I am having a great deal of trouble with the editor native to this site so I will not be able to make this report as good as I'd like, specifically as it pertains to posting photos, as it keeps giving me errors and I had to recover all my work more than once. I am unable to share the few photos of the Central Valley section, but there ain't much to see there so you're not really missing out. Bear with me once more.
-=Day 5=-
Mighty Mineral King
So this route is considered the 14th hardest in the state on his list. I’ve completed 10 of the top 14 so far and I feel this one is probably #1 for me. The road starts just north of Three Rivers at about 1,100ft and is almost entirely uphill to the trailhead at the very end, beyond which I believe is all wilderness area and thus wheeled vehicles of any sort are not allowed. When measured in Google Earth, which is reasonably accurate, it’s a 24 mile climb with about 8,250ft of climbing. Strava measured my gain for the day at 8,174, which I think I’m more inclined to agree with, and the mileage for the day was 59.4 miles, which obviously counts the approach from camp and the descent and so on.
I’ve seen that roadies don’t climb the last bit to the top since it isn’t paved, but it was quite easy on my bike. I find my setup, while not as svelte and lightweight as a road bike, is significantly more practical, especially in the mountains and in daily life where you occasionally need to carry more than 2 water bottles and a banana. The book has the climb rated at 19.6 miles long with 5,351 feet of gain, an average grade of 5.2% and a maximum grade of 16%. I think math fails to address the reality of this climb, as I think the average would be higher. It is quite steep and for almost the entire time. Can I prove that with math? Maybe, probably not. Would it get shot down by others? Probably. Would they understand what I mean? In their gut I believe they would. I am not attacking the author, as I rather strongly appreciate his considerable work on this subject and understand the limitations he must work within, just the idea humans have that quantifying things in this way doesn’t speak to the true nature of the thing itself. This is revealed in many things in life, and highlighted in activities such as cycling (when seen as a sport), where numbers dominate so much. Math does not quantify difficulty as experienced by a sentient being, just as it cannot quantify love nor pain.
An important note on elevation gain when written in this book and elsewhere, if one is climbing up a road and there are some descents on the way, the climbing out of those descents isn’t counted. I personally don’t understand this method, probably because I am not a bicycle racer. I count all the climbing because I am doing all the climbing. I expend calories, time, and thoughts climbing, so why wouldn’t I count that? I’m having trouble drawing parallels for this to help me explain it more clearly, as if climbing out of a valley is effortless in some way. Before I go off on too much of a tangent, just know I count every climb, because I am doing it and it counts. I spend the money (in this case, calories and time etc), so I list my expenditures because they are real.
I had a feeling I’d come back to this camp after Mineral King, since I figured it would take all damn day to get up this thing. The next stage of the tour would have me riding into Sequoia Kings Canyon National Park, and you have to use the absurd recreation.gov (another joke that seemingly wrote itself) to reserve a campsite. That means if I show up at a campground I can’t just ask if there’s a spot open and then pay a human being (or even a fucking machine) regular people money and then go sleep on the fucking ground, I would have to reserve a spot sometimes months in advance and then somehow show up on exactly the right day, which is extremely unlikely when traveling long distances by bicycle. Seeing as I’m not some sort of god, nor am I rich, nor do I wish to participate in a system I find absolutely retarded and seemingly designed to keep poor people from enjoying previously-cheap activities, I declined. Thus, I figured I’d come back.
I packed up all my crap and headed down the road. The start of Mineral King is only a mile and change or so out of town. I headed up the road and kept my eyes peeled for a good spot to stash all the stuff I wouldn’t need for this out and back route. There are houses along the way but the private property lines are easy to see, and I found a spot that’s challenging to access along the left side of the road about a mile or so up under some oaks surrounded by grass. I left my fork bags, saddlebag, and tent under a bush, covered my gear with grasses to hide it, and left a note bungee-strapped to the bag stating that I’d be back soon and not to steal my shit or I’d die a horrible death alone. My bike significantly lighter, I continued up the road until two more dogs came to greet me. Their human was a very friendly lady in a tie-dye shirt and we had a great conversation while I played with the dogs. I told her I hid my stuff down the road and she said it would be fine but offered to keep it on her property if I liked. I spent a fair bit of time alone on this trip so I enjoyed these conversations greatly, and not being in the city meant many people were much more enthusiastic and helpful since they weren’t all in a rush to run through the motions of being part of the ant farm that is modern urban society. I bid her farewell and kept riding slowly up the road.
