From June 11-18, 2000, I rode a version of the California
Millennium (Milly) route. Here I'll describe the experience.
On Saturday, the day before I left, I spent a few hours
at the bike shop. And a good thing! As I squeezed the
front brake lever to adjust the front brake, the cable
snapped at the lever. Glad it happened in the shop and
not on one of the several 55 mph descents over the next
couple of days. While I was at it I also replaced the
rear tire and changed the granny ring from a 24 to a
34, a decision I was later to reconsider somewhat. The
larger ring improves the front derailleur shift -- I'm a
slow rpm spinner and have trouble with it otherwise --
but you may agree that a one-to-one gear may be of use
with a loaded touring bike on extremely steep dirt logging
roads. I managed with a 34x26, but would have used lower
(and spent less time out of the saddle) had I had a 24-
or even a 26x26.
I also did the usual stuff, cleaned and oiled the chain
with a nice heavy lube, adjusted the brake pads, trued
the wheels, lubed the cables, tightened various things --
as much as I could do to atone for half a year of
basically unmaintained commuting.
I also ran across the street to the Internet cafe across
from the Freewheel a couple of times to make a few minor
updates to the milly.org site. While it has yet to come
close to my original hopes for it, I was pleased to
get at least a primitive system in place for making
live updates from public libraries along the route.
Such places usually don't avail users of ssh or even
telnet, so having a way to post a quick message from
any browser is kind of nice. The sad part is that I
wasn't able to track down a proper URL decoder (the
browser replaces a lot of special characters with
gibberish to prevent messages from being interpreted
as commands) and so just had to try to use sed
to search and replace the most common of such codes.
I didn't quite get them all, as you may have noticed
from all of the gibberish in the live updates page.
Sorry about that. Hopefully I'll have that worked out
better before any other Milly hopefulls are forced to
use it (and yes, any Milly rider who registers will
get a login and password through which they can update
their friends and family from browsers at the many
public libraries along the course).
Eventually I felt ready and went home to pack. It
usually takes me a good hour to two to get it all
together, and this time was no exception.
Before I begin the laundry list of what I brought, I'd
like to point out a couple of things. First, you can
never have enough storage space. Half-full panniers
are wonderful (as long as they have compression straps --
sorry about that, Ortleib owners) -- overcrammed ones are nightmarish.
I have a pair of small red Mountainsmiths from a few
years back. They are good for offroad touring because
they are attached by a saddlebag-style piece in the
middle so you can drape them over the whole rack. They
attach quite securely as a result, especially with the
little strap that hangs over the front bumper of the rack.
Besides panniers, I took an enormous Camelback H.A.W.G.
pack with a 100-oz water pack and many other additional
compartments. I use the Camelback with two large water
bottles as backup. The Camelback water tastes a lot better
and stays cool much longer, so the waterbottles only get
used in emergencies. When I began the trip, one of the
water bottles was covered with mold inside, but I had
good luck cleaning it by filling it half full of water
and putting a bunch of grapefruit peel in there to shake
around for a couple of days.
Additionally, I had a small Zo waist pack.
The advantage of the waistpack in addition to the
Camelback is that the Camelback is not designed for anyone
over 5-10 and all the weight will ride on your shoulders
unless you have a waistpack for it to rest upon. The combo
of a waistpack and a Camelback is infinitely more comfy
than a Camelback alone.
In the Camelback I had
1. Any food I happened to have at the time
2. All the non-current maps in a plastic bag
3. Receipts
4. My toilet kit with toothbrush and razor and stuff
5. Sometimes a few items of clothing I didn't want to
take time to pack. Though in general I'd rather have
the weight in the bags than on my back.
I also considered briefly taking along my computer. I
have a little Linux laptop (HP-800) that weighs about
4 pounds. If you do take something that fragile, you
had better put it on your back where you can benefit
from the same full suspension your torso enjoys courtesy
of your arms and legs. My 'puter fits in the Camelbak
and I've happily biked thousands of on- and off-road
miles with a similar arrangement comprising an Apple
PowerBook resting inside the styrofoam pads from the
shipping box inside a plastic bag inside a small daypack.
