Yesterday I climbed 2500 feet over 4 miles of singletrack in 90 degree heat.  Those numbers make for a 12% average grade.  It was pretty jacked.

There I was somewhere in the Six Rivers Forest riding with a group of guys I didn’t really know.  They called me the baby of the bunch and I was.  They talked about their kids and their wives while I smiled and nodded.

The guy who’d been wearing multiple pieces of century ride schwag and the other who looked like a skeletal roadie took off on the climb and I never saw them again til the top.  I suffered in the back of the group, not wishing to push so hard, but it’s not easy when the trail’s so steep, and you’re climbing up a ditch of loose marbles covered in leaves, dodging poison oak while  sweating sunscreen into the corners of your eyes.

The ultrafit men took off to complete a bigger loop while the rest of us were content to bomb back down through the madness we’d ascended.  I had the biggest bike so I took the lead and soon I was off like a mechanical rabbit before hounds.  The trail was pretty raw, not well maintained and seldom ridden.  But lately I’ve been riding ultra groomed, neat trails like Paradise Royale and the Arcata Community Forest.  So I approached the High Dome trail with perhaps the wrong mindset.

I went into the switchbacks way too hot and it was all I could do to lock the wheels, exclaim and hope for the best.  But I kept doing it, I couldn’t learn.  I was being chased.  I was having fun.  I was going really really fast.

Then I got ejected from my mountain bike.  I’m not sure what happened, I think a limb grabbed my bars and steered me off the trail.  There was no correcting it, it was a case of instantaneous flight.  I was laid out head first, flying like superman when time stretched.  I wondered what was going to happen.  I had time to think, “this is really bad” more than once.  Then I thought:  no no no no no no. Somehow I managed to penetrate deep into a twisted thicket while missing the bigger branches.  Like a human football kicked for a goal.

When I came to a rest I lied still while awaiting the damage report.  It felt a little like I was underwater, down in the bushes, looking up at the trail.  Like most crashes, it was highly surreal:  where am I?  How did I get here?  It doesn’t make sense.

Gradually my senses reported:  okay.  I was okay.  I wiggled out of the bushes and examined my bike:  it was okay.  I examined my arms:  scrapes, okay.  Mysterious pains, a fountain of adrenaline, but nothing broken. Okay.

This afternoon I took a quick spin out to the Headwaters on Elk River Road.  I’ve been having an ERR resurgence; I can’t believe how beautiful, what an ideal cycling road it is.  It’s a two lane road down a river valley to a forest reserve where there’s a paved path that goes about a mile to a deep river pool beneath mossy maples at the logging ghost town of Falk.  It takes about an hour, out and back, from my home and there’s hardly any traffic, just rolling hills and farm animals.

I can tell I’m riding fast when I startle the cows.  They look up at the streaking figure in spandex and gallop away in horror.  When I’m just going easy the cows don’t notice me.  The bulls are scary, even the neutered, placid ones.  Once I stopped near a group of tres toros to put on my arm warmers and this bull looked at me with the most ominous WTF look that I instantly realized the only thing separating us was an electric fence and decided it would be best to ramble on.  I was once stalked by a young bull on Cannibal Island Road; he followed me like a cat stalks a mouse, behind a fence as I gasped and accelerated.  My final observation about cows is that they have a funny way of scanning; when they’re looking at you they don’t trace smoothly, they move their neck in jagged little increments, like the ticking seconds of a clock or a sprinkler.

I was riding pretty fast today and scared some cows.  I also horrified a horse.  The good thing about my first failed bike tour is that I appear to have leveled up.  I’m feeling a lot stronger.  I rode fifty miles to Patrick’s Point yesterday and felt good.  I stopped in Trinidad at the Beachcomber Cafe where I drank a small coffee, ate a scone, and zoned out with the December issue of Sunset.  It was quite nice.

Out on Elk River Road today I thought I saw my bar end plug lying at the side of the road.  I recently lost one somewhere, and thought wow, I’ve found it.  But it wasn’t my plug, it was a big blackberry and I noticed the bush on the fence was full and ripe.  I think it’s finally time to go collecting for enough fruit to fill a pie.  I also stopped to check on the wild plums, which need more time.  Then I realized that I hadn’t yet brushed my teeth today.