In lieu of rephrasing the ride, I’m going to paste my entry from Strava on here:
Up and down mineral king road to the top. Bigass climb. Real steep for a real long time. Definitely one of the hardest climbs I've ever done. I know onion valley is rated harder, but this is way longer and is still real deal steep, and the surface is way rougher, and it just keeps going. The restaurant up in Silver City near the top was wonderful. Thank you, Molly and the rest of the staff. Delicious sandwich and lemonade. More good conversations with people. The views at the top are wonderful as well, an 8,000ft or so Sierra trailhead sorta deal. Beautiful colors. The descent... I can speak on that for a long time. Learned a lot of things that will strongly affect the Pass Assassin build. Real rough on the way down so having big tires was crucial. Normally I'd say 700c by 35 or whatever is good but 650*47 was much much better on this. I kept thinking one of them new age gravel bikes with suspension would be the ideal tool for a descent KOM on this route, but then it would be too specialized for other routes.
Saw one bear on the way up. He ran up into a tree over my left side as I crawled by at 3mph. Saw three more bears on the way down, first was probably the same dude from before. One was a cub and one was kinda small. They ran off and I called em silly names. My brakes faded hella hard on the descent. I think the fluid boils and presses the pistons to the rotor, causing em to drag, cause that's the result. Brakes then fade extra fast. I backed off the adjustment screw part of the way down to compensate which helped. Pass assassin will have extremely high quality brakes, lines, high temp fluid, excellent metallic pads, rotors that maybe cool faster, pretty much everything possible to keep braking as predictable and linear as possible. This damn descent was 25 fucking miles long so I had to change my line over time to be more and more a recovery line, like a front wheel drive endurance line after yer shit gets baked. Oh yeah, critical point to make is that a mile or so up the road I took my seat and fork bags off and stashed them as well as anything I didn't need for this out and back route up on the hill out of view so I wasn't riding an 70lb bike, just a 35lb one. I had to stop for a lil bit on the way down to reattach the bags, which I think took 15min. I stopped Strava for that and restarted right before I left so it's not the most precise but whatever. I recorded the times in the phones notepad application as well so I have a rough estimate.
Climb started around 0900 and ended 1620!!! Long! 30-45min break in silver city eating. Maybe an hour, I didn't pay attention. More interested in descent time as always. Left the top at 1623 and reached bottom 1747 with exactly 15min repacking bike so I'll do more math later, busy drinking beer and eating now. Arright kids I'll ride through SEKI tomorrow and descend into kings canyon which is probably easier but mega pretty, then back up and out. Cheers.
To add some detail, it was cool riding from the 800ft level up through all the different zones into the subalpine. You start in hot grassy oak territory, eventually getting high enough for conifers to grow, then pass through a huge burn area where not much remains but brush is retaking the terrain, then into big conifers, then you’re treated to some massive Giant Sequoia, and then finally the trees get a little smaller as you get to the end of the road. Hot down low and chilly up top. The last stretch to the trailhead is dirt, easy going up and only a minor challenge descending, where I had to keep my eyes peeled for potholes as the trees and lighting made them more difficult to see. The pavement is a bit rough on the way down, and that coupled with dirt on the road and quick elevation changes means my bike is pretty much the least amount of tire and suspension I’d want if I was trying to descend as fast as possible. As I stated in the Strava entry I feel suspension would help on this road, but not on any of the other roads, so a bike best capable of descending Mineral King would be overspecialized, unless one lived nearby or had an obsession with setting the fastest descent time. One major change I would make to my bike is hydraulic brakes, or for someone else just regular cable brakes. I have cable actuated hydraulic brakes, where the cable runs all the way to the caliper and the piston houses all the fluid. I believe the problems I’m having with my brakes locking up after enough heat cycles is a result of boiling fluid. With a full hydraulic system the fluid would have much more area to cool, and there would be much more of it to absorb the heat. A full cable system, while not as powerful as a hydraulic system in general, simply shouldn’t have any issues with this as there’s no fluid to boil, it would just be down to the pads heating up and losing friction. I’ll write more on this in the equipment section.
