Cycle Diaries

Icarus on a bicycle

2010-06-11T15:34:00.000-07:00

My route from Trujillo led me back into the moutains. Following the rio Santo on dirt roads up through the magnificent Cañon del Pato, through its many tunnels and out into the valley between the cordelerias blanco and negro, with the towering snowy peaks to my left, I arrived in the mountain climbers' delight that is the town of Huarez. Here for the final time I met up with Philip and Valeska, my Austrian friends, who had spent a week hiking in the surrounding moutains, while I had been getting myself back into the saddle in Trujillo. After a few beers that night we took an early (for me, late for them) start together and continued up the valley untill our paths seperated at the entrance to the national park guarding the Cordeleria Blanco. They were headed down to Lima and I was headed across the mountains towards Bolivia. My dirt path led me up to the guard station and at 4100 m it was incredibly cold and the park rangers were kind enough to let me sleep in their station and feed me with hot food for both supper and breakfast the next day.

I had just spent over two weeks at sea level and my ascent from 2000 m to my present 4100 m had taken me 2 days. A note here about altitude sickness: it is not the absolute height you reach that is important but the relative change of height and the speed at which you ascend. I had climbed high, fast and I was paying for it with a thumping head-ache. However after a rest at the guard station and some tea, I felt much better and ready for my climb the next day over the two passes ahead of me, the taller of the two at 4880 m. In the morning I felt good and despite a shortness of breath after relatively little exertion I was confident. This lasted untill about halfway to the first pass I was at about 4600 m and my crushing head ache was back with avengance. The smart thing to do here would be to go back down and spend the day acclimatizing. However I figured that if this pass was too much I could use the low point between the two passes to camp at and acclimatize there. By the time I reached the top of this first path my head ache was crippling but none of the other symptoms (lack of co-ordination, lack of focus, extreme cold) of Acute Mountain Sickness (yes I did my homework) were present. So I decided to keep going and hoped that the 200 m descent down to the low point would ease my head ache. It did not in fact, it got worse and a listlessness started to creep into my attitude and I realised I was too high to stay at over night, if I remained here I could be subject to two fatal conditions (HAPE and HACE, which are scarrily common causes of death in mountaineers).

Like Icarus I had tried to go too high but my only way out of this mess was to go yet higher. Unlike Icarus my machine was working fine, it was my body that was melting away. As I tried to cycle on the rough road bumping me around made my headache exrutiating and combined with the exertion and the gain in height I felt like I was about to vomit. I knew that if I did this I would loose all my strength, I would need all of this. So I got off my bike and started walking up the slope. As I climbed my co-ordination started to go and I kept stumbling on rocks, every 50 m I had to pause for a break to get my breath back and fight down the waves of nausea. Despite my worsening condition, I was not oblivious to my surroundings and I walked past glaciers on one side and snowy mountains away to the other. After 2 hours of struggle I crested the pass only to see the road, after an initial short dip snake up again round the next mountain. The next hour was one of the hardest of my life, the knowledge that dark was coming on and that if I didn't start to descend soon I was going to be in big trouble kept me moving despite the useless state my body and mind was in.

With half an hour of light left I crested the final pass and as I did so the rain started, first as a drizzle and then as a downpour. I was already cold, being at that height the day time temperatures combined with wind chill were below freezing and I was wearing 4 layers. The rain soaked me through despite my waterproof and the additional wind chill from descending rapidly penetrated all my layers. Icarus descended from the skies to the rocks below, I descended from altitude sickness to hyperthermia. My recovery from the altitude was as quick as my descent and felt almost like it had been a nightmare that had never actually happened. As my mind unfogged I realised that if I didn't find shelter from the rain and wind soon I was again in serious trouble, my whole body was already shaking uncontrolably, my feet and hands were blocks of ice. The trouble was the nearest settlement was about 30 km's away. Then as night fell I came upon a mining camp. I begged them to let me sleep in one of their porta cabins (by now I was down to 4200 m and only a head ache persisted), I think they could see I was in a bad way because they they let me in with little argument. I got into the porta cabin as fast as I could and started striping off my clothes, not an easy task given how hard I was shacking and the numbness of my hands (zips had to be done with my teeth). As I pulled on all my remaining dry clothes there was a knock on the door and one of the miners appeared with a mattress I grinned and mumbled my thanks and then climbed into my sleeping bag, curling into the fetus position and willing the shacking to stop. It did, and as it did another minner appeared with hot soup, chicken and rice. After inhaling this food I was almost hot and feeling like a different person. I feel I'm pretty lucky to have escaped this episode with no lasting damage and I don't think this would have been the case without the help of the minners, it seems there's a guardian angel looking out for me. Maybe its Icarus taking care of those with equally foolish ambition, those who try to travel too close to the sun.

Down but not quite out

2010-06-11T14:25:00.000-07:00

I should have realised that bad things were to come when my first night in Peru was ominously terrible: I had finished the border crossing with about half an hour of sunlight left to me. I spun past the straggling shanty of a border settlement and took the first track I could find off the main road. This shortly led me to a wood and what has, traditionally, been perect camping territory. I whipped out my cooking kit and got the rice and veg combo onto cook before having a look around. What I saw was this, spiders. Hundreds of bloody huge spiders, dangling from their webs between the trees, fangs glistening with arachnic intent. I'm not one to freak out about insects in general so i kept my cool. Found some open ground around a path through the wood and layed my sleeping mat down. By this time it was dark, I dug out my torch and flashed it around, thousands and thousands of tiny beads of light flashed back at me. It took me a few moments to realise that these beads where spider eyes reflecting the torch light back at me. My heart jumped, instead of the relatively few creatures confined to the trees, I was surrounded by legions of the eight legged beasts carpeting every possible surface. Supper would have to be to go. I packed up as fast as I could, taking care to leave any unwanted guests behind, and hit the road. Finding a new camping spot by torch light was going to be a little hit or miss but I thought I had hit the jackpot when I found another side track to an unused field. I had my food while inhaling the scent of mint I had crushed beneath my feet, congratulating myself on a job well done. That was untill I lay down and realised that I had landed myself slap bang in the middle of a swarm of mosquitos. The blood sucking did not let up till after I was back on the road with the dawn and my skin was a painfully itchy pattern of red blotches.

The next few days took me down through pampa (prarie land) to the coast and into unrelenting headwind kicking up sand and dust, from the desert surrounding my road, into my unprotected eyes. This three day struggle along the barren coast was terrible but as I reached the town of Paijan, cane fields and shelter from the wind I was just half a days ride from Peru's second biggest city Trujillo and a planned stop off at the world famous (cycling-world that is) Casa de Cyclista's. I was in good spirits and after twenty minutes of cruising through the fields of cane I saw a few guys by the road side next to their moto-taxi (the Peruvian answer to the rickshaw), not an unusual sight and I waved them a greeting. At this moment the foremost hombre drew a long kitchen knife from behind his back and wielded it in an unmistakingly threatening manner. I was only a few meters away from him and that distances was rapidly diminishing. My natural instinct was to swerve away, out of slashing range. This manouvre killed my speed and the bandito was able, after a couple of strides, to just grab the last item on the bike, my helmet dangling from the rear. He managed to drag me back in and taking a firmer grip hurled me into the center of the road, my bike landed on my chest and I was pinned against road. In an instant my attacker was joined by two more ladrones as they attempted to rip off my bags while dragging my bike to the side of the road. I clung onto the bike tight, with two of my panniers between the bike of the road and my leg round a third they were only able to get one of them. When the assailant with the knife realised his efforts at dragging the bike away were being hampered by my grip. He brought the knife a little closer to my face than comfort dictated and I let go. Two of them picked up my beloved machine and chucked it into the roadside ditch before making good their escape.