However, there is still a chance of an accident or wear
and tear -- especially if you got sold one of the newer
"thin" laptops that weight about 3 pounds and have a 13
inch screen or something. These are so light as to be
almost bendable and the keyboard and mousepad will actually
chafe the surface of the screen given any kind of
reasonable portage. My laptop doesn't have that problem,
but it has of late become too cherished a part of my
stereo to put at risk, especially on a relatively
short trip with little time off the bike.
In the Zo bag I had
1. Wallet and keys
2. Map of current section
3. Milly map/cue sheet or two to hand out
4. Sunscreen
5. Rollei 35 with Fuji print 800 speed and an extra roll of film
6. Leatherman tool (used often as knife for eating
Clothes -- in left pannier which pads the bike when you
lay it down.
1. A pair of Pearl Izumi shorts, size large, which I
found along the side of a remote road in the Sierras
while exploring part of the Milly course last fall
2. Another pair of shorts
3. Three pairs wool socks, two shorts and one long,
all lightweight. Fox River makes the best long wool socks
I've found -- I buy a dozen of the $6 white ones, I
think they are called the athletic crew socks or such
4. One very lightweight shortsleeved wool T-shirt
from Italy that I wore by itself for nearly the whole trip
5. One lightweight Kucharik grey wool jersey I wore
once
6. One fine cotton thrift store white buttondown
buccaneering shirt that saved me during the heatwave
7. One small dish towel to use as body towel. Maybe
this is gross (don't tell Darryl, who ate my food
without complaint) but I store my towel inside my
cooking kit to prevent rattling.
8. Lightweight NorthFace fleece gloves with reinforced
thumb crotch area that I got in France
9. A brand new Calavera (from Bassano del Grappa)
cycling cap from Italy that my friend Hedrich sent
me
10. Black Flies sunglasses. They're the best.
11. A couple of really thick "trash compactor" style
garbage bags for clothing in case of rain
12. At the last second, going out the door, I grabbed
a heavy blue Kucharik wool jersey that I only wore
once (on Mt. Lassen) and could have left behind. It
was my security blanket. Well, sometimes, you need one
of those, too, even if you never use it for anything
but piece of mind.
13. Oh, and one shortsleeve green cycling jersey I
never wore a single time.
Clothes I wanted to take and would have on a two-
instead of a one-week Milly:
1. Lightweight cotton pants, Dickies shorts or something
like that, swimming trunks maybe
(bike shorts work pretty well), karate shoes or zorries
or light running shoes
Cooking Kit -- in right pannier so it doesn't get knocked
when you lay the bike down
1. MSR XG stove -- the good kind with the solid metal (not
braided) fuel line -- much more stable/usable even if it
does weigh half an ounce more. One kinda largish fuel bottle
that lasts for more than a week of daily hot cooked meals.
2. Two-quart pot and lid, frying pan, steel with copper
bottom. Cup, fork.
Bedroll. On top of rack perpendicular to direction of travel
(this is very important -- it won't stay otherwise) affixed
by a single 18-inch bungie cord, the good heavy kind. Also
strapped underneath the bungie, any clothes that may be drying.
1. Slumberjack el-cheapo GoreTex bivy sac ($99 in an "as-is"
store, had to sew it up in one place with dental floss.) All
seams must be heavily sealed and taped if you have a down bag
or you'll be really sorry.
2. Therma-Rest MicroLite 3/4 length -- basically the smallest
lightest one they make but it's fine, especially if you sleep
on top of the picnic bench like you should
3. Bought at Truckee: two pound Western Mountaineering
"Apache" down bag that totally rocks. On the bike the
sleeping bag gets stuffed in its stuffsack and then rolled up
inside the bivy bag. There's an extra compactor garbage
bag in the clothing pannier to wrap the bedroll in case of
rain. I know, the GoreTex is supposed to be waterproof... just
wrap it in a garbage bag and sleep dry, okay? Another equip-
ment tip -- don't go blowing a bunch of air into your Therma-
Rest. Just loosen up the valve and set it aside. It'll inflate
by itself most all of the way, and it won't get moist and
mildew inside. Of course you know to store your sleeping bag
and your Therma-Rest unstuffed and if they're nylon, in a dark
place.