-=Day 6=-
SEKI – Lodgepole
I woke up a bit late as I had a decent hangover. I took my sweet time getting out of bed. David gave me another coffee and we talked a minute before he got ready to head out. I had what I figured was another 7,000ft climb for the day, a common theme for whatever reason. I don’t think I left camp until 1000, after which I crawled up the road towards the entrance to SEKI NP. I got a breakfast burrito at the Totem Market cause I can’t resist buying fresh food wherever I go. No discipline, no money. The burrito was pretty damn good, however, and helped me deal with the hangover and the day’s ride.
An overly chipper NPS employee greeted me at the entrance, saying he’d let me right in as soon as I paid the $20. I handed a bill over. I think it used to be less for cyclists to enter, which seems fair to me since we don’t require as much infrastructure and are often only there to move through on the road. I had other thoughts on everything, but I kept them to myself. He’s just doing that job, and while ‘just doing your job’ is no excuse for some things, I think he’s fine. I’d probably do a shitty job as a gate guy and give people a hard time cause it’s a stupid job to begin with. Hopefully they cycle these poor SOB’s out so they get a break and can go count squirrels or sweep the sidewalk or some shit.
The way in isn’t too steep, as the road sorta hugs the river a bit, and the road is maintained by the feds so it’s in pretty damn fancy shape. Once you pass Hospital Rock the road turns it up a little and the hairpins begin. I’ve driven this road once before and had a grainy image in my head of what it was like. Once again, the image was a bit off. The road was never very steep, the traffic never truly a worry, and the views were pretty good. I slowly wound my way up the hill while my medicine kicked in and helped me feel a bit better. I found myself getting lost in people’s gazes as they encountered me on their way driving down the hill. I took a little break at the Amphitheatre Viewpoint, a popular turnout for people to take photos from. It’s a great vantage point to look down on the road, and this stretch of road is just a bit different than any I’ve done in California, with the hairpins, constant grade, and federal money keeping it clean and tidy. This would probably be quite a fun road to descend. I continued upward and the road eventually wound its way east around a ridge and into Giant Sequoia habitat. Again, I drove this road once before, but god DAMN there are a lot of truly massive trees you really notice when on a bike! Hugeass trees all over the place! Thankfully they didn’t burn in the fire and the whole area is really beautiful. I think I was finally able to remove my bug headnet around this point as well, which helped with the views.
It was sometime in the afternoon, closer to sunset than not, and I moved onward thinking I’d probably camp somewhere near the top of Kings Canyon Road, as there’s National Forest land around there. I passed loads of huge trees until they petered out and I was back in normal pine forest and close to a campground I wanted to check out for the heck of it, Lodgepole. I rode up, read the sign which had the recreation.gov crap on it, and parked behind the shack to sort some things out. A man approached me and we talked a bit. He asked if I knew where I was gonna stay and I told him about my plans to keep moving and that I figured I’d have another long day. He asked if I wanted to share a spot in the camp, and I said yes, that it would be great. Thus, I got a spot in the campground that I’d never be able to stay in any other way. Sometimes you just gotta go check something out for a minute and a good thing happens. I thanked him, headed to the site, set up my stuff and put my warm layers on, and settled in. It got pretty chilly that night, but I had my warm long johns and thick alpaca wool socks, plus my big poofy down jacket, so I was living in luxury. No cell signal meant I couldn’t upload my track, so that would have to wait until tomorrow, but using Google Earth to subtract the short part of tomorrow the track shared I got about 31 miles and 7,000ft of gain.