It took me a while in my shocked state to realise that leaving my bike behind was not benevelance on their part but a practicle measure, they couldn't have fit it into the moto-taxi and by chucking it into the ditch they reckoned on buying themselves enough time to escape. They were right. My bike had a gear lever ripped off, both rims were bent and the handlebars were at right angles to their accustomed position. I took stock of what was missing: one bag out of four it could have been worse. That's when I realised it was my bag containing my passport, my bank cards, my money, my camera, and the two most irreplacable items: all my photos on their memory cards and all my notes and contact details of those I had met along the way. At that point I have to admit that I thought it was game over and thiss thought hit me like a tonne of bricks. And if it had not been for the help and support I received in the Casa de Cyclista's this might well have been the case. This amazing place, home to any itinerant cyclist who finds their way to Trujillo (and most who cycle South America do), gave me a place to stay, other traveller's to get advice from and distracted me by hosting a world record, by a co-resident, of spending an incredible 33 hours wheeling round the main square in his wheel chair, without break. Acting as support team in this event helped me get over my problems and after 11 days in Trujillio I had a money card couriered out from England, my insurance was handled, a new passport ordered and most importantly Luchio, finest bike mechanic in Latin America (no exageration) and the man behind Casa de Cyclista's, had worked his magic on my bike and it was now better than new and I was ready to head up into the mountains.

The avenue of the volcanoes

2010-06-11T13:23:00.000-07:00

Type these magic words into google, hit "Images" and enjoy pictures of towering mountain peaks, stunning sunsets and erupting volcanoes. If on the other hand you decide to cycle through this route in May don't forget to bring your rain gear. I spent about a week toiling up and down the valleys that run at right angles to my route. This means to get to that point, just over there on the other side of the valley, so close you can almost touch it, you in fact have to turn to your left and follow the road for km after km down to the unbelievably inconsiderate river cross the bridge and then sweat your way back up the far side. This maybe would not be so bad if it was an occasional punishment but it is continuous, in the Ecuadorian Sierras the word plano (flat, for the linguistically challenged out there) does not exist. It also would have been bearable, maybe even enjoyable, if these alleged views had been visible. However in my week of Ecuadorian mountains I developed a vitamin D deficiency and turned from carribean-tanned to bed-sheet-white from lack of sunshine. Hyperbole aside, I managed to catch a glimpse of one volcano for about 5 minutes before it was again swallowed in cloud and these "stunning valleys" were 9 times out of 10 no more to me than a swirling mass of cloud and fog.

There were a couple of highlights to this section and, as always seems to happen when nature lets me down, these came from people. The first was when the weather let up enough for me to camp next to a river in, what I thought was, a secluded cannon. Above me, perched on a shelf in the cannon, lived a family of indigenous farmers. When they realised that they had a gringo guest camped out below them they whipped out the welcome mat and, after my futile protests, handed me chocla (corn on the cob), peaches and apples, straight off their respective plants. Never has corn tasted so good as it did in the mouth of a hungry cyclist, after a day of struggling through valleys and so fresh it was almost alive. The second highlight came when I eventually met up with two Austrian cyclists. I had first met Phillip and Valeska way back in December on the Baja. We had got seperated by the crossing to the mainland and had since taken different routes. However we had kept in pretty good contact and finally in Ecuador we managed to meet back up and have a few days of riding together to Cuenca and finally into some sunshine. This Austrian couple are exceptionally inspiring, having now spent over three and a half years pedalling the globe, at a much faster pace than any other couple-bikers I've met. Their attitude to what is an amazing feat of endurance however is incredibly relaxed, in Phillip's case utterly childish in the most entertaining of ways, and is summed up by the name of their website: http://www.2-play-on-earth.net/. So with many an entertaining story from their travels and the occasional fart-gag from Philip the rainy km's to Cuenca slipped by.

Cuenca itself is a good looking colonial town, something seemingly scarce in these parts, and I enjoyed a few days there, waiting for my cycling shoes to finally clear customs. Here I departed from the Austrian duo as they decided to get down to the coast and out of the rain, while I, ridiculously, decided to stay in the mountains and give the elements another chance. After two and a half more days of pants weather I finally cleared the last of the clouds with a pass out from the town of Loja. That evening just as I was searching for a place to camp, I came round a corner and saw the town of Catacocha perched on it's hill, with swirling cloud, golden with the setting sun, surrounding its base. I have never seen a sight that looked more like it belonged in a book of fairy tales. The next day saw me pass up and down my final Ecuadorian valleys and into the flat lands of Peru.

Quito

2010-05-06T09:58:00.000-07:00

They say that first impressions are important so when I arrived exhausted after nearly 100km and 1500m of climbing, soaking wet from the driving rain and unable to see anything but low smoggy clouds I felt me and Quito had got off on the wrong foot. I trudged, driping the equatorial rain, into an internet cafe to look for a hostel and saw I had a message from a Quitoñian cyclist I had contacted. After a quick phone call, I had a place to stay and as I walked out the door the sky was brightening and the sun was threatening to make a welcome breakthrough, things were looking up. 30 minutes later I had been greeted by Luis, my host, with a big bear hug and was tucking into a delicious lunch. Things kept on improving: Luis had spent 6 years living in London so he knew well the British sense of humour (aswell as being fully supplied with tea and marmalade) that I had been missing; on top of this both he and Margarita worked as guides in Ecuador and so I learnt a great deal from them about the country I was now passing through.

I had originally planned to spend only a few days in Quito but this changed to over a week as I waited in vain for ash-delayed shoes to arrive from England. However a combination of language school and Luis's energy and passion for cycling and promoting our fine sport kept me extremely busy. Luis quickly put his network of contacts in gear and before my 8 day stay was over I had done an interview for a national radio station (you can hear the complete terror in my voice in the first half before I managed to relax a little), an interview for a Quitoñian cylcing campain, ciclopolis and given a talk at Luis's sons school. The last one of these was by far the most enjoyable as talking to and interacting with kids, who seemed genuinely interested by the idea of my trip, was surprisingly rewarding and also gave me a chance to really assess my trip to date and the people and places I had seen.

However not all was work: on the weekend we headed out towards the volcano, Pichincha, that dominates (when the clouds allow) the western Quito sky. As we dropped into the adjacent valley, that holds an easier route to the summit, all memory of the big smoggy city melted away. The countryside was strangely very English with lush green fields dotted with cows and of course plenty of cloud. The cloud was so abundant that after a delicious lunch of typical Ecuadorian food (a root, similar to a new potato, and big green beans stewed together, served with fat corn on the cob, potato cakes and roasted pork) we decided it was pointless to try and climb the Volcano and so on a whim we stopped off at a Hacienda on the way home. We spent the next 4 hours walking round the grounds, playing football and I even tried my hand at miking a cow before sitting in front of a roaring fire drinking hot choclate, made from the milk I'd just been skwirting into a bucket, chatting with the owners of the Hacienda, who were also very keen cyclists.

On every Sunday a very special thing happens in Quito: they close to traffic a route through the city, around 30 km's from North to South. On this route only vehicles without an engine are allowed, the most common is of course the beloved bicycle but there are also plenty of walkers, joggers and kid's on push scooters. This weekly event gives an amazing opportunity to see the city and with Martin, one of Luis's sons, I took full advantage of this and together we cycled the length of the route and back again, passing through the modern commercial center, then the historic old town before heading into the Southern suburbs and finishing in a beautiful city park. After such a long stay and having done so much with Luis and his family I was sad to be leave them and the weather mirrored my mood as I peddalled out into a torrential downpour. I had one final treat waiting for me in Quito, a meeting with another cyclist. Mario had spent four months cycling round Ecuador, written a book about his adventures (I am now a proud owner of an auotgraphed copy) and was putting the final touches to preparations for cycling round his home continent, a 2 year trip. Cycling the back roads of Quito listening to Mario talk about routes and places to visit on my way down to Peru was a fitting end to my stay in this phenomenal city.

