Grumpy Old Men On Bikes

I skipped the karaoke and sat on my porch with a glass of wine and watched the sun set.  The motel cat, which was considerably cuter than the room, came and joined me and we sat together and put the world to rights.  It was my best evening of the trip. Salome was like so many Merican towns that I have passed through, on this trip and others.  A small place with little obvious sign of employment opportunities and a population that seems hardened by their situation and the heat.  Another 50 miles across the desert took us to Wickenberg which couldn't be more different.  It is a delightful town with a bit of a cowboy/western theme and a measure of civic pride that was lacking in Salome.  Our hotel a Super 8, a brand that usually languishes in the 3 rd  division, but it is smart with capable staff and reasonable rooms. I I left home 38 days ago., that is a lot...but it feels like more!  Tomorrow we will be in the outskirts of Phoenix....

Desert, sand, punctures.  There, you are now fully up to date with the last 2 days.  Yesterday was longish at 60 miles but the weather gods finally let us down and served up a stonking headwind that was either on their noses or gusting strongly from the side.  It was one of those days when all you can do is grip the bars tight and dig a little deeper. Today we crossed our last state line, into Arizona.  Shrewdly I filled up with gas at $6.29 before leaving California....it is $4.50 here.  Bugger.  Other than the price of gas there is little to distinguish the California desert from the Arizona desert.  It isn't exactly 'pretty' but it is more interesting than you might imagine. Our destination today was Salome...a stop I have been dreading.  Salome is a 1 horse town where the horse is ready for the knackers yard.  We need 17 motel rooms and this requires virtually every available room in the 3 places that offer them.  These pla...

I got up yesterday morning and decided that today would be a nice easy one.  I got everyone on the road and was planning to take a stroll around a major classic car show that had taken over the main street when the phone rang.  Someone had managed to fall off less than a mile from the hotel. By the time I got to him the road was closed by a fire engine, ambulance and police car and he was being given a thorough check with roadside ECG and the whole works.  Despite the strong recommendation from the experts that he go with them to the hospital for further checks he declined.  So began another day in paradise.  A 75 mile dash to deliver the downed rider to the next hotel then backtracking 45 miles to check on the rest of the group and shadow them to their hotel in El Centro. We have now emerged from the SF to San Diego bubble of wealth and are back in grotty towns full of homeless people.  El Centro was a particularly fine example of the genre with a t...

All Kinds Of Everything* (Wednesday) We stayed in Dana Point last night.  It was one of the better hotels but our dinner booking turned out to be in a restaurant that has closed down.  Instead ,we shopped in the nearby supermarket and took over the breakfast room for a make-shift group meal.  At some point someone decided it would be fun to have some karaoke.  My group are plucky cyclists but horrible singers!   *you need the singer Road To Nowhere (Thursday) The day to San Diago is always exciting because it requires 7 miles riding the shoulder of I5.  Yesterday was even more exciting because the Marines had decided to close the bike path that precedes this section, while they practiced transferring men and materials by helicopter to a ship moored offshore.  Wankers.  Rather than placing a sign at the point where riders should divert they had a solider 6 miles down the road to turn people back.  Wankers. The n...

4 more riders joined us in Redondo Beach and we are now at our full complement of 26.   To look at their luggage you would think it was 62!  How can anyone need 2 sodding great bags stuffed with christ knows what for a 10 day ride in the sunshine?  The group is now so large that I can no longer keep track of everyone.  My plan is to just check the van each night for unclaimed bags and inform the next of kin. Our day started with 12 urban miles, cutting across the base of the Rolling Hills Estates peninsula, before joining the beach path in Long Beach and rolling south through the OC.  I have seen more Rolls Royce's and Bentleys today than I have in the last year!  Passing through Newport Beach, Huntingdon Beach, Laguna Beach and Dana Point (which obviously didn't get the 'beach' memo) there is an ostentatious display of wealth that has to be seen to be believed.  Was it only a few weeks ago that I was complaining about people living ...

2 days to catch up on: The Laughing Policeman I forgot to mention this in the previous entry.  While I sat at the top of the sodding great hill between Solvang and Santa Barabara, worrying about how they were all doing in the heavy Sunday traffic, a car pulled up alongside.  The driver wound down her window and began berating me about the recklessness of allowing people to cycle on the road.  She asked me which idiot had planned the route so I introduced myself, then informed me that she had reported this crime against America to the police.  I am enormously proud to say that I remained calm and polite. Sure enough, a few minutes later a California Highway Patrol cruiser turned up.  In the UK it takes the police about a week to investigate a murder but in the good old US of A the police are thicker than flies.  I was sort of expecting a bollocking but the officer couldn't have been nicer.  He confirmed our right to be on the road, said h...

If you ever find yourself visiting Solvang you should consider staying at Pea Soup Andersens* Inn in Buellton.  It is 3 miles from Solvang and a mere $200/room...compared with $300+ in Solvang itself.  It had a nice pool and hot tub and the receptionist had hair-free ears. *you should Google the whole 'Andersens pea soup' thing. It is probably worth pausing for a moment to discuss our journey.  The core group has already ridden 1500 miles....with Parkinsons!  They have done this with less moaning than many I have led.  Depending on how advanced their condition is, the meds they take and many other complicated factors, they show the strain to a greater or lesser extent, but they are all digging deep.  The new arrivals in San Fran kind of self-selected a shorter distance matched to their strength/experience but they are also getting their miles done in style. Today was a case in point.  The road from Solvang back to the coast in Santa Ba...

...and the living is easy.  It is certainly summertime; after the usual misty start the sun has a very fetching hat on and it is currently about 25 degrees C (77f in old money).  And the living is easy because, inexplicably, nothing has gone wrong today.  We have 2 support vehicles....1 stays out with the riders and 1 gets to the hotel to resolve the check-in chaos.  Today I was on check-in duty but no chaos!  The receptionist was polite, helpful and relatively free from ear hair (beware hotel reactionists with excessive ear hair...I don't understand the science but they are always useless).  The required number and type of rooms were delivered without any fuss and the hotel is nice!   The riders aren't here yet but they are doing fine or, at least, not calling me to say they aren't and either of those is just fine with me.  They will be here shortly and woe-betide anyone who doesn't just quietly check in and slink of to their room. ...

Don't Go Changing Thanks to the size of our group, the matching jerseys and the signs on the van we attract attention wherever we go.  Well-meaning folk approach and ask about our journey, and we enjoy the attention, but when those people turn out to be locals I know exactly what is coming. I have spent the best part of the last 2 years planning this journey, carefully refining the route to balance our desire for natural splendour, the need for occasional sustenance and the overriding importance of finding the safest roads available.  This route then needs to be documented with printed turn-by-turn instructions and distributed in electronic form to 25 people for use with a variety of navigation devices.  It's complicated. At some point in the conversation the local smart-arse will tell me that my route is not the 'best' one available.  Usually their suggestion addresses only one of our conflicting needs....it is prettier but o...