-=Day 7=-
Kings Canyon 306
This next day was to be a pretty long one. I got up kinda early, 6 something, and was all packed up and ready to go by about 0700. My goal for the day was to ride down to Road’s End in Kings Canyon, another place I’d never been even by car, and then find a spot to camp, possibly riding north through the hills to who knows where. I had some decisions to make but I’d learned to let go until the decision had to be made instead of worrying and speculating before it was time. This was something I worked on during this trip. I have a habit of worrying about ‘the thing’ coming up. I should make the decision to go left or right when I’m there and I know more, instead of mulling it over in my head endlessly, stressing me out. I made the decision multiple times to let go and just decide when I had to, and it helped a lot. I was finally able to let go of the dumb talk in my head and look around and see the bigass trees and ferns and shit and enjoy being alive.
Thus I set off towards Grant’s Village at the top of Kings Canyon Road. Having never been here before I wasn’t sure what to expect. It was a chilly morning so I started off riding in my layers and had to pull over to do the pants dance a couple miles in. I just love giving people a good show, big ol’ pale legs in black boxer briefs at 8am. I know you’re lookin’. I know you like it, don’t be bashful. Arright now I got my pants back on and was headed north. Stopped in at Stony Creek Lodge for some breakfast components and ate outside. I was thinking of the options for the day, and figured I’d bivy off the road somewhere on National Forest Land on the roads east of Grant Grove. I didn’t really want to do this as it would involve going out and back on roads I didn’t really want to see, so I thought of it as a last resort.
I pulled into Grant Grove Village and parked my ass near the entrance to the building on the right as you enter the parking lot. I don’t really like being right in front of everyone, but there weren’t good chill spots nearby. There’s wifi as well as water here, so I caught up with people online and filled my bottles. Talked with a nice gentleman who rides in the bay area, cleaned up, and went to check out the restaurant nearby. Nothing looked too appealing so I headed out the parking lot and made a right, riding the last little bit of uphill before you reach the top around 6,800ft. The descent was excellent: mostly high speed turns up high amongst the evergreens, reaching 40mph+ chasing cars until you round a bend into burned territory overlooking the canyon itself. The road turns tighter from here out and there’s a feel of the San Gabriel Mountains with the burn area and Yucca, almost like an alternate dimension R39. I stopped at the old Kings Canyon Resort, which burned down in the last fire but now has an ice cream spot and campground. Got some ice cream and a cold Coca Cola and chilled out for a bit.
I continued to the end of the road and stopped at the shack with backpacking information at the trailhead. Went to the bathroom, drank water, had a snack and stretched, then I turned back and began riding west. Now I’ve got a shallow descent for 15 miles before a long climb up to 6,800ft. The sun was going to set soon, so I wanted to make a little progress, not that it really mattered. When it gets dark, it gets dark. On a tour like this, you don’t usually need to be anywhere specific at a set time, so it just is what it is. The road was a little more rough and sporting until passing Cedar Grove, then it was a long smooth descent at a shallow grade. The lighting was beautiful in the canyon and the walls looked amazing in the changing light. Not long after I made it to the start of the climbing near Boyden Cave and I pulled over. I took a video talking about how I thought maybe I’ll continue riding through the night to Santa Cruz to visit my sister, and how the contrasts in where you’ve been in a relatively short time span under your own power can feel a little weird. I started one of my Monster energy drinks and settled into a rhythm to take me to the coast. A gentlemen told me there was camping ahead at Convict Flat as I rode by, but I replied with something along the lines of continuing my ride. It always seems funny when people think you’re going to camp simply because the sun is setting. They don’t know you’re not tired and have no desire to stop anytime soon.
The climb was quiet and long, and the sun set before I got to the ice cream stand. People had campfires there and I felt a little lonely knowing they had their people and were comfortable chilling out together while I had a long ride ahead of me. I pedaled on beyond those thoughts and they faded just the same as the firelight. The road isn’t too steep, so it wasn’t a hard climb, just a long one. I would stop every so often to eat snacks and sip on the beverage, and I kept my mind occupied listening to some good tracks to get lost to on my phone. I finally reached Grant Grove around 2300 and pulled in to get some water. Everything was closed and there was no one around, and it was quite chilly. I put my down jacket on, filled my bottles, had a small meal, and got myself ready for the long descent.
