul and Rachel pick up a map and

then the gut-punch that Sky Camp looms 1,000+ feet above us, nestled in the fog. The sun hangs low over the hilltops and the air started to nip. At least, Rachel’s friends had pulled up around the corner ran and they offered to stack our bags in their car and carry them up the mountain.

So for the first mile it feels like our bikes are the finest carbon fiber, weig nothing, and we power up the hill. But I’m down to my lowest gear by the end of it, muscles wasted, inching upwards at 3.5 miles per darkening hour.

At the parking lot, we realize we don’t have permits and two other cars have tickets, so Rachel’s friends leave a note on the dash and we tack a warning to the post to try to catch Thomas and Max. The days’ not over yet – there’s a 1.2 mile hike to camp, and it’s too dark by then to ride on the gravelly. The only option is to lean on the handlebars and shove them up the hill, tires and shoe soles slipping on the rocks. The path is definitely angled somewhere between 60 and 125 degrees, just walkin’ upside down.

Halfway there, Josh, Thomas and Wires caught up with us walking. They make the final stretch bearable, and when we reach camp, it’s dark, foggy and the most welcome sight we’e seen in 12 hours. We hear it was beautiful at sunset.

Hot dogs are grilled hot on charcoal, chicken sausage loaded on, zucchini crisped and buns toasted. We feasted, we made Dionysus proud.

Josh’s Google Fire Thrower, or whatever it was called, lit up the fog to the level of a dim bar bathroom, only it smelled like salt and pines instead of sweat and beer.  You could see the little water droplets dip and spin in the air, a billion elegant ballerinas.

I went to bed full, tired, a little fed up, a little cold, and a little confused that this big thing we’d talked into the ground had actually begun.