June 17th 2003 We are still on schedule for departure Tomorrow, watch this space!
July 20th 2003 We have done it! Well we have compleated the lions share of the work at least; Rob now has a bike and all are bags are packed ready for the off tommorow, just a short 3500miles to go to New York. . .
We arrived fully calm and pretty collected at Heathrow on Wednesday, after changing our flight dates so that we could enter the USA without a visa - 90 day limit on the visa waiver program i'm afraid dudes! The pleasant 10 hour flight accross the Atlantic took us over Iceland (at which point I wished I had a parachute!), Greenland and a huge amount of very barren looking terrain. We arrived in Los Angeles in good fettle to find to my shock (and delight) that 2 blokes who had been at Sheffield university with me had also been on our flight! At the advice of the airport tannoy system we avioided giving money to the loitering soliciters, (who says a career in law is'nt glamorous!), but instead made a fat Russian taxi driver very happy as he took us four naive over-tired new comers for a ride.
We have found ourselves a hostel in Hollywood which has suited us very well as a base to prepare for the off. Holywood purports itself to be "the glamour capital" of the world, whether this is a just claim or not depends on how much glitter and tinsle you like your glamour with and if you can buy it a $1 store. The place is a centre for rampant consumerism with the "walk of fame" paved on either side by hundereds of tacky shops selling cheap memorabilia and junk food. Not the hardware and Bike shops we were hoping for! For these outlets we had to journey 40minutes on a bus to the district of Burbank which is a close neighbour to Hollywood, you cannot comprehend the size of LA - it is vast!
If anyone remembers "The A-Team" then you will be astounded to hear that Rob and I bought our cutlery (and Rob his dog tag) from an army surplus store once shopped in by Mr. T! Wicked huh! We recovered sufficently from our brush with aging B-list celebrities to go in search of a bike for Rob, this we found without difficulty and got a large reduction his Italien bike (!) by buying most of our equipment from the shop (Europa Bikes) as well. We realisd the reason for the lack of bikes on the road out here when we found that the buses actually have bike carrying facilities themselves, or is the reason just that there are more cars on the road over here than there are noughts on David Beckhams paycheck! The lack of cyclists may account for the large amount of interest people have taken in our bikes so far.
Our run in with the Church of Scientology was pretty funny, after drinking four pints of Fosters in the Pig and Whistle public house we decided to have our personalities analysised by their learned (computer generated) elders. Rob appears to need "Urgent Attention" to his levels of Stability, Happiness, Composure, Activity, Aggressivness, Responibility, Correct estimations (your guess is as good as mine!), appreciativeness and Communication levels. I was assesed as a very depressed inividual, irresponsible to a large degree, who was very critical and highly unappreciative! With the help of our Sheffield accomplacises we took the piss out the "managment" and left without making a donation; this has left us very unsure of our chances of salvation - L. Ron Hubbard you are a scoundrel! Simon and Chris, Big up yourselves!
So our impresions of the States so far have been coloured by the avaricious and secular folk of LA, all the nice ones we have met have been much more unobtrusive (mainly running bike shops). We are now looking forward to escaping the smog and heading via the costal road up to San Fransisco. The route has not been finalised form there but I shall be sure to keep you posted, see you in about a week . . .
July 1st 2003 You may well have seen photographs of San Fransisco and probably noticed that it is a city built on some rather steep hills; well Rob and I are now in a position to tell you that this landscape is not exclusive to that city and it is in fact a pretty general theme that runs all the way up the coast from L.A! That's not to mention the prevailing wind blowing North to South or the extreme temperatures either! Rob's baptism of fire went something like this:
We left L.A. or more particularly Hollywood wearing our rain coats. It was overcast and looking to be pretty good cycling weather for two jet lagged 'limeys'. We found the pacific highway (by going to the beach and turning right!) which is the partner of the more feckless 'Pacific Cycle Route' which jumps in and out of the bushes as it heads up the coast. Taking the more expeediant hard shoulder option when it suited us we made good progress north. I would never claim that I resurch these things well but - Nobody told me the prevailing wind blows south down the Pacific coast. Bugger, that's all the way to S.F. as well.
