Road Angels

When last we wrote, oh Velophilous, we reported that it was raining in Crescent City. But by about 9:30 a.m. the sun was out and we trusted. So we returned the land ferry, loaded up the bicycles and headed off for the Crescent City Hills. The first rises to 1200 feet and is followed by two shorter ones right after. It's reputation if ferociously nasty to cyclers and it is pretty much earned.

The sun lasted until we began the hill and then it rained. I mentioned this to God, this rain thing again, but it continued to rain. So we walked and rode up the hill. The first three miles being the steepest and having the poorest shoulders. The Redwoods were lovely, as we trudged through the rain, but we made the crest and then the two following minor crests in reasonable time. After that the deluge and the downhill. A 6% grade for two miles followed by a 7% grade for about 3. We rode with the brakes on and I noticed a little wobble in the rear wheel. Dave watched it on one strech, but the rim was not out of true. Still it felt funny.

After a long cold wet scary descent we hit some level areas and the rain became a sprinkle. So on we trudged, planning to make it to Orick after another smaller set of hills.

At the very bottom is a place called The Mystery Trees, with a HUGE statue of Paul Bunyan and Babe the Blue Ox. As I caught up with Dave he was in a discussion with a guy by the side of the road, whose truck was parked in the Trees Motel lot. Pondering this mystery I rode up. The fellow was telling Dave and now me that he is a part time volunteer fire fighter and that the road ahead was particularly narrow and dangerous with lots of tight blind curves around redwoods. He was offering to drive us past the dangerous parts.

We pondered how weird this was and how safe it might be,but finally decided to take the ride. So into the back of the moving truck went the bikes and off we went. He took us about 25 miles and some the the road was indeed pretty hairy. Orick was a complete bust as a town, we would have been stuck in a terrible room in a really really really bad motel. After the last of the bad turns we had him drop us about 10 miles outside Trinidad so we could ride the rest of the way in. The wobble was worse and I stopped and looked at the rear tire. Viola, the rips you see in the pictures.


The good news was the rim was still true, but the tire was bulging. So we slowly and carefully made our way to Arcata, after checking for a tire at K-Mart in McKinleyville.

So, the lesson for the day was this.......had pride or pig headedness kept us from taking the advice of the truck driver, we would have been sleeping in a hole in Orick, or worse, pushing a flat tired bike 25 miles to find a town with a bike shop or tire shop. Sometimes angels are just there waiting.

We appreciate Brad Glass of North Coast Moving and Storage, in Fortuna CA for looking out for us.