When the going gets tough...

2010-04-27T19:12:00.000-07:00

Easy is not the word I would choose to describe my ride as far as Medellin. However I had been on the road for six and a half months and up till then any problems I'd had were one off's: trouble with my front rack, a particularly hard stretch of road, or fighting through rain and wind. All these problems were temporary or a quick fix was available and generally speaking my ride had been trouble free. Hard work, yes but I had never felt like everything was falling apart. That is untill the Southern half of Colombia.

My troubles started innocently enough: I was staying with a Colombian cyclist in the Zona Cafeteria, the heart of Colombia, and he wanted to take me mountain biking to show me the area around his finca. A great day was had, bumping and skidding down (and back up) a beautiful river valley. Unfortunately my bike was not made for aggresive down hill biking, so when I had a look at my bike a couple of days later I was not completely surprised to find cracks radiating from several spoke holes. I guess after 7,000 miles of carrying me and my kit the mountain biking was the final straw. However all was not lost, only one crack looked like real trouble, the other ones were just hairline, so I fancied my chances of making it to Cali (2 days down the road), where I was sure to find a replacement. After 2 days of searching every bike shop in Cali (no mean feat in just 2 days), I concluded that finding a replacement would involve a 10 day wait for one to be shipped in. This was not part of my plan so I bit the bullet and went to get the severe crack welded. Now this is quite a desicion as welding aluminium is a tricky job and I had heard plenty of accounts of frames and racks being destroyed at the hands of cowboy workmen, on top of this for the second time in the trip I would have to rebuild my wheel only to have the prospect of repeating this three hour operation (that's right, I knocked an hour and a half off my previous time) when the rim gave in down the road. However el maestro did a superb job and after a few hours of reconstruction I was back in buisness.

The day I left Cali, for my ride up to Popayan, the weather was fine but as evening approached the clouds started to gather quickly and the rumble of thunder sounded over the mountains on both sides. I found a spot to camp and had just finished eating my supper when the heavens opened. Great timing I thought, luck is with you. Luck was not with me: it rained and it rained and it rained, easing off with the approach of dawn. Now so much water had fallen from the skies that despite being well up a slope I was now camped in standing water. This would not have been such a problem at the beginning of the trip but by now my kit was starting to show the inevitable wear and tear of life on the road and both my tent and one of my panniers had holes in them. This meant that about half my kit was soaking wet and I would need to spend time drying it out if it ever stopped raining. Well it didn't stop raining and so when I rolled into Popayan that afternoon I was looking forward to a hot shower and dry clothes. I, being the team player I am, put all my kit out on the balcony of my dorm room, not wanting to subject my fellow guests to the god awfull stink of damp cycling kit. This turned out to be a gigantic mistake: the next morning I went to see if all my things had dryed out over night only to discover that my shoes were missing, but for some reason the rascals had chosen to leave my stinky cycling rags behind.

The upshot of this was that I had to cycle to Quito, a week down the road, in shoes that were little more than slippers (Colombian's have tiny feet and Icouldn't find replacement cycling shoes anywhere). Every pedal stroke was agony as the soles were too thin to prevent the pedals digging into the soles of my feet and the grip on them was so lacking that my feet were constantly cramped with the effort of hanging on. Still though this was character building stuff, that was untill I choose the wrong tap to fill my water bottle from. The next 5 days were horrendous, struggling up and down vast mountainsides, constantly feeling weak and like my guts were going to drop out, not being able to eat much as it quickly made its return to the outside world in various new and disgusting forms. A couple of nights were so bad that I was forced to take rest days to recover, I will remember the two nights of pain I spent in Tulcan, just on the Ecuadorian side of the border, for many years to come. So at last on my trip, seven months in, the going got really tough and how did I react, did I get going? Well for two days I definately did not go anywhere apart from regular trips to the bog. However I managed to keep making progress (at about half the speed I would normally have made) and so I'm pretty happy to conclude that this trip has made me half-tough, quasi-Bear-Grylls maybe a camp Ross Kemp.

This post has been pretty glass half empty but now that I have the luxury of looking back at it, I can slip on the old rose tinted glasses and appreciate some of the great things during this part of the trip. To start with was the staggering beauty of the mountains: three times I climbed over 3000 m as I headed into the Andes proper and thanks to the proliferation of rain, when it cleared I was cycling above dollops of clouds left in the valleys below, giving a sureal feeling. Next was Miguel, a Colombian cyclist I travelled with for a couple of days, allowing me to see yet another side of this great country. And as always the people I stayed with were phenomenal, espeically Miller in Cali, who has opened his house wide to cyclists and is always ready, with advice and a smile, to help out his fellow pedal pushers.

Colombia es pasion

2010-04-06T09:05:00.000-07:00

This slogan is pasted across trucks and dotted on walls in many Colombian towns. It could not better sum up what Colombia is all about. From the moment Windfleet, the boat that carried us from Panama, rounded the point into Sapzuro bay the vitality of Colombian life sprang out at you: from the colour splashed across every building, to the people laughing and joking with each other in the streets. Every person you meet is immediately engaging and lively, from bums still pissed from the night before, through other cyclists (and there are a lot of these) to Finca owners, everyone wants to talk and there is never a dull moment. In every town I've passed through, the streets have been teeming with people chatting and doing buisness.

For the first four days of cycling in Colombia I was with Binya, a czech cyclist who had also come over from Panama on Windfleet. Binya claimed he was more of a traveller by bike than a cyclist but this was now his second long tour and his pace was almost identical to mine. This, his laid back attitude and love of lunch time beer made him the perfect travelling companion for me. Those four days took us across snooker table farm land, up and down and up jungled river valleys and then the climb into the highlands. This turned out to be in fact three climbs and to reach Medellin (1500 m) we climbed somewhere between 5000 and 6000 m. This was also the most spectacular scenery I had encountered since Guatemala and included my favorite road so far. I'm not going to say exactly where it is because as soon as the word, that Ed Herbert sage of cycling lore has determined the "Best Road between Vancouver and Medellin", gets out the place will be teeming with lycra clad thighs and the streets will echo with the clip-clop of cleats on cobbles. Let it suffice to say that the road passed up from the busy main road into the Alps-like mountains, through a beautiful village clinging onto the steep valley sides before snaking its way ever upwards to a pass at 2400 m about 800 m above the lorries left far below. Along this road in 2 hours I tallied: 4 motor bikes, 2 cars, 3 trucks, 1 pot hole, it doesn't get much better.

So considering this I should probably quit now, I mean if this is the best then its all going to be downhill from here, surely? Well I quite want to go past active volcano's in the north of Colombia, cycle among snow capped mountains and eat guinea pig in Ecuador, climb through passes of upto (and maybe over) 5000m, visit Manchu Pichu and colonial cities in Peru, pass through the salt plains in Bolovia, cycle through vineyards and beef country, and watch the junior rugby world cup in Argentina. So probably now is not the best time to stop, plenty more to see and do.

