Information Blues.

It was a foggy morning, hard to get started. I knew I wanted to ride my bike because I want to feel strong again, sharpen my will on the vertical whetstone of the hills. As incentive to leave the Crow’s Nest I decided to get slightly dangerous and ride with my ipod.

I started with a random mix to climb out of the Merritt basin into Montclair; the ipod chose a lot of old soul. Then it chose a song off Songs From Northern Britain and it sounded so good I hopped off my bike at the colossal Mormon Temple to switch to it exclusively.

Then I rode the misty foothills with cloying britpop. It’s a gentle, sweet album. If you’re bitter the many tablespoons may taste saccharine, but it’s so earnest. Most of the songs are about love and place–how complete it can make one feel to hit the true love jackpot. The songs are so impressed with love that they can manage to come off as massively codependent and sort of lazy if you think about them critically. But if your heart is open and you’d like ponder a misty, solitary spring morning I can’t think of much nicer.

Yeah, I’m a cornball. I was once accused of being in love with love, and I’ve taken the accusation to heart, let it ferment, then brought it out to consider once in a while. It’s true. Teenage Fanclub and I are in love with love. We’re going to sing about it with a soaring Byrdsy telecaster symphony.

Lake Chabot was serene and emerald green. Then the album ended and I went back to the shuffle as I got back to business. Climbing back on Redwood Road I did one of my hardest velo efforts of 2006, passing six rabbits on the first incline, two on full carbon bikes with booties, which was especially satisfying. Then approaching home I chose to climb the mini Beef Steak route, just to give my thighs some extra torture, and they whined a bit but got me over the top.

This is going to sound weird but I’ve pretty much been living on orange bellpeppers.

Well, that plus peanut butter and Old Overholt.

Saturday Simeon and I made foot expedition #2 onto Mount Diablo. We were waterfall hunting.

Yes, the devil has waterfalls. It’s hard to imagine, because normal use reveals a scorched, dried yellow mountain, but in the spring (and especially with all of this rain we’ve been having) the whole thing turns green as water runs down the back of its neck.

When you’re hiking around a mountain it’s easy to imagine making an even ring, an easy stroll about the neck. But mountains aren’t so simple as that, they’re composed of myriad ridges, supplemental peaks, gorges and creeks. When you walk around a mountain you are actually climbing a mountain.

“It’s funny,” Simeon pondered, “that most of our hikes involve waterfalls.” We sat at the top of a small falls on rocks eating hummus. The back of the mountain had a sheer face carved by creeks. We spotted three fairly big falls, incidental jumps as the water poured down from the North Peak and Devil’s Pulpit.

This one… this one I christen Mustache Falls!

We walked five hours for three waterfalls. On the way out, the Deer Flat sign required approximately ten stones to hit. Eagle Peak was, unfortunately, out of the question, even though I did have two Mocha Mocha Cliff Shots reserved in my pack. The light glowed foggy silver through the sunset over spring green valleys. You could see a few inches of the ocean as the light left. It was windy and creepy for a moment up on the mountain.

Today my legs are fried. They hold a brittle, singed sensation. That didn’t stop me from mountain biking 2000′ to the top of Montara Mountain (and then down!) today with Rex Juan, but it bears recording in a web log. Also let me note that when I peed in the bushes with a view of Half Moon Bay it was bright, crackling yellow, even though I was fully hydrated. I’d like to imagine that’s the byproduct of singed thighs, lactic acid leaving the body, but I’m not sure it’s true.

And a final observation: Tacqueria El Gran Amigo Numero Dos in Pacifica is just as amazingly good as the original in Moss Beach. It’s perfect.

The van arrived at 2am. Two figures were reclined in the back with an undead mage at the wheel. “Yer the copilot!” somebody barked as I loaded my mountain bike in.

We listened to Swedish psych. The mage drank a red bull and a coffee plus three of my nasal decongestants and drove until 5am at which point it was my turn: open your bleary eyes, drink down the Monster and take the wheel.

Everyone went to sleep in the back as I sipped my Monster north of Bakersfield. It tasted like melted green jelly beans. The rising sun colored the horizon delicate blue. I saw a groggy coyote and a roadrunner sitting in a bush. We were on our second annual trip to Color Country for a preview of mountain bike action. What would this year look like?

I drove until nearly 9, piloting the van into the Mojave. I passed out in the back for a few hours then woke to a Green Burrito and oreo shake. We rode Bootleg Canyon after driving all night. I rode Snakeback, dropping down through the rollercoaster wash. Girl Scout was fast and flowy, bermed for extra smiles.

Rob’s new fork burst, sprayed oil all over the back of the van, so he borrowed Rex’ bike to go jumping in the ampitheatre only to overshoot the step up jump drastically and slide fifteen feet on his back.

We drove to St. George, Utah and fumbled into some dirt lot after midnight to lock down. We woke up humid in the van with Mormons jogging their dogs all around us.

I watched a man dress a pair of hotdogs as I waited for the loo, and I was so delirious I nearly fell down with glee when he fumbled one onto the floor. They were those hotdogs that sit in the convenience store on endless grease rotation; it made a hollow thump. I had to duck around the corner.

Up on Gooseberry Mesa the mountain biking is great but treacherous. The undead mage went over the bars and believed he broke his wrist. But us mountain bike action men pushed on, carved down slickrock chutes, followed the dots through the mesa maze.

Somehow we managed to light a bag of briquets on a slickrock fire ring under heavy wind. We sought refreshment in a seisero of Polygamy Porter and tofu dogs fumbled into the ash. Rex Juan, the dolma king, had a brilliant idea: he cooked Boca Burgers inside a spent dolma can, tangy with grape leaves and olive oil, laid directly over the fire.

The point of Color Country mountain biking is getting mano, burning the candle at both ends: having fun. That is our tradition. So we went back to Bootleg and on a routine ascent to the top Rex and I got massively lost, followed the whisper of a goat trail up a craggy, cactusy ridge and ended up bushwacking with our bikes for four miles. We were lost on the back side of the mountain range with no trails. Rob and Mike got worried, drove the van up and down the fireroad, thought we might be at Taco Bell.

On the way out of town, late again but still searching for thrills, we pulled into Ronald’s Donuts. They make vegan donuts and this marked the Color Country mountain biker’s second yearly attempt to each eat a dozen.

We drove all night eating donuts and China Green Tips because that’s what you do when you’re adventuring away from the coast; you swing by Del Taco for a veggie works burrito, then ‘Bucks for a venti tea. It’s all very extreme, but then you go back to your normal coastal life, mostly avoiding chain stores and donuts and not finding your thighs full of cactus stickers, but still you picture the view from the edge of the mesa and the slickrock swamp and you smile: we spent the end of March riding on the backs of whales.

There are pictures.