I had previously planned on riding down to Balch Camp and points north, but wasn’t sure if anything would be open as the fire had gone through there and hit the Huntington Lake area pretty hard. I didn’t want to be stuck out there with no food, so I went with my plan to cross the central valley to the coast. A 21 mile descent lay ahead of me on the 180, so I made sure I wasn’t forgetting anything before I descended. There were some fun turns higher up but the road straightens out the further down you go, and I just chilled out and let gravity do the work. I was getting real sleepy on the descent so I kept sipping my energy beverage and played games in my head to stay awake. It was warmer down low in Squaw Valley so I stopped in a parking lot to remove some layers near the pizza place. So many pizza places left unvisited on this trip, and I still have a craving for pizza to this day. I was getting hungry so I figured I’d get something in the central valley. Something had to be open somewhere 24 hours, right?
Mostly pleasant riding took me westbound until I crossed the Kings River and the 180 turned into a real highway. I made a right after awhile down Oliver Street to hit Belmont so I could stay off busy roads. I checked my phone and saw that there was a McDonalds open in Clovis and no other convenient options (just IHOP), so I made that my next objective and pedaled west. Riding across the central valley is an exercise in patience. It’s a pretty wide valley, about 70 miles as the crow flies from the Kings River to the next range of hills to climb, and even if it’s flat and you’re traveling at a good rate it still takes quite some time.
I don’t know if I’d been to Clovis before but it was a bit sad and tiring to deal with when tired at 0200. There were a lot of homeless around and things were dirty and depressing. I rode my bike through the drive thru, got a bunch of breakfast sandwiches and a coffee, then rode across the street to eat in front of a bank, where I could see in all directions and feel like I had adequate security. I wasn’t super tired but I slipped into an old familiar mindset of taking things more slowly and giving myself more room and time. I kept my stuff mostly packed so I could easily move to a different location if anyone approached me, allowing me to avoid unwanted social interactions of any sort. When I’m doing these sorts of things I rarely have the calories and energy to be physically AND socially active, just one or the other. Obviously I’m doing the physical side, thus avoiding social interactions is a priority. After I finished my food, I took a simple to navigate route west through Fresno down Kearney Boulevard. I’ve never been through downtown Fresno before, and it felt like a miniature version of Downtown LA. More homeless, tweekers, trash, bad smells and mystery fluid on the ground. This all feels a bit more desperate when you’re a bit tired and it’s now about 0300, so I moved smartly and didn’t stop until I was out into farmland where things chilled out a lot.
At one point I was asking the universe to have the sun come up for some reason. Maybe I was bored with it being dark out and going in a straight line for what feels like forever. The universe of course didn’t reply, and I kept riding in my aerobars in the dark alongside fields and houses. At one point I passed a dairy farm which smelled so bad that my eyes were burning, so I pulled my shirt over my mouth and kept my eyes as closed as I could until it passed. I was getting hungry again and wanted to have a breakfast of sorts after the sun came up, so I headed towards a rest stop off the 5 east of Panoche Hills, another humorous place name in the valley. The sun was starting to rise as was my motivation, and I could see breakfast in the distance. I stopped at a Taco Bell only to find they weren’t open as scheduled, so I went to McDonalds for the second time that (long) morning. I picked up some snacks and Vitamin Water at the gas station and topped off my bottles.
I know nobody is particularly enthusiastic about eating McDonalds, but it was quite nice compared to the usual peanut butter and tortilla routine that I was growing weary of. I even got myself a frappe, which always gives me a boost from the pound and a half of sugar they put in that bad boy. I plotted a route through the Panoche Hills on Panoche Road of all things, and so I set off in that direction once I’d finished up. The road turns to soft sand and had some signage that was discouraging, so I looked at my phone and planned a detour. I don’t normally use Google Maps suggested routes, as they’re often more complicated than necessary and take me to some questionable places, but I gave it a shot this time. I was a little over 200 miles into the ‘day’ at this point so I didn’t want to get stuck somewhere and have to backtrack. I turned north and rode through farmland on what I guess is public dirt road, as there were no signs suggesting otherwise and nobody was bothered by my passing through. I had to bypass the range of hills by going north to Shields Avenue, taking that west where it turns into Little Panoche Road (hehehe), passing a damn and approaching Panoche Road.