My stay in Medellin was one of the most amazing in my trip. I met Eduardo and his brother on a road perched above Medellin, with the city lying snuggling in its broad mountain valley below. They had spent the day up in the mountains and were now on their way back home, they invited me to stay and so I did. The descent down into the Barrio of Blancazal was exhilirating, following the boys on their motorbike while dodging the buses coming in and out of every side road. Blancazal is surely one of the poorest Barrios in Medellin but the Colombian vitality and passion is as alive here as anywhere else and Eduardos huge family (Mum, Dad, Uncle, four brothers and sisters (all with espoza(o)), and countless cousins) welcomed me in like another member of the family. I have never met people with so much kindness and giving about them: over the two days I spent with them they cared for me so well: cleaning my bike while I was asleep, washing and mending my rag-like excuses for clothes, shopwing me the city, sharing their food with me (it was an uphill battle convincing them to let me contribute) but most of all they opened themselves up and truely let me into their lives with their laughter and caring. When I left they insisted on carrying my panniers to the top of the hill for me, I thought this meant to the top of the steep hill fust outside the house (maybe 200m). At the top of this hill I stopped to retrieve my things, I was told no, they were going to take my bags to the top of the pass out of town and before I could protest they had set off. 2 hours, 1000 m of climb and 42 km later we arrived at the top of the pass and our final goodbye, there were tears.

Although Eduardo's family is the most amazing display of the Colombian spirit, its essence has been echoed many times both before and since. From people sharing their time or some fruit (or a Antioquia cycle club water bottle), to people that have taken me into their homes and shared their lives with me, I have been truely stunned by this fantastic country. Colmbia truely is passion.

The Road to Nowhere

2010-04-06T07:34:00.000-07:00

Having spent 10 days doing around half the cycling I was used to, then 10 days sitting on a beach, drinking beer, chatting shit (particularly Andrew) and occasionally popping into the water for a brief surf, I had grown fat and used to the comfort I had been embracing. Well now was time to whip myself back into shape and try to claw back some of the money I had been hemorraging on the Samarian beach. I set myself the target of reaching Panama city in 10 days, that would average at almost exactly 100 kms every day and allow me to catch a boat sailing to Colombia. The first day was tough, the heat was fierce and to get away from the coast the road sprang up and down like a jack-in-the-box. However that night, camped in the back garden of a friendly Costa Rican, I congratulated myself: 110 km's done, $5 spent and only some mild cramping. The next day was a different story though. It started off fine but as the day wore on and the clouds burned off the heat become really intense, and before long I was completely saturated with my sweat, being able to ring out of my clothes. Despite drinking 10 litres of water that day my body started to protest hard: first shortly after my lunch break my left knee blew out, making progress agonising work. Then the cramps started: first my feet went, then it slowly spread to my calves, up my legs to my quads then hamstrings, my hips went first before my stomach, ribs, chest and even the left side of my jaw followed. It felt like I was having a heart attack (I have since been told it was heat exhaustion), but being in the middle of nowhere I had to struggle on, and after 5 km's of utter agony and testing my will to the limit I made it to the top of the hill leading down into Costa "del sol" Rica, the area surrounding Jaco, which is all to reminisent of the Spanish South coast, or the southern Californian one. On the descent my body cooled enough to allow my cramps to ease off a little. That night I lay out on a beach praying that the next day would find my knee in good enough condition to ride. To start with it was solid with stiffness but thankfully the coast road was flat and I was able to warm it up and get it functioning. That day was equally hot but this time instead of the paltry 10 litres I consumed close to 13 and this seemed to keep the cramps at bay again I ended up sleeping out on a beach with a stunning sunset, only to be continualy woken by crabs investigating my prescence all night long with their claws. The next two days took me along lovely jungled roads, through rolling pasture land and finally up to the Panamanian border: 5 days 550 km done, $40 spent, I was on track. Three things immediately struck me about Panama: soldiers, cars and a complete and utter lack of bicycles. Costa Rica is extremely rare in that it was no army and so for the last three weeks I hadn't seen camouflage uniform's strutting up and down the streets like the cock of the roost. So immediately crossing the border and being confronted by this sight was a bit of an unpleasant shock (I'm not a big fan of automatic weapons being waved about). Most of Central America is a very poor place so the numbers of private cars is relatively small, this is not true of Costa Rica but I had been sticking firmly to out of the way roads, so after 2 months of few cars, coming into Panama was like entering rush hour London for me, thankfully though the Pan-American highway comes fully equipped with a nice wide shoulder for the rare cyclist. Rare because Panamanians don't seem keen on the method of transport. Originally I thought it was because they were all rich enough to afford cars but then I started to cycle pass carts being pulled by oxen. I think the reason is because of the quality and speed of their bus service, which speed pass me every few minutes at break neck pace, often providing moments of great hilarity, like dogs calmly standing on the roof while being whisked along at 60 km/h. Unfortunately due to my target of making it to Panama city, so as to catch my boat, I had to stick to the Pan-American throughout Panama. This meant tediem and plenty of it but the glimpses of the real Panama I saw when I turned off the road for food (best chicken I have ever had) or a place to camp, gave me the impression that with a little more time this country had plenty to offer the touring cyclist. 10 days after pulling out of Samara I crossed the bridge of the Americas and into Panama city and the end of the road (almost). In the ten days I had shed my beach flab and was as fit as I had been when I had entered Costa Rica a month earlier, this gave me confidence as my next target was Medellin in the Colombian Andes and all the work I had done over the last 5 and a half months would be put firmly to the test.

Costa Rica

2010-04-06T05:50:00.000-07:00

My rapid pace (for me) through Central America had been due, to a large extent, to the fact that my sister, Susie, was coming to join me for 10 days of cycling. So everday for the last 3 weeks I had been pushing out 100 km plus days with only 4 rest days (one of which was spent mountain biking in Guatemala). So, with my typical clarity of judgement, on the eve of our rendevous, and with still 55 km left to cycle by 1 O'clock, I decided to attend a birthday party and not hold back on the rum and beers. This, coupled with a headwind along the shores of lake Nicaragua, made for extremely painful progress. However I still made it to the border crossing (20 km from Susie and the poison finally sweated away), by 11. This should be fine, I said to myself, as I breezed through the Nicaraguan side of the formalities. After all between all the Central American countries I had had no problems (lets not talk about Mexico though), that is untill now. I cheerfully strolled up to the front of a busy looking immigation window and asked to be admitted into Costa Rica, I was told unless I wanted to pay a bribe to get to the back of the queue. "What queue? The one over there" indicating a line of about 20 people "No, that one over there" indicating a line stretching round two sides of the large building and then snaking off into the car park "Oh, shit". An hour later I was again at the front of the line and soon clipped into my pedals and rolling towards my rendevouz. I eventually arrived in the town of La Cruz only 5 minutes late, dripping with sweat and grime and comically I had applied sun screen to only 1 arm (I blame the booze) so while one was a glowing bronze the other resembled that of a patient in a burns ward. Meeting Susie was, surprisingly, a very normal moment. I had been expecting a huge outflow of emotion at seeing my first family member for 5 months but to be honest it felt like I'd been away for only a week. Susie had come equipped with a mountain bike and so of course she wanted to explore the dirt roads, of which there are many, around the Nicoya peninsular. Over the next week we camped on beaches, in national parks among semi-wild horses, and next to a fishing village. We spent days watching monkeys (Susie had studied them in Costa Rica for a year and so was amazing at explaining their behaviour), saw epicly-sized iguanas, fishing eagles and camen. We swam in jungle pools and at stunning bleached-white beaches. And of course we shook our bikes and bodies to pieces along the gravel tracks Costa Ricans pretend are roads, shooting through fords, across narrow suspension bridges and up and down countless jungle shrouded tracks. Eventually we arrived to the perfect half-moon bay of Carrillio. Here Susie would enjoy a couple of days of beach time to relax before heading back to the daily grind in the English winter. While this would be my one proper holiday from my travels: I took ten days to relax completely, get fat and attempt to surf with two of my friends from home, Kate and Andrew. The only low point was Susie leaving and all the emotion that had been missing from our meeting was here in spades. I hadn't realised how close we had been, cycling together for a week, teaching each other from our experiences: Susie teaching me about the monkey world she had been absorbed in for a year, and I teaching Susie my bike life and daily experience over the previous 5 months. And so the fairwell was a teary one and it took a few Imperials to restore my good humour that afternoon.