Leaving central L.A. for the coast provided us with some of the more standard media vistas of the states, open roads, pedestrianised shopping streets, beaches with palm trees and HUGE houses. This was more what we were expecting. The surf of the Pacific was very nice too, clean sets coming in with no white water in sight! What we were not expecting however was the large distances you have to pedal with out passing anything that ressembles a roadside shop. Unlike Europe things out here are much further apart and because everyone drives EVERYWHERE (even down to the end of the drive to pick up the newspaper!) you don't really see any pedestrians to ask.
The scenery is beautiful the Pacific coast has a good mix of beaches and cliffs and inland their are mountains, open feilds and lichen covered woodlands. I don't think Rob was paying much attention though until we had his handle bars adjusted he was suffering a terrible neck ache! Things got especially nice (scenery wise) past San Simeon and Hearst Castle where the road winds along the undulating coastline, some of those hilss tried to buck us off I'd swear! Rob has been compalining bitterly about the inclines but this is all part of our conditioning period before the Sierra Nevada and the Rockies, no probs!
The state parks have provided accomadtion for us, 2$ to pitch your tent! This would never happen in Siberia! You do get to use the shower block of course. There are some very rigid rules and some pretty militant park rangers out there though. We were evicted from a spot in the dark at 9 o'clock one night (meaning we had to repack completely) because some old coffin dodger said that we had camped too close to his tent. After pleading with some kind souls on the next pitch we only had to move our tents 10 metres; this kind of knit picking over the rules and reglulations is something we have come to accept as being wholey American. Our night spent in a recreation ground in Gaudalupe attracted alot of police attention, three squad cars rolled up to deal with the rogue campers! No shots were fired.
State parks have also been a source of interesting contacts for us, the teachers of Childrens Circle Nursery school very kindly fed us Dinner and Brekfast at El Capitan and Ron was particulary insane, providing us with company and stories of aleins as we bedded down at Big Sur. Further up the road at Brighton Beach they were refurbishing the camp site, polishing the grass was Rob's guess. That was the day that a very nice fella (although possibly a terminator in disguise) called Paul guided us up a very urban area of the coast and we had cycled 82miles. Not wanting a couple of tents to mess up their newly refurbished grass we were told to move on; that was the night we asked Christian if he new anywhere we could stay, the result was very drunken, cheers boss!
Two other amazing individuals that definately deserve a mention (check out their sites) are Ken a Double genius who 'was just born at the right time' and is predicitng a 'Paradime shift' in 2012 which will change the world for a better and happier place! Cool, I'm looking forward to it Ken! The other was Lois a seriously cool biker bitch from London who is half way through her ambitious solo venture from Alaska to Argentina!
Now we are in San Fransisco having arrived on Gay Pride sunday, I have just recycled my stinking trainers and bought some cycling sandles! Apart from bringing me one step closer to hippy status it also means that i don't have to tie my shoes up in public. Rob is chilling back at our hostel so I think I shall go and join him for a beer as we prepare for our toasty warm trip inland . . .
July 9th 2003 For a country that has a military force more than two and a half times larger than the militaries of the next 9 largest potential adversaries combined (Russia, China, North Korea, Iraq, Libya, Syria, Sudan and Cuba) and still finds annually a spare 329 BILLION dollars to spend on increasing this force the state of the roads is nothing short of shocking. One of the many upshots of this paranoid military overspending is that the cracked and neglected roads just east of San Francisco snapped Jim's seat post in two.
The road inland provided all that was expected; huge hills, big temperatures and millions of pick-up trucks. The most exciting thing that happened though was our near rendezvous with Christ! He landed in LA a couple of weeks ago (?) and had been chasing us up the coast; we got word that he was in San Francisco just after we left. Our closest encounter so far was in the small town of Loomis where we were told that he had just left the place 10 MINUTES before us! Through an international one way text messaging service (cheers Russ!) we think that he now understands that he has over taken us . . . Now we are taking a quick breather on the edge of the Nevada desert and hope he will wait for us somewhere along the 50. Christ you are a cycling machine, wait up for a day would you; remember we've got the tunes!