Food -- inside Camelbak main compartment
1. A small spice jar half full of garlic salt and with
five garlic cloves.
2. Small bottle of olive oil
3. Angelhair pasta.
4. Western Family instant potatoes.
5. Stella Romano
Forgot to bring bullion and tube of tomato paste
Bought along the way: lots of food of various kinds,
including frozen spinach, tunafish, Ben and Jerry's,
Better Cheddars, Graham Crackers, Ak-Maks, Rice Dream,
milk, hamburgers, burritos, deli sandwiches, cold drinks,
beer, fruit, Paramecium cheese, milkshakes, and fresh fruit.
I spent about $20 a day on food, most of that in grocery stores.
Toolkit
I've had better toolkits but they got stolen
1. Park tool the Allen wrench one
2. Classic kind of Leatherman that I found on the road
somewhere.
3. 10mm combo wrench
4. Spoke wrench
5. Rivoli chain tool
6. Ritchey tire levers with built-in tools of various kinds
7. Patch kit
8. Spare tube
9. An REI "Pelican" light
10. Spare headlamp bulb
11. Spare screws and nuts
11. A Black Flies sunglasses bag to keep it in
Toilettries
1. Toothbrush and toothpaste (wished I had floss)
2. Razor
3. Contact lens case (I have worn hard (now called "rigid
gas-permeable" -- more marketable -- since the seventh grade)
Bike details
Rivendell Long-low with a mix of cheap and fancy retro parts. Hand-built
wheels, the front with a Schmidt's Nabendynamo. Cheapie
Carrywell rack that has lasted many, many years and miles. 105 pedals
(one-sided SPDs). Swallow saddle. Green Velox bar-plugs.
All told, the bags and bike together weighed, I don't know,
I'm guessing 45-55 pounds. I took off a pair of badly munged
Bluemels Clubman Special fenders just before. I would have
left them on had they been in better shape. There was nary
a puddle the whole ride but they may have helped with the
gumbo dust around many of the more abused logging roads.
Departure
On Sunday morning about 6 a.m. I rolled down to the local Internet
cafe, only to discover it didn't open til 7:00. Still, Tyler let
me in to post a quick message using the new "Live Reports" deal.
I was hoping for a plain croscent and coffee, my breakfast of
choice, but had to start out empto and look for food along the
way.
Rolling down Fulton Street toward the Pacific was familiar territory
and brought back a lot of memories of the two years during which I
commuted down to Foster City and back. The road to Crystal Springs
still seemed like the back of my hand, and it was interesting to
see which parts had changed, which I remembered well, and which
actually kind of seemed unfamiliar.
I went through Canada Road before the Sunday Road closure barricades
had been put up. Scratch that; just as I was rolling into Woodside
they were being put up. I think that means it was about 9 a.m. I asked
some other cyclists at the Woodside Market if they would keep an eye
on my bike, and they mistrustfully consented. They appeared to be a
couple of guys trying to chat up a girl, and they definitely had a
kind of "Well, okay, if we must" attitude. I dashed in, grabbed an
apple and a bagel and was out in 15 seconds after paying.
A bit further up the road I stopped at a fruit stand and bought a
few tasty fruit snacks.
Throughout this part of the ride a number of other cyclists came
along and I couldn't let any of them pass me. I always love to
surprise people whilst riding a loaded bike. It goes to show that
weight is over-rated. Well, I didn't have to stretch too much to
keep up with what came along that morning. Aren't I modest?
At one point I got quite caught up in showing up a young husband
who was shirking his conjugal house-packing duties (they were
moving to somewhere affordable to buy near Hayward) to go for a
quick ride. So caught up was I that I missed the left onto Sand
Hill Road and wound up riding all the way to Alpine. Not too big
a deal, as I pulled out the map of Palo Alto and managed to find
my way to the Palo Alto Street bridge, a very nice Ellen Fletcher
piece of bicycle politicking turned concrete. ![]()
.