The Gringo Trail

2010-03-04T10:04:00.000-08:00

I had heard a lot of bad stories about cycling in the highlands either side of the Guatemalan/Mexican border. These mainly revolved around armed muggings on deserted roads leaving the cyclists without that vital piece of equipment to continue their journey but some were truly nasty, and sent a tingle down my spine. To reassure myself I contacted the British consul in Guatemala, they surely would have a sensible perspective and would cut through the rumors I'd heard. After several emails and a 20 minute conversation I couldn't have been more worried: my contact was shocked that I intended to cycle alone without support and even went as far as to recommend an armed guard through the region. So it was not without apprehension that I climbed out of San Cristobal, descended stunning switchbacks and spun along beautiful valley roads towards the border and the Western Guatemalan Highlands. Along the way I met three Americans, two brothers from California and an Alaskan they'd met on their way, who had come to join them for a few months. These were the first cyclists, heading the same way as me, that I'd seen for nearly two months, and it was great to spend the afternoon cycling with Chris and chat to the brother's later on. The down side of this meeting was even more violent stories concerning cyclists on the roads we were pedaling towards, my apprehension was mounting. The next day I crossed the border into Guatemala and finally after 4 months in the saddle reached my fourth country of my trip. All did not go smoothly at the border: I had cycled past the migration office and 8 km's uphill in the sweltering midday heat to the actual border only to be told I couldn't cross unless I returned to the bottom. I couldn't face having to do that climb a second time in the mounting heat with sweat and grime already pouring off me, also the worry that had been building in me led to what must be one of the more comical hissy-fits of all time: trying to convince the guard in my broken Spanish, while trying to put across my indignation at having my energy and time wasted. A Chiapan standing by listening to my verbal diahorea, offered me a lift back down to the bottom and gave me money for a taxi back up when I was done (I'd spent my last Peso that morning). As I was sitting in the back of the car I started thinking about the generosity that I had been shown throughout my trip and all the bad stories I had been told about the places I was about to enter: in California I was told that I would get my head chopped off in Mexico (admittedly by a pot-head), yet I hadn't met kinder people when I actually arrived there. This made me determined, not forget, but to place the stories I'd heard to the back of my mind and try to be as positive as I could, after all what would happen would happen and in the mean time I didn't want to keep picking fights with border guards just trying to do their job. Lesson learnt, I settled into my saddle to enjoy the spectacular scenery of the Guatemalan highlands. My initial climb was along a steep river valley cut through the mountains with the afternoon sun shafting down to illuminate the Eastern wall and a river flowing to the West of me. I was rapidly beginning to appreciate that while bad things happened in Guatemala, the average man on the street was a bit of a legend: whenever I stopped for a rest someone would wander over to ask what I was doing or to offer me a drink and give me directions. This combined with some of the finest scenery I had yet been treated to made my fears melt away. My third night in the Highlands I stayed with Carl, an American ex-pat who had been living in the area for over thirty years. I couldn't resist staying for an extra night and enjoying more of Carl's excellent home grown food. Carl put further paid to the stories I'd been overloaded with, telling me that all the worst ones occurred either due to Gringo's getting involved with the local drug gangs or on some really remote roads, where not even Guatemalans should travel. Thus reassured I was able to fully enjoy my spin over to and around the world famous lake Atitlan. I have to say that it did not disappoint. Coming over the crest of mountains to look over the lake with its three volcanoes to the South and ring of mountains to North and East covered in storm clouds while the sun poured onto the lake from the South-West was a truly stunning panorama. The descent down to the lake was at an unbelievable gradient, twice I had to stop to let the rims of my wheels cool as the braking friction was so great I feared the tyres would burst. After a stop over at the lake I had to hit the trail hard to meet Susie, my sister, in two weeks. I descended down into the stinking heat of the Guatemalan coast and continued to spin along the coast through El Salvador. This country was a hugely pleasant surprise, my first night I stayed with a bike mechanic who treated me like a son and interested me to the national dish of Pupusus, fiery pockets of cheese, beans and spinach. I also had the best sea food of my trip, in a restaurant perched on a cliff overlooking pearl divers in the sea below, while I sat out the heat of the day. Next port of call was Honduras, which I had intended to spend less than 48 hours in. Fortunately I got side-tracked by Maite, a Belgian NGO worker, who took me up to the capital for a great weekend of music, drinking and fun before providing me with a new aerodynamic haircut. I then pedaled on into Nicaragua and after spending a night camped out at the mirador overlooking Laguna de Apoya, Granada and Lago de Nicaragua (not a bad spot). I had one of my more entertaining run-ins: cycling in places like Central America it is inevitable that sometimes the call of nature becomes an urgent screaming very rapidly. On one such occasion I quickly spied a gap in the fence to my left, propped my bike against a convenient tree and dived into the bushes to do what had to be done. I was happily doing my business when a van pulled up next to my bike, shit...I'm going to get my bike nicked while I'm taking a dump, could it get any worse? I rapidly cleaned myself up and rushed out to the road to deter these bandits only to be met by a smiling Califonian, John, who had spent 11 months cycling in Asia and stopped every time he met a fully loaded bike on the road. He invited me to stay with him on the beach and I spent three happy nights at Playa Gigante, learning to surf.

Rest and Relaxation

2010-02-24T15:34:00.000-08:00

After my tussel with the winds I felt it was finally time to do a little sight seeing and take a little time off the saddle. I made a final climb up to, the surprisingly freezing, city of San Cristobal about 150 km's from the Guatemalla border, and on route I took a lovely little boat trip up the Chiapa's answer to the Grand Canyon, with the cliffs towering a km vertically over our heads. In San Cristobal I would leave my bike and kit, taking a bus uip to the bright lights of Mexico city. My first night in the biggest of big smokes saw me drinking and partying with 20 locals I met through Henny, a new friend from Taxco, I seem to remember at one point tequilla shots in Sombrerros. Other highlights included going to a salsa club (fat old men suddenly jumping out of their seats and dancing like they were 20-and not just chucking out the old cooking pot routine in lounge but dancing like pro's), climbing the 3rd largest pyramid in the world, going to watch wrestling and the arrival of Andrew, the first familiar face I had seen in 4 months, who had sweetly timed his arrival to coincide with my birthday. For my birthday Andrew and I were given a guided tour round the city by Alex, a friend of Henny's, who gave up his afternoon to show off his city, stuff us with supeme Mexican cuisine and get us pissed, before driving us back to our hostel, what an absolute legend. After 9 nine days off the bike and with my batteries recharged (although perhaps with a little too much booze), I returned to San Cristobal to fix up my bike with the parts Andrew had brought me from England and to prepare myself for my charge through Central America...