Yes, the tunes! Rob and I actually bunked the train out of San Francisco (only across the bay mind!), the reason being that we had to hook up with a contact I had made through the Internet, sounds dodgy I know but this one was well kosher! Tor, whose solar expertise will be extolled later, sorted us out with the panel we were lacking to run our Solar Sound System (cheers for the amp Ryan!). A very generous host. We stayed with his family the night and they gave us a big hand to get us set up and on our way, thank you very much for that.
The other piece of help and hospitality that cannot possible go without a mention is that of Don and Co. As already mentioned the SHIT roads coming east up the Sacramento river valley irrevocably damaged my aluminium cast seat post. All was lost we thought, until we met Don. The man owns a very cool boathouse with attached pontoon, tree house and entire metal workshop. He is 60+ but him and his friends still know how to have the crack! We stayed there for a day after camping on the river bank, his cool mates fed us beer all day and even took us water skiing (absolutely wicked!), meanwhile he worked away in the sweltering heat TIG welding my seat post back together - and all this was on the 4th of July!!! Don, you are a living legend!
On our way through the city of Sacramento we met up with another recumbent touring club, they left us with a good route to cross the Sierra Nervada mountains and some tips on building recumbent bikes. Which ever road you take to cross the Sierra Nevada mountain range (the choices are severly limited when travelling by bike!) it is going to be rather unpleasant, although it will give you ample opportunity to skinny-dip in the fresh water lakes and streams if you should choose! Some of the down hills are pretty extreme and Rob has clocked a new record speed of 48mph! He has also been logging the miles; we have been consistently doing 50+ even during the days we have been climbing 5000ft. The thin air and the gradients have been working against us but as a good friend of mine likes to say - What doesn't kill you makes you stronger!
We will be taking the extreme and desperate measure of getting up at 05:30 tomorrow (that isn't natural!) to begin our trip across the Nevada desert. We are taking "the loneliest road in the USA" which has towns dotted at convenient 60 mile intervals along it all the way to the Utah border. We will be carrying 5 litres of fluids each and breaking in some shade from about 11am to 4pm, at the moment it's 39 Celsius (103 Fahrenheit) out there and set to get hotter! The sound system should preserve our sanity, or that's the hope!
Now we are off to see Terminator 3 - Paul: Watch out Arnie's got your number!
See you on the other side of the desert!
July 26th 2003 Well if that's where all the money is going I would start to get worried! We left Carson city what seems like months ago, there is a lot of distance between us now and not surprisingly very little water! We left the town carrying 5 litres of water each, fortunately someone in the roads department up there in Washington has been reading the site and laid down the very well finished Highway 50 for us accross the desert. One thing that they could have done but did'nt was to flatten some of those mountain ranges on their way, but we musn't grumble!
The Nevada desert is very big, very dry and at this time of year very hot. We were given an introdution to the rigors of crossing it between Carson City and Fallon, after that the towns got pretty sparse and very small. The main problem being that if we did not make a town before the heat of the day struck we were reduced to hiding out in what little shade was available or pushing on in the sweltering temperatures. We tried not to get too distracted by the signs of 'Historical interest' along the way, this was'nt too hard after we passed the huge natural incongruous sandune because they were mostly about mining history in Nevada.
One of the more exciting encounters we had was in the old mining town of Austin with a bloke called Christ! Unsurprisingly he was very hung over when we found him, but that did'nt stop us having a beer to celebrate. It was good to hook up at last and share our experiences of The States so far, a few tips to surviving on the cheap were exchanged before we headed off again. The loneliest road in America got alot less so in our 8 wheeled entorage!
We spent our first night under the stars with Christ, It was cooler out of the tent and it made getting on the road by 6 in the morning possible. An afternoon spent in Eureka was most memorable for the fact that it is a wild west town with an opera house! After fooling around inside there for some time we left all 'luvvy darling' and almost found the fact that someone had called the next mountain 'Pancake summit' funny. Ha, bloody, ha. Riding by night did work pretty well and it certainly made the downhills more exhilarating, but we did'nt want to mess with our finely tuned body clocks too much as we were just about to cross into the 'Mountain time' zone!