It’s a sort of semi-arid environment once you leave the valley and head into these hills, feeling a bit like the high desert but just a bit off. There were a ton of discarded tires nearby and other trash, but it improves the closer you get to the hot springs. It’s quite a fun little road, and despite the distance I’d ridden I sped up and rode rather fast through the hills. At one point you pass through a little canyon into the valley the tiny ‘town’ of Panoche resides in, and it’s quite a sight. Real twisty for a minute before you hit a straight and come up to the fork in the road. The road quality drops significantly once you make the right onto Panoche Road, and a small general store pops up on your right. In retrospect I should’ve gone in and bought water and a Coke or something, but I figured I’d keep going cause I always carry too much water. I didn’t quite realize how much further I had to go to reach the next resupply point, as the road was rough enough to force me to ride a little more slowly, all the creeks were dry, and there was more climbing than one would anticipate given the look of the hills. It got warm out and it began to feel like a hotter, drier version of Chino Hills, though it was still beautiful. I had about 19 miles to the next resupply at one point, and every creek I rode over was bone dry. At once point I passed a sign declaring I was at the top of a pass above 2,000ft, yet there was more climbing beyond it. Curious. I kept my pace up despite the lack of water and once I got reception I was able to find a general store ahead in Paicines. When I finally reached ‘Airline’ highway, I was quite relieved and got plenty to drink at the little store. A group of adventure motorcycle riders pulled up just as I was leaving, and I turned northwest towards Hollister.
I texted with my sister and figured I’d show up around 1800 that night. Progress was fair until passing Hollister where a huge fogbank was rolling in from the coast. There was a strong headwind preceding this bank, and it slowed me down to about 7mph in places. Slightly frustrated, I got out of the saddle and stretched my legs to power through it. The wind was blowing southeast, so I would ride north a couple blocks to roads with buildings along their northern length, which acted as cover protecting me from most of the wind. I kept this trend up until I got to the 129, which I had to take since the bike friendly route was under construction. I don’t suggest you ride the 129 as there ain’t much of a shoulder and there’s enough traffic for the ride to be uncomfortable at times. I just put my head down and made progress while keeping my mind occupied with positive thoughts. I was looking forward to Watsonville, since there’s real Mexican food there, so I set myself a goal of getting something legit to eat once in town. The 129 eventually spits you out into the fields east of Watsonville, and I just had to keep my eyes open for Main Street so I could go downtown for something to eat.
I set Taqueria Y Birrieria Pacheco as my goal and felt a bit reenergized as I weaved through traffic into downtown, knowing I was going to set a personal record for distance travelled in a single ‘day’, and that I would soon be done and comfortable around family with a full belly and my feet up. My sister planned to come to Watsonville to run some errands, so after I got my food I stopped my Strava track. I got a mulita and a cabeza burrito and devoured it in a poorly coordinated fashion while saving my track. I didn’t quite have the coordination or energy to write much, so I just wrote a few words and enjoyed the food. I thanked the employees for the amazing meal, though they seemed indifferent, probably because I was in an altered state of mind and the food was a godsend to me.
My mileage for the day was 306 miles with about 15,000ft of elevation gain, which beat my previous record by 6 miles. My previous best was from near Florence Oregon to somewhere along Avenue of the Giants at a tiny bit above 300 miles with an unknown and significantly lower amount of gain, as that was a coastal route. I waited outside for my sister who showed up shortly thereafter, and we packed my bike away in the car. Even though I feel I could’ve gone further it was still very nice to sit in the car and not have any more work to do. We did some grocery shopping, then went the remaining 7 miles or so home where I took my first shower in some time. I was very dirty and smelly so this was quite a relief. I would take the next 5 days off at her quiet house in the redwoods, where I would get some welcome rest.