The Cruel North Wind

2010-02-24T14:40:00.000-08:00

Ok so it was from the North-East but cruel it certainly was: On my descent from Oaxaca I met a quite frankly, charming German couple (miracles happen), who told me I could expect some pretty fierce head and side winds as I crossed into Chiapas, my final Mexican state. They claimed that these are the strongest winds in the Americas north of Patagonia. Of course immediately my natural cynicism went into action: if these winds were so bad how come I was only hearing about them two days before hitting them? The next night I stayed with a bike mechanic who confirmed that the ride the next day would not be the cake walk that the flatness of my map suggested it might. Re-checking my map I noticed the name of one town, Ventosa (place of wind), and a load of wind farms around it, hhhmmm maybe my cynicism should take a back seat and pragmatism take the wheel. So I psyched myself up for a long day in the saddle but still didn't really buy into the hype. In the morning my casual attitude seemed fair enough, the wind was pretty strong but nothing I hadn't seen before or could handle, little did I know that this was just a prelude to what was awaiting me around the corner... Here we pause for a little geography lesson: Mexico is built very similarly to Jonny Bravo, with huge broad shoulders, pecks to put Arnie to shame but then tappering into a tiny waist more likely to be found on your average 16 year old anorexic. At this point the mountains, which had put me to work for the previous month, fade into flat plans for about 10 miles before climbing again to build into the Chiapan highlands. The effect of this is to create a tunnel of flatland between the Carribean and the Pacific, a tunnel which channels all the wind created by the very different conditions in these two vast bodies of water... Ok, lesson over. The tunnel effect means that you don't feel the full effect of the wind untill you are already in it. So as I approached Ventosa I had no idea that once I climbed the slight hill in front of me, I would be entering the cyclists' idea of the worst corner of hell. As I climbed this rise, swerving all over the road to try and contol my bike, being blown several times off the road, a car pulled up and the occupants shouted at me "do you want a ride?", "Absolutamente no. Gracias." They told me that in a while it would get stronger yet, again I declined, after all there was no room in the car. So I peddaled on and topped the rise, to be blown straight off the road by a savage side swipe. I got back onto my bike and somehow managed to get down the far side, dodgeing the lorries coming from both directions. Now at this point the wind reached its peak and instead of mearly sweeping us off the road, all 55kg of bike and kit and 85kg of prime Herbert steak went airbourne, both wheels off the road at once. I was stunned lying at the bottom of the ditch, I couldn't believe what had just happened. As I pushed my bike back up to the road I turned my face profile to the wind and went to take a breath of air, instead of the accustomed feeling, learned and confirmed by 23 years of experiment, of air filling my lungs, the remaining air was sucked out by the vaccum, the cause of the wind rushing past my open mouth. I tucked my head into my armpit and tried to push my bike along the road, holding it at as low an angle as possible to stop it and me being blown into the marsh waiting to gobble me up below. Unfortunately the wind contrieved to whip in under my bike and cartwheel it over my head. After this I sat in the ditch trying to contemplate my next move: I couldn't go back and I couldn't go forward, without being blown either into the marsh or into the path of a passing truck. I couldn't stay where I was: there was no chance of camping in this wind and I had no food and little water, to put it mildly I was fucked. Then my knight in his white pick up truck rode up to my rescue: "do you want a ride", "absolutamente si. Gracias". I was dumped ten km's up the road, still with (by normal standards) a howling side wind but at least I could ride in it without feeling death tapping his watch at me. This wasn't quite the end of my adventures with the wind. The next day I climbed up through a valley into the Chipan Highlands, the wind building as I approached the top, as I turned round the final bend the wind smashed into my side sending me summersaulting across the black top and into the drainage ditch, a couple of meters from a shear drop off of several hundred feet. So what have I learnt from battling the second strongest winds on the two continents of the Americas? Don't cycle in Patagonia.

The Little Gringo who Could

2010-01-07T22:46:00.000-08:00

Oaxacañian children waving and shouting "hola amigo" or, from those with a weight of culture and learnedness behind them, "waz up man" will tell the tale of the little gringo who could when they are silvered and bent with arthritis. They will tell of a gringo who for four days danced up one side of their mountains, only to fall down the other. They will tell how he sweated through the searing mid-day heat of their valleys and battled through the oppresion of the humid, black skied mountains, disappearing into the clouds only to reappear with a sea of sweat and condensation in his beard. They will tell how the gringo put away the comforts of home: sleeping among the chickens and the turkeys, camping in fields of sugar cane, curled between the roots of trees.

Upon the dawning of the fifth day the little gringo had 140 km to reach his goal, a bed in Oaxaca. "This is not so very far " said the gringo to himself. Then the gringo felt the wind in his face, "ah that will make it tricky". Then the gringo saw that there were only 10 hours of daylight in which to make his way "this will make it hard". Then the gringo consulted his map and saw the mass of brown and gray through which his mountain road would run "this cannot be done". But then the little gringo thought "if you were of this country, would you be a Mexican or a Mexican't?", he was not sure but he knew that he would have the answer by the end of the day. And so the little gringo clipped into his pedals and headed on his way. All morning he turned his cranks, fighting the hills, bouncing to start with, punching the pedals when he grew tired. The road wound so much that as often as the wind was in his face it was at his back and after four hours he had covered half his distance, he would make it! Just as he started to believe this his back wheel dragged, all the air having been leaked from a puncture. Then a bolt on his front rack sheared. However the little gringo did not lose faith: he changed his tyre, he secured his rack with twists of wire and he climbed bck into his saddle. He had lost an hour and still needed to stop for food. However among the mountains there was no food: the Tienda's were baire, having been stripped over christmas. And as the little gringo lost energy so his pace slowed. But as despare was beginning to dawn on him he encountered a little Tienda that had bannanas for sale, "perfect" thought the little gringo. He reached into his pocket but all he had was a $500 note and the owner of the tienda said to the little gringo "no hay, cambio". The little gringo was crest fallen and seeing this the owner of the tienda, a kindly old woman, took pity on the little gringo and gave the bannanas to him. Re-energised the little gringo peddaled harder than ever and with an hour till the sun set he had merely ten km's to cycle. After half this time, the little gringo stood on a rise looking down into the city of Oaxaca, he had made it, he was the little gringo who could! However the little gringo who could, could not, the next day, walk. That is ok, he made good friends with his bed and the sofa.

Maincourse Mexico

2010-01-07T20:38:00.000-08:00

After the h'orderve that had been Baja California and my break on beach and boat I was keen to sink my teeth into the delicious looking main course of mainland Mexico. As much as I had enjoyed Baja it had felt like an American annex, not so Mexico's Pacific coast. This was full on, my tentaive Spanish received looks of puzzelment, whereas before they would have ellicited a conversation in Spanglish; the roads where bursting at the seems with every type of vehicle from truck to donkey pulled cart and the humid intensity of the heat meant a drink stop every ten km for a refreso or ice cold coconut milk. All this I was expecting and loving; the liveliness and colours made a welcome change to Baja's montone desert. What I had not expected was the generosity of the Mexican people: my first night I camped on a beach in front of a bar, no sooner had I asked if it was ok for me to stay there then a beer was thrust into my hand "para ti amigo, gratis", "muchos gracias". This generosity has been echoed ever since: fruit is regularly added to my load, breakfasts are bought for me, bike mechanics refuse payement. I have twice been given free hotel rooms, although once I had to turn it down because the road was beckoning and the other time I spent half the night listening to the couple next door getting aquainted with admirable persistance. I quickly climbed away from the coast into the state of Jalisco, home to the town of Tequila, and into fields of agarve and huge mountain valleys. Unfortunately I had to follow the main road from the coast to Mexico's heartland and as a result I was twice introduced to the state's ditches by passing lorries. After this I hit Michocan and a whole load of cyclists, they were everywhere in the towns and even a few with flash road bikes on the rural roads. This made for much more pleasant cycling as the lorries no longer held such sway over the tarmac. My first major city I stayed in was Morelia, I had meant to stay for a lunch time and ended up staying two nights. This was partly due to the beauty and life of the city, looking its best on the weekend before christmas and partly due to the people I meet there, which entailed me sweating out an aching hangover heading onto the most beautiful road I have traveled in Mexico. This road wound from Morelia up through a nearly vertical, pine coated valley, into the heights of central Mexico, where the country's two major mountain ranges collide. The heighest I reached was a pass of 3500 m on boxing day, having seen in christmas day in a cantina, which would be flattered by a description of grot hole, but had the fine destinction of a roaring fire, and spent the day visiting the winter home of the Monarch butterfly. These creatures travel from Canada and Northern USA (essentially I've been cycling as fast as a butterfly, hhmmm) and amass in these mountains in such numbers that they can break the branches of trees with their weight. After this awesome display I headed south to Taxco a stunning city perched on a bowl of a cliff. It is fair to say that I had been getting a little lonely over the christmas period, despite the generosity and kindness of the people I met, the scarcity of a flowing conversation (my Spanish is still about the level of a toddlers) and a feeling of going nowhere had me questioning the whole point of this trip. So I decided it was time to get back to the basics of this journey: spend all day, everyday, cycling, camping wherever I met dusk and if this meant spending New Years in a field with an arrogant turkey then so be it. Thus was born the tale of The Little Gringo who Could...