The time warp happened in Border at the Border, confused? Try living in Reading! It was also in this magical area that we met Professor Dave, a super cool botanist who had many interesting socio-narcotic stories to spin us! We got pissed with him in the local watering hole which ran in nicey with our hang overs and a trip to the cool of the nearby caves the next day. Caves are caves but limestone ones were pretty notable, 8 bucks to get in! Outside in the open again we met some french Canadians who's small bus ran at 8 miles to the gallon and that's petrol!!! I urged them to decomission it as soon as possible, unfortunately that was like to be Mexico! 8 miles to the Gallon!
I argued with Chtist that just because the clocks had to go forward an hour it did'nt mean we had to get up an hour earlier, under the light of a blue moon that night it started to rain! After we had put our tents up in the middle of the night I won the debate. Getting out of Nevada into Utah did'nt signal the end of the desert and we almost got caught out not carrying enough water after this point, things really started to change as we neared salt lkae city at which point we traded dry chapped lips for very swaety shirts and lots of mosquito bites.
Redwood road travels north from lake Utah right up and nerly into the centre of S.L.C. it does'nt have any redwoods on it just lots and lots of shops and fastfood restaraunts, the others had given me the slip just down by 'Randy's muff repair' so I took the Youth hostel option when I eventually got into town. Very nice city , home to the mormons you would expect it to be, they are a very nice bunch. However, if you want to drink any beer above 3.4 percent or go out after about nine o'clock you might be disinclined to agree with me! The town library is palacial as is 'The Tabernackle'. Home of 'the church of the later day saints' they give a pretty mean sunday service! We saw the Mormon tabernackle choir perform there for a 75th anniversary of something or other, thier slant on chrisitanity is pretty different but the values are all there. The other great spectacle I saw there was the American Circus, more accurately the South/central American Circus, most of the show was presented in Spanish and all the acts came from Mexico, Venezuala and Brazil. Brilliant. The juggling was ace and the acrobatics fantastic. I went back the next day and managed to get a quick lesson off their head clown, how I was humbled!
I think the sun must have got to Christ out there in the desert because he was adament thet he would take Highway 40 over the Rockies to Denver (the mile high city!). Rob and I required a more sedate route so unfortunately our paths were seperated, hope to see him over the other side again. Managed to get rid of the air pistol that Don the welder had given us back near Sacremento, the thing was good for a photo shoot but it weighed a ton (metric!), not the sort of thing you want to be carrying over the Rocky mountains!
Before we started the climb we took a 20 mile detour out to see the Salt Lake, thought it would be rude not to . . . the disgrace was on the lake however, that place stinks! We spent an afternoon out on Antelope Island, once again not sighting a single beast. There was a lot of pollution in the lake, fortunately all this stuff was naturally occuring. They are "in the middle of a six year drought" here in Utah as one wisened old mystic woman at a petrol station told us, this has caused the Salt lake to shrink and hence the percentage volume of minerals to rise. If this has ahd an effect on the amount of flies too I could'nt say but there were a hell of alot of them! In places they covered the lake so well so as to form a visable carpet! Once past this minky obstacle we swam in the brine shrimp infested water, these tiny creatures float both dead and alive in their billions through the extrememly salty water! We stayed in the lake for about half an hour despite this because the sensation of floating in the detritus was such a pleasant one!
In the the base of the mountains in Logan we payed our third trip to an American university, (Utah State) the resources that these institutions have are incredible and with a small half truth and story about our trip we can usually get through to use their excellent computing facilaties. Not having been to an American uni I would be very interested to know how the students cope with out a bar in sight?!
For all our learned company we were still stupid enough to take the road north in the direction of Yellowstone park. For some reason I had got it into my head that this was the lowest point on the "Great Continental divde" (Watershed for the Pacific and Atlantic oceans) at 9800 feet. Fortunately due to a 'closed canyon'(!) we were forced to take redirections, a super cool, very brilliant and awsomely intelligent bloke on a recumbant now has us crossing the "Great Continental divde" at 7600feet! Thank you very much, whoever you are!
We will be crossing that landmark in our journey in the next couple of days but until that point we are quite happy to chill here in Kemmerer where we have had the fortune to meet the organiser of the Oyster Ridge Music Festival. It's not what you know it's who you know out here in Wyoming and we are certainly being shown a good time, So it's back to the beer and the music and until next time . . . Yee ha!!!