From the bridge, it's a straight shot onto the Dumbarton Bridge,
and I cranked across without seeing another cyclist. A shame, and
the moreso since that Chronicle article about how little-used are
bicycle facilities depite the large amounts of money often poured
into them. But not too surprising.
Once across the bridge, I startled a couple of women, possibly
mother and daughter, who were out for a walk together. Then I found
my way over to I think it's the Coyote Creek or possibly the
Ardenwood bike path, which you can ride for a considerable distance
through the suburbs of Union City/Fremont. At one point an older
fellow on a classic Shogun touring bike, in sneakers, overtook me.
I could tell he was really proud of having done it. His saddle was
quite low and when I asked him about any possible good places to
eat in the neighborhood he was too oxygen-deprived to formulate
an intelligent response. And he peeled off before further conversation
could ensue. However, after riding out the path to its terminus I
was pleased to find near the entrance to Niles canyon a Tacqueria
called "El Urge," along with a 7-Eleven and so forth. I got a
carnitas burrito, but it was rather too salty and digesting it put
me in something of a slow pedalling mood for the next two or three
hours.
During that time I made my way through Niles Canyon and on to Altamont
Pass. There, the eerie noise of the spinning wind-generators reminded
me of the terrible scandal that brought an end to the company that
made those things... can't recall their name. They sold a bill of
goods to a lot of third-world countries, apparently, considering that
they the company wasn't going to be around to service the things.
It was an ugly scene. I have a friend who briefly had a job there
around that time, doing IT work. He told me something about it, but
probably not the whole story.
Across the first part of the Central Valley to Stockton, the course
felt well-thought-out and I was grateful to Darryl for figuring out
a good route. Actually, I have heard good things about Patterson Pass
as well -- Elaine Mariolle had fond reminiscences about that partic-
ular road at one point, I seem to recall. It really is cool, the
noise those windmills make.
I found Stockton immensely appealing. Before arriving there, I got
out my AAA Stockton city map and had the oddest realization that
the format of the map -- the way the streets were drawn and the
streetnames lettered -- was exactly the same as on the San Francisco
AAA map. Somehow this seemed very strange. I knew that in reality,
Stockton was far different from the privileged streets of San Francisco,
yet they seemed for all the world identical if you only looked at the
map. Obviously, maps were ridiculous and to be shunned. I took another
cursory glance at it and put it back into my pack, never to look at it
again. (Though I was happy to note from the larger-scale Bay and Mountain
Region map that Waterloo was the name of the street that turned into
Highway 88. Eighty-eight would be my home for the next section of the
ride, and after rolling through Stockton, wishing the whole while I had
the time to stop and explore, I found Waterloo by braille and rolled out
onto mighty 88.
A word about poverty and such. I grew up in impoverished surroundings
and am still drawn to them. This theme may reverberate recurrently
throughout this ride report, to borrow a phrase from my college
anthropology and American Studies professor. Most of my "simple life"
fantasies involve the nomadic life, but the allure of the cheap flop
house and dollar restaurant are not lost on me. (For a tremendously
literate depiction of the charms of same, have a look at Suttree, by
Carson McCullers, or any Henry Miller novel). Better yet, go on a
thousand-mile tour of California and discover that the only people
who wave to you on your bike are the Round Valley Native Americans,
and the more in the stationwagon the more likely to come the wave. See the
way the people in the country have no reserve, but are simply themselves
in a manner that may seem too unselfconscious, if anything. They are not too
full of themselves to smile, to wave, to joke, to be themselves. The
contrast between the uptight bike guardians at the Woodside store and
the people on the streets of Stockton struck me palpably, powerfully.
An impaired-looking young man veered into the street in front of me,
and instead of trying to play it all cool as I expected (from so many
similar experiences with the indigents of the cool grey City of love (hah!)
he instantaneously launched into an extemporaneous outpouring on the
beauty and wisdom of cycing that moved me completely during the 6 seconds
that it lasted.
Which group am I a part of? Certainly I have learned the urban reserve,
the protection zone of skepticism, distance and chill. Pity the unfortunate
who spare-changes me on my home turf, if they look anything like coming
from a middleclass background. Yet the open-minded country lad may yet
dwell within.
Open-mindedness, that was the quality I chose to talk about when, in
high school, we were assigned to speeches on what we liked best
about ourselves. What a terribly difficult assignment, for a painfully
self-conscious guy afraid of coming off as arrogant as he usually felt.
And look now how so often my mind today is closed as can be.
The goal-oriented (upwardly, onwardly) mobile individual was my ruling
planet of the moment, though, as thoughts of catching up Darryl (to
borrow the English construction which he favors) held sway for the
time being, time being the operative word. A week of vacation and a
thousand miles to cover (to make it a "grand" tour of the Golden State).
I pushed on for Jackson, some forty miles or something into the future.
I entertained some notion of camping out, and had I realized that the
fabled Indian Grinding Rock state park (about which I've heard great
things from none other than the talented Kathy Enquist, advertising
design specialist of California Bicyclist and latterly the capable
if briefly instated art director of same) lay just a few more miles
up the road I would certainly have continued further yet, any goal that
lies in the direction of forward progress being a worthwhile objective
in the state of time-conscious touring. As it was I asked a mullet-styled
pickup truck driver in a filling station about the cheapest motels in
Jackson and, when he recommended one just around the corner, found mysefl
hungry and sleepy enough to check in.
The ++++++++++++++++ motel at 10 p.m. had only two or three cars in the
lot. I checked in and quickly set about finding a place to set up my
campstove and put together some evening repast. Or repasta, in this
case, with tomatoes and cheese which I had bought in a supermarket in
Stockton. I investigated the front of the motel, but a grizzled smoking
man seemed entrenched upon the benches there, and I didn't feel tolerant
of the devil's weed at the time. Behind the motel, a zombie-like grey
haired personage of ambiguous gender occupied a bench, smoking in an
opium-like stupor of isolation. Hence, I fired up my stove in the walkway
between the front and back of the motel. Hardly had the water boiled
when aforementioned zombie sprang to life, complaining most stridently
of the admittedly considerable noise output by my MSR, which is
marketed as the best stove for arctic and high-altitude cooking, and as
might be expected from same produces a sound something akin to a blowtorch.
The formerly comatose came to life in a most confrontational manner with
regards to my stove's noise. She demanded that I extinguish the stove
immediately, the while waving a cigarette in my face. Such was my hunger
that I simply laughed at her and told her that I couldn't hear what she
was saying, as I continued to cut the tomatoes for the sauce and sample the
cooking angel hair. Escalating things, she summoned the very affable chap
from whom I'd rented the room; I think he was her son. Much accustomed
(I'm guessing) to her Sturm und Drang he conveyed apologetically as best
he could the suggestion that I could move my mobile kitchen to the
gazebo, which I might indeed have done had I not been less than three or
four minutes away, by then, from a much-needed dinner, and had the old
dame been anything but an unrepentent bitch about the whole thing. Thus I defied
authority and finished up, despite much vitriol and name-calling from the
old virago in command, and at last enjoyed a nice hot-cooked meal in my
room after some amount of heartfelt apologizing and heartfelt sympathies
to the unfortunate son or perhaps son-in-law.
Next moring I awoke an hour later than planned when I mis-set the borrowed
hotel alarm an hour later than planned and got a late start. The error
might have had no effect had the window admitted of any natural light;
instead it opened on a lighted courtyard. So I got started around 7:30
instead of 6:30, a start time that I had thought pretty generous, really.
Anyhow, the important points in all of this are that Jackson is probably
the best place to find a cheap motel in that it is further along than
Stockton and the motels there probably do not have the same percentage
of permanent residents as the motels of Stockton.