Hats and Dogs

2010-01-07T19:33:00.000-08:00

The question of what to wear on your head is one which I know occupies most peoples every waking minute. However for the touring cyclist there is a very practicle aspect to this question. Most cycling magazines will now not allow pictures to be published without the subject fully helmeted, in many countries it is a legal requirement to wear a head case and drivers everywhere will furiously smack themselves on the head if they see a cyclist daring to go bare headed. Despite this some of the most experienced cyclists I have met don't even carry helmets let alone wear one. Why not?! I can hear the nanny state straining at its legislative leash. Well there are a few (sensible) reasons, beyond the superficial one of not wanting to look like a tool: research has turned up the interesting fact that more accidents, involving cyclists, happen to those wearing helmets. The suposed reasoning is that drivers think they won't hurt the cyclist if they hit them; well a helmet doesn't prevent road rash and broken bones. Some cyclists, me included, believe that if you get smashed by a lorry traveling 70 mph, best case scenario from wearing a helmet is ending up in the cabbage patch with the other vegtables. I don't want my headstone reading died aged 40: 22 years with a working noggen, 18 with mush for brains. Much rather have: died 22, living. Or better yet es prohibe hacer agua aqui. Or even better: so long and thanks for all the tequila. The other side of the coin then is if you get hit at 30mph, then a helmet could very well prevent a date with a coma. So I like to take the middle road, I carry my helmet and when I'm getting into urban areas wear it (not very proudly it must be said) but on the open road I take my chances and when neccasary hit the ditch and take a long drink of muddy water for my troubles. The other benefit of being helmetless is allowing me to show off my superb Union Jack bandana. When worn pirate fashion, I like to think that, twined with ample facial hair, it gives off a certain je ne c'est quoi.

The subject of personal safety brings me roundly to the animosity; nay hatred; nay loathing that exists between the cyclist and the snarling satanic pooch . The birth of the dispute is lost in the mists of time but the present situation makes the troubles in the middle east look like two kids falling out over who's turn it is to go in goal. I have been chased more times than I can bear to think of and it is a pleasent suprise to go through any settlement and not receive an hear splitting hollering for pedalling blood. So of course cyclists have their methods to deter the canine from its aim of sinking its teeth into that juicy thigh or calf that has been engorged by months on the road. Many carry a pump strapped to their frame, not to have easy access to firmer tyres but to be able to put metal to snout without the hassle of dismounting. Others like to use projectiles: rocks are a firm favorite but are a pain to carry so you must then stop and hope there are some to hand; one cyclist I met spat in the dogs faces, which he assured me stopped them dead (he reckoned that he was so practised 9 times out of 10 he could hit them right between the eyes). I have been handed a can of pepper spray by an ex-postman. My usaul method is to unclip from the side of attck and take a good swing at them with the reinforced toes of my cycling shoe, this worked fine untill I was beset on by a pack of three dogs, one coming from each side and the third in front stopping my progress. I escaped by edging one of the dogs into oncoming traffic (the fucker dodged the trucks) taking a swing at the one to my right and riding through the third (at this point I'd like to say, for those animal welfare types out there, no dogs have been hurt or killed in the riding of this journey). I also like to mix in my own snarling, hollering growl right back at the dog, accompanied with bared teeth and steely battle eyes a full bloodied charge is often turned into a hurried retreat. Imagine my surprise then when one cyclist told me she just calmly talked to the dogs saying drivel like "it's ok dog I won't hurt you" (with pump clutched firmly in hand behind the back). At the best of times I'm a cynic but this was clearly the worst advice I'd ever come across, I mean peace talks haven't exactly panned out too well in Gaza have they? However I decided I would put these doubts to one side and give it a go: next time I rolled up to a snarling dog, foaming at the mouth with blood lust, hatred blazzing from it's eyes, I turned to face it and buda like uttered the, enourmously stupid, phrase "it's ok perro, calm yourself" the hatred turned to suprise, its rump hit the tarmac in puzzelment and the foam trickled down its jowls in utter confusion, the snarl turning to a perplexed whine. Unbelievable it actually works! Since then I have been a complete convert and talk to the dogs like I'm helping a jumper from his ledge. However I have to admit that after passing through your tenth village of the day and the tenth bombardment of barks it feels ridiculously good to let off your best full blooded battle cry and see the dogs running, tails between the legs. I think I'm starting to see why the peace process in the middle east isn't working so well.

How I became a sailor...