-=Back Across the Valley=-
I enjoyed my days off chillin’ at my sister’s place, recovering from the first seven days of riding, which came out to about 841 miles and 62,970ft of gain, solid numbers for a mountain road tour. I felt pretty well rested immediately after my long day with some creakiness in my knees and mild muscle soreness but no major pain or anything. Constant riding for work and longish rides for fun really helped build a solid base of fitness for ‘sport touring’, as we’ll call it, and helped keep injuries at bay. When I started touring I didn’t know enough about recovery and stretching and whatnot, and I already had a ton of miles on my chassis with some arthritis and old injuries, compounded by carrying what could be considered too much stuff, so I could do 100+ mile days but would have serious issues afterwards, such as major knee pain. Another positive change since then was the switch to SPD pedals. You can read arguments for and against SPD systems online with many people highlighting how one can pull up on the pedals to generate more power and all that jazz, but everyone seems to ignore one point that makes them so important to me, that one can stretch their calves and hamstrings deeply without getting off the bike. When descending or otherwise moving without pedaling, I move the leg I want to stretch into the forward position with pedals level with the ground, and I drop that heel as far as it will go. This stretches the muscles more deeply than I can do during a standard stretch off the bike, with the added bonus of still making forward progress. I do this many times in a ride, and if I had flat pedals and needed to dismount to stretch I would make much less progress per day. If you have arthritis or other knee problems, you may want to consider SPD’s for this reason. I use the mountain bike style ones as the cleats are smaller than the road version, and mountain bike SPD shoes can occasionally be had in models you can walk in. Many SPD shoes are much too narrow and really suck for walking around. I’m not quite sure why so few models are available that allow walking and hiking, I guess cause everything seems so racing oriented instead of practical use. Pearl Izumi often makes (and then discontinues) practical shoes such as their X Alp series, and I’m currently using a pair of Fizik Terra Ergolace shoes, which I would not buy again due to a poor shank design, but they fit the bill for now.
Anywho, for the trip back across the central valley to the Sierra I made sure to leave after my sister and brother in law had gone to work and I was alone. When you’re somewhere peaceful and comfortable around your peeps, you often don’t want to head off into the ‘unknown’, much like getting out of your nice warm bed in the morning to go to work or the DMV or something. I had to meet Jason in or near Yosemite for a few days of climbing there, so I figured I’d cross the valley and bivy somewhere in the hills near Oakhurst or Mariposa, and then ride into the valley the following day. One could get all tangled up in planning exactly when and where one would camp and thus make a specific point a goal, but I let go of that inflexibility early on in my touring career, and my recent focus on making decisions when they had to be made rather than overthinking them beforehand helped propel such thoughts into the future. The route would be broken into three easy to digest sections: crossing the coastal ranges, crossing the central valley, and riding to a logical avenue of approach for Yosemite Valley. I decided to mostly mirror my route I took to get to Watsonville, turning north in Hollister to ride over Pacheco Pass, which is a busy motorway with a surprisingly decent shoulder giving low-stress conditions over said pass and down into the valley. I can’t quite tell if I’ve ridden this section before, having driven it multiple times in the past, so I used Google Streetview to eyeball the shoulder and get a general idea of what it would be like. I suggest using Streetview to check out key intersections and look at the shoulder if you’re riding on roads through unfamiliar areas, as you can see if there are gates blocking access and so on.