Despite my late start, I hoped to reach Truckee before the sun next set,
and hopefully much earlier than that considering that I wanted to buy
a sleeping bag there. But the hour given away to tired late-night alarmclock
mis-setting would, I calculated early on, make it a trying day. Still,
try I would, I decided. As a result, I cranked through some of the most
beautiful Sierra Nevada climbs with a nearly mindless persistence and
singularity of focus. I hardly stopped at all, except to buy a box of
graham crackers and a couple of times to take on water, yet when I
arrived at South Lake Tahoe at 5:10 or so I knew that I was too late for
to make Truckee in time for the probable 6 p.m. closing of the sleeping
bag store there (Sierra Mountaineering, I think it's called). I decided
to order some fast food and, while waiting for it, call the shop (I had
jotted down the number while in the Internet cafe earlier that morning).
Sure enough, the place closed at 6. I spoke to an affable fellow there
named Mark. A quick inventory check discovered one of the bags I had
thought (from my survey of the Internet site) might work well. I wanted
the Iroquois, a 1-1/2 pound summer down bag, but didn't think it too
much a trajedy to get sold up a 2 pound 20-degree bag called the Apache.
It even had the same name as my favorite Web server; how bad could it be?
I gave my credit card information over the phone and made arrangements to
pick it up at a Mexican restaurant across the street from the shop.
The roads around Lake Tahoe proved the steepest I'd seen so far, and a
couple of misguided souls yelled out "bike path" in reference to a greatly
inferior roadpath separate from but by no means equal to the main road.
The fellow at the sleeping bag store said he'd be there until about 7:30
because of some kind of outdoor class being given that night, and I hoped
to make Truckee by then in case there was anything the matter with the
bag awaiting me at the Mexican restaurant. Just to be sure.
Luckily, the first part of Hwy 89 proved amenable to very fast travel,
being slightly downhill along the river and blessed with favorable winds,
and I made Truckee and the shop (with the help of good directions from a
racer in training whom I rode with partway) just after 7. The bag appeared
to be perfect, however, so I stuffed it and strapped it and headed to the
big grocery store to stock up on bear bait. I mean groceries.
I spent a pretty long time at the Truckee safeway rearranging some things
in my packs, putting on warmer clothes for the cold weather, and scarfing
down a bunch of food and orange juice (though what exactly I ate escapes
me now). I rolled out just after dark, and I must have looked a little bit
ragged because not very many miles later a newish SUV pulled over just
in front of me. I rolled up with some trepidation, thinking that perhaps
I had run afoul of some local macho type, only to discover a very pretty
and concerned woman behind the wheel (I later read this interesting
essay on why so many SUV drivers are actually womean. She lectured me
somewhat on the dangers of nighttime bicycle riding, though from her general body
language I got the impression her reasons for wanting to pick me up may
have had less to do with my own interests than her own. Later, misgivings
set in. I probably should have gotten in and taken a ride, yes? But in the
way of that were a city-derived disdain for women in SUVs (probably inappropriate
in real mountain country, but a reflexive thing nonetheless), general impatience
with being lectured on the hazards of cycling by pilots of infinitely more
lethal vehicles and, primarily, a randonneuring ethic of independence that
simply precluded really even considering such an offer. I know; call me a
fool. Somewhat to the surprise and evident embarrassment, actually, of the
poor woman I effused about the kindness of the offer, the likes of which I
hadn't had in many thousands of touring miles since my month-long 1992 double
millennium through Mexico, while nevertheless explaining that I had committed
to riding this thousand-mile course around Northern California during the
week, and that it just wouldn't be right to accept a ride, even as far as the
next campground, which was my destination. The woman reacted with the fakey
contumely of the spurned, and I quickly mentioned that I was from San Francisco
to spare her feelings and let her think that I was gay anyhow. She drove off
somewhat hurriedly with good wishes and some last admonishments of caution.
I arrived at a campground soon after that and wasted little time in trying
out the comforts of my new bedding. (Unfortunately, I was enough covered in
sticky salt to make for a restless and uncomfortable night between the black
taffeta sheets. I was also a little bit wary of bears, having first cooked
a most redolent and cheese-garlicky pasta feast on the backs of the Little
Lower Truckee, I think it was.