2009-12-17T17:47:00.000-08:00

The idea was first propossed to me by Roberta, who suggested that I should try and find a spot crewing on a yacht over to the mainland. I felt this was an excellent idea, so bright and breezy on my first morning in La Paz, I strolled down to Marina de La Paz to pin up my notice and catch "The Net" - what basically amounts to a morning gossip session between sailors via VHF radio. I got on the radio and put out my generous offer of help to the sailing community of the capital of Baja Sur. For some reason there was not an instant clamour of voices on the radio taking me up on my offer, I just couldn't figure it out. At this point I met Valaska and Philip, an Austrian cycling couple, who had been on the road for three years, they were also looking for a spot to crew over (the ferry was $100 a head). Over coffee they enlightend me to the evil ways of this capitalist world: spots on a boat where in short supply and high demand, we -the potential crew- were in high supply and short demand. Hence the boat owners could pick and choose at their descretion and mess around with timing as much as they pleased and we could either lump it or piss off and take the ferry. They had been trying for three days and had decided that this was their last (a ferry was leaving the next evening). I spent the morning with them chatting up people at coffee hour, chasing potential leads around marinas and ultimately at the ferry ticket office in dissapointment. At that moment I decided I'd give it one more try in the morning and if unsuccessful I'd cut my losses. So the next morning a call comes over the net: "looking for crew over to Puerta Vallarta"- bloody brilliant, to cut a long (and tedious) story short I got a spot on the boat heading out in three days time. I have become the very essence of thrift on this trip, consequently I packed up my panniers and cycled out of town with my new Austrian friends, they to the ferry terminal and me to the free camping beaches 10 km further north. Here I met Mo and Lynn a couple of snow birds from Vancouver Island who treated me like a grandson, feeding me coffee in the morning and delicious meals at night. On the second day came Dom and Sadie a British couple travelling the world. Now Dom and Sadie were the first young British people I'd met and the inevitable outcome was the three of us getting a little merry on the old tequila in Mo and Lynn's caravan, while they looked on in bemusement. I like to think I'm doing the Brits proud out here. Two days after I was steering captain Bill's 42 ft cat, Moontide, out of La Paz harbour. This first day was just a hop down to a bay from where we'd make our passage across the Gulf of California. After a spot of whale watching we spent the next morning doing boat projects, downing tools at noon sharp: "Do one project a day and if it takes you past noon, its a two day job". The afternoon was spent sunning oneself beside the pool of a luxury hotel drinking beer, reading, generally enjoying ones leisure time. The next morning we left before the sun had cleared the horizon, setting out for Bahia de Banderas (and neatly steering round an island penal colony in our path). After a little more whale watching and a superb sunset Bill informed me I'd be taking second watch 10-2. Now I had never done a night watch before and to be put in charge of the fate of this craft and our two lives made me a touch anncey. Accordingly I completely failed to fall asleep before my watch, however all was ok: my nerves (and overload of caffeine) kept me up and down like a yo-yo checking the radar, scanning the horizon, trimming the sails; you name it I was doing it. After my heroics I figured on a nice long sleep, not a bit of it. Back up again at sunrise so that Bill could sleep after his 8 hours of watch. I was starting to get the old itchy eyes when I noticed some sea gulls off to the left: "supper time" I'm thinking, as I change the course 90 degrees- where there are sea gulls, there are fish. Well these fish turned out to be, not fish, but a pod of 20(ish) dolphins and as the boat approached they came to swim with us diving out the water in triplets and racing under the hulls. After taking us off our course for a couple of miles I realised this might not go down too well, so after a quick adjustment of course, I went to get Bill up and take a nap myself. After cat napping on and off all day I was still tired going into the second night and then Bill informed me I'd be taking 2 of the night shifts, hmmm. Well like a good trooper I signed up for them and to be fair the second one was fine, with plenty of coffee in me and interesting things, like islands, to look at on the radar, and the sunrise, a little before 6 to enjoy. The first one however was real hard work, I allowed myself only one cup of coffee (so I could sleep between watchs), so had to constantly fight the tirdness. It is amazing the lengths I came up with to keep myself occupied: I had a pack of 6 oreo's I allowed myself half every 5 minutes, that's one hour squared away, bosh; a ship came up on the radar I spent half an hour working out its course and speed from the radar blips (I know half an hour is a long time but I was tired). At 10 when Bill relieved me I hit my bunk with a crash and was out before my head had touched the pillow. Sailing into Banderas bay, the huge surf crashing around Punta Mita, I got my first sight of mainland Mexico. To be honest I was a little surprised. I was expecting something pretty similar to Baja, maybe a bit more in the way of agriculture maybe a little more greenery but not this. This was mountains shooting up out of the sea, teeming with Jungle and a steamy heat pouring off it...I did not fancy my chances of long days on the bike in that stuff. My Sailing story was completed with a last night on board (actually on board Glen's boat) drinking more of Mexico's finest with Bill and two of his friends, Glen and Dave. I'm not entirely sure how we made it back to Bill's boat in one piece and dry but in the morning I woke up with a delightful throbbing about the temples and the prospect of my first day on the mainland to look forward to.

Baja Sur

2009-12-01T19:35:00.001-08:00

As I can now reveal, after exhaustive research, Baja is in fact just a big old strip of desert hanging from some mountains running down its spine. Now to start with I loved the novelity of the desert and this lasted till about 2 minutes into my dirt road experience. After 3 weeks of it, I've got to be honest, I got real bored; espeically as the last clip (250 km) into La Paz was along 2 long straight roads (and a third with a few bends thrown in for novelty factor) with just enough head wind to make me really pissed. So it might be easy to conclude that I hated my Baja experience, on the contrary I loved it. I know your all asking yourselves, hanging on with bated breath: how can this be? Well luckily for you, I'm here to endulge your curiosity: 3 towns, 1 village, 1 descent, 1 climb, and lots of great people. To start: the cycling: the best descent I have ever done, by a country mile: coming down from Volcan de tres Virgenes (great name), to the Sea of Cortez at Santa Rossalia. The speed and swiftness of descent had my eyeballs thrust into the back of my head as I tried to shout with pure joy but the speed of the passing air ripped the sound away from me and the g's created going round the tight bends had my knee almost to the tarmac (thanks be to Schwalbe for producing tyres with such fine grip). The ascent: there were several good un's but the winner has got to be winding up through a canyon, which had cut a rift through the vertical cliffs fronting the Sea of Cortez at Luigi. The climb was 30 km's long and the scenery was immense throughout, with steep dropoffs into the canyon on the right, horseshoe roads and gravity defying standing stones on the messa towards the top. The towns that made the greatest impression on me where each slightly different. First came San Ignacio. Now to be fair any town coming after nearly 300 km of desert is going to seem like an oasis. However when I cleared the final cardon studded hill side and found myself staring down into a valley of date palms with a river winding through its center, my happiness knew no bounds. After a dip in the river, to wash nearly a weeks sweat and sun cream from my alternately red and white body, I headed into town. I people watched in the square as the pilgrims headed to Sunday Mass, I headed in the opposite direction to a taco stand and a full belly. The happiness was complete when I meet some other tourists (on a bus), beers where had and stories swapped. The next town was Mulege, nestled just off the coast in the centre of a near ring of mountains. My love of this town is largely due to two people I stayed with there. Bill my host is a 69 year old waiting to sell his house so that he can go tour the world by freighter. His ability to be so alive (and his constant swearing) had me smiling the whole time. Staying with him was Dave, another cyclist, who has toured from the UK to Cape town and travelled in most other places, was great to talk to and drinking beers with the boys after a great supper by the beach was a great end to my Mulege experience. The last town (litterally as it was my jump off spot) was the place I got to know best: I found $5 (25p) tacos, had my morning coffee spot before a stroll down the Melacon (beach front) and spent much time talking to the sailor's at the marinas around town. This and the beauty of its beaches to the north made it a firm favorite with me. The place that I loved most though was El Juncalito. It is as close to paradise as I found on Baja, with its bay pointing out to a string of islands and backed by 600 ft vertical cliffs, covered in vegetation (thanks to the recent hurricane): sitting on Roberta's (my host) terrace, with her dozen hummingbirds ducking past my head to get to the feeder, looking out across the sea to the islands with the early morning sun on my face was very special. Also Roberta and Vickie (her neighbour) require speical mention: feeding me and entertaining me with their stories and conversation I was truely reluctant to leave after my two nights in El Juncalito.

Back road Baja

2009-12-01T17:41:00.000-08:00

After spending the best part of two weeks staying in and cycling through cities and suburbier I was massively keen to get out into some desert landscapes, you know, get away from it all. My first foray was met by edgy border patrols, who took my efforts at free camping near the border as acts of illegal immigration and drug smuggling, unfortunately for them they succumed to my charm and left smiling and waving. The next night I stayed in Ensenada, and despite my host's best efforts, convinced myself that the best way south down the peninsula would be head out East, adding about 50 miles and more importantly 105km of dirt road. On a map this looked fairly benign, I mean after all I was the great conqueror of the casscades, who had dared go where no other biker would (they have more sense). In comparison this would surely be a piece of piss, on the map there were no major inclines. So I happily clipped into my pedals and headed off for a two day jolly to San Felipe and my first taste of the Sea of Cortez. On the way I encountered many dirt bikers, a truely arrogant race - with a few notable exceptions. They were preparing for the Baja 1000, the biggest, bestest, most important thing on the face of the planet, ever. The fact that I hadn't heard of it coupled with, when explained what the race was, the complete and utter failