Stage 7 ‘Old Highway 101′
Stage 7: ‘Old hwy 101’ Eureka CA
I stopped in at the tourist information to ask for the bike map (WA and OR had them, why not CA?). The lady there tells me that I’m lucky I stopped in, because just outside of town is a really quiet trail that is ‘one mile of purgatory, and 3 miles of heaven… We’ll probably have to walk our bikes a little, but we won’t see another person the whole time… Oh and watch out for Poison Oak.’
I take the whole ‘you can’t ride it’ thing personally, and guide the unsuspecting Dr. Evil down the quite beach side rd. out of town, which turns into a gravel path, then sure enough we’re into the ever present fog. Then Bam straight up, wet, rocks covered in moss, logs and leaves, you possibly could have ridden it on an unloaded mountain bike. So the first mile took over an hour and 20 minutes for us to walk, as it gained 1000 feet in altitude. Trying to ride flatter sections, I ‘dabbed’ sidelong into the bushes, wonder if that’s what Poison Oak looks like?
I did manage to ride a very few sections, the descent was interesting. All told it took over 2h for us to cover the 4 miles, later when we looked on a map it’s labeled the ‘West Coast Trekking Trail’.
It really was spectacular, words and pictures don’t do it justice.
Dr. Evil has perfected his ultimate Pure-Evil sports drink, don’t try this at home: One part green Gatorade added with one part Green Mountain Dew. Boom.
I forgot to mention that yesterday we ate lunch with Terry, a slightly built painter from Oakland. He’s a ‘vegetarian’ who eats a lot of fish, ergo fishertarian. Like everyone else riding the coast that we came across Terry has paid the $32 for the adventure cycling maps, to know where you’re going. Terry tales continue to amuse us for the entire trip, but I have to give him props, because he isn’t a cyclist, he just wanted to do this ride, and was hoping to finish before daylight savings.
Crescent City CA was also a pretty ghetto town, contrasted to how nice and quiet Oregon with relaxed, friendly people.
Although the ‘bike map’ of Cali is just photocopies of 101 (not really a bike map) there are yellow arrows on the ground that I’ve been following with fairly good success. (I take no responsibility for your getting lost following random arrows painted on the ground, nor should you complain to me about all the bicycle parts that you break riding your touring bike on hiking trails.) Q: would you schlep this trail again? A: I would recommend it to first time people going through, but I don’t need to do it a second time.
Today we weren’t able to find laundry, so we’re riding ‘a little funky’. We see our first sea lions which is cool because we’ve been practicing their language for the past. As with every day so far we had continuous, strong headwinds, which were joined by frequent showers, which we’re also accustom to.
Also I added pictures to the earlier trip posts if you want to check those out…
We supped in an Appleby’s restaurant which had a shrine to local fenom trithlete Mike Pigg. It’s funny how at a certain level of sport most people have a pretty good idea which athletes are dope, and which do it for a few races a year, etc. Mr. Pigg used to be a hero of mine, I’m a little bummed to know that he wasn’t the most ethical of athletes.
You can still cheer for Mark Allen.
Faatnaat at hotmail.com