When I reached the Headwaters there was only one car in the parking lot, a beater which seemed to be hot boxing.  I sped down the path feeling like the only person in the forest, startling bunnies and banana slugs on my commute to Falk.

Part 1.

We had a silent morning in camp as I was busy dividing by zero inside my head.  But it was either Hail Mary up the Hill or torpedo the entire bike trip with my weakness.  We rolled for a mile or two then started climbing.  I was relentlessly positive inside my head:  keep going, take your time, it’s okay.  Just one last effort.  But I was wilting fast and I could feel it; it felt like I was right back where I left off yesterday:  sapped, empty.  Cracked.

I kept trying.  I rode as long as I could, which felt ridiculously short, then tossed my bike down like a spoiled brat to pant in the shade.  The process repeated as morning turned to noon and the temperature shot back up to the mid 90’s.  I was so possessed with the future (waiting at the top of the hill) and the past (at the river when I started to feel bad–why??) that I had a hard time seeing the present.  It took all of my focus to remind me:  right now you pushed the pedal over the top one time and you feel okay.  Right now, lying on the shoulder of the road, there are beautiful clouds in the sky.  I’m in a remote wilderness area.  Regardless of anything else, this moment is nice.  I tried to build a catalog of nice moments but they felt like specks in comparison to my worry and exhaustion.

I was resting when Kevin coasted down the hill and told me we were only 1/3 of the way to the top.  And since it was getting hotter, and I was growing weaker, we should try to find me a ride.  Then in an amazing feat he hooked my rear panniers to his front rack and rode with me for a while, carrying 80% of my load.  But I was still toast.

He flagged down a forest service truck for me, and she miraculously agreed to give me a ride.  I felt sad, humbled, grateful.  We chatted about Etna and I don’t know and she dropped me off at the helipad where I waited for my friends to summit.  I laid down in the shade in the middle of a trail and watched long strands of spider silk float from the tops of trees as hikers walked by and I couldn’t care.

When the party reassembled we bombed down the other side.  The wind felt like a blowdryer that grew hotter as we reached the bottom.  We stopped in Callahan where I bought my friends a beer at the bar as I stuck to electrolyte drinks with salt and vinegar chips.  We all sat on bar stools in our spandex and Kevin introduced himself to multiple people on Harleys and made friends.  Then it was time to go, eleven miles to Etna with el señor carrying my stuff.  Halfway there we had a paceline, and indignity of all indignities I very nearly got popped off the back by two guys fully loaded, me carrying nothing.

We checked into the Hiker’s Hut in Etna where Derek and Kevin wisely opted to sleep in the yard instead of the Hut proper while I was too exhausted to resist shacking up in a bunkbed with Jackie the crazy Pacific Crest Trail hiker.

Jackie deserves his own paragraph.  An online college teacher on summer break, he was taking two days of downtime from the PCT.  While on the trail he averages 30 miles a day, traveling light and fast without a stove.  After a bad experience mailing food ahead, he now relies on convenience stores for his rations, surviving on a diet of beef jerky, fritos and honey grahams.  When not bending ears with outpourings of incredible tales, he preferred to lie in bed eating frozen burritos and canned pasta while reading, chuckling to himself and farting.

I’d developed chronic hiccups due to over-exertion.  When I went to bed I had three half hour bouts where I tried everything:  counting heartbeats, holding breath, pursuit of zen.  My diaphragm felt knotted.  Once they finally stopped, I flipped over onto my stomach and they started again.  Help.

My amigos left bright and early to climb the next pass.  At 7:30 they said goodbye, and as soon as they were gone Jackie sat down in a comfy chair at the foot of my bed and began a soliloquy with his eyes closed, rocking his head as he spoke:  I’ve tried biking, but I’ve never been able to find a seat that didn’t completely destroy my ASS and my TESTICLES…

I tried to ignore him.  But he had his eyes closed and couldn’t see me ignoring him, so I turned over and tried to go back to sleep.  Hic.

I rolled out of the Hut at ten to meet Beth on Main Street.  I still had the hiccups and had grown nauseous.  It was 100 degrees out as I sat in the shade sipping Coke, talking to the locals who were impressed.  When she rolled up I couldn’t believe I was saved, rescued by my sweet girl.  I braced myself in the passenger seat and began to tell her my story.  How I tried and I failed and my friends helped me out.