The ride into Watsonville was chill with some morning traffic into town. I bee-lined it to Riverside/129 and steeled myself for the crappy shoulder and high traffic to Hollister. It was quite nice not having to deal with a strong headwind this morning and I made good progress into Hollister where I got more McDonalds and topped off my bottles. From here I turned north, passing the small airport and gaining Pacheco Pass. I wasn’t especially enthusiastic about this route as I figured it would be loud and not exactly chill, but it turned out alright. There was a fair bit of traffic but the shoulder was ample so I never felt stressed out about it. There’s a massive fruit market in the pass which I often visit, but this time I continued beyond, and stopped to stretch a few miles in. I had a strong tailwind this time, a very welcome change, and it was easy to get up to and beyond 20mph for quite some time on this pass. The land around Pacheco Pass itself is quite pretty with big rolling hills covered in grasses and dotted with Coastal Live Oak, cows and critters going about their business here and there. I put my earbuds in at my last stop so I was able to drown out the traffic and relax a bit more. The descent from the top was a bit more hair raising as the tailwind becomes a crosswind when you move through valleys, so I had to keep my speed low and my hands in the drops to control my loaded bike down the hill. The road turns straight as an arrow once you hit the deck and your excitement climaxes once you realize you get to cross the central valley again. Yet another central valley crossing! How I love thee! Eh, it’s not so bad when it isn’t 100*+ and super windy. I plotted a route down the main drag until I got into the creatively named community of Los Banos, turned north, and then picked quiet roads east towards Chowchilla. Some of these roads were quite rough, smoothing out when moving through city limits where money was spent to keep up on maintenance. Wide tires once again prove helpful to mute some of the smaller holes and cracks but progress is still a bit slower. It’s all a balancing act on road between high traffic roads that are smooth and do allow you to cover greater distances more quickly, or taking back roads which are often pretty beat up but have much less traffic. Just depends on your mood that day, really, your level of acceptable risk and the overall experience you wish to have.
There ain’t a helluva lot to talk about when crossing the valley. I put headphones on, get lost in music or a podcast, and keep pedaling. Eventually I hit Chowchilla and got, you guessed it, McDonalds, where I got a lot of McChickens and a frappe to power me through the night. I plotted a route through the hills on Road 603 to the town of Raymond, which I’d never been to, and beyond to approach Oakhurst from the northwest. The sun began to set just as the road steepened ever so slightly leaving the glorious San Joaquin Valley and I took a break to stretch and eyeball the maps just west of Hensley Lake. The road turns north and then east, winding up a low range of hills along a rather nice two lane country road approaching Raymond. Lots of short climbs and descents lead into town where I figured I’d take my next break and get some snacks and water down. There was a party of some sort going on at the general store, or perhaps it was a bar, and I felt the slight pull to stop by and use resupply as an excuse to talk to some people and hang out. I resisted and kept riding until the church parking lot on the right. I stretched my legs under the watchful eye of a neighborhood cat sitting atop a rock wall. It was getting chilly but the roads were getting steeper, sure to keep me warm until I found a place to rest. I continued on Road 600 aka Grub Gulch Road to cross a small pass in the distance, something I couldn’t see in the dark of the night. I was surprised at how steep the roads were, thinking this could definitely fit into a book on hard cycling climbs in this state had this not been such a minor back road.
As the night wore on I kept my eyes peeled for a hidden spot to bivy. I’d light up ditches and hills with my headlamp trying to find a spot away from private property yet out of view from the road, but was coming up short. I wasn’t tired yet but if I did lay down it wouldn’t take long to fall asleep, and I was entering a zone ideal for starting the next segment of the ride into Yosemite Valley. Eventually I found a nameless dirt road off the side which disappeared into some oaks not far from Ahwahnee and Bootjack Road. I got up onto the small rise above the main drag, put my bike down, and walked around looking for an ideal spot. I found one and set my groundsheet down, pointing myself towards the main road but away from the small canyon to my rear where I figured animals would approach from. Humans are a bigger threat than wild animals in my own travels, so I would rather see approaching people than bears or raccoons or whatever, a trade off in areas such as this where there would certainly be black bears roaming around looking for easy pickings. I settled in for the night, occasionally waking to look around when I thought I heard a big enough animal breaking brush nearby. I had covered 165 miles with 6,800ft of climbing from near Santa Cruz to this point, a fair day’s travel and a mileage figure that pops up often for solo touring-pace days on varied terrain.
In the morning I rode the five miles down into Oakhurst to Vons for supplies and breakfast. I chilled out front for a while and texted with Jason, asking him to pick me up in town. This would save the 50 miles or so of riding on the 41 into the valley, which I don’t particularly enjoy as it’s a bit busy. I had a few hours to kill while he drove up from LA so I rode to the discount market nearby and bought a buncha random cheap food for the next week or so before going to chill at the park. He picked me up a few hours later and we drove into the valley to our campsite at Upper Pines.
Thank you guys for reading part two of my report. Part three will cover Yosemite and beyond, north to Reno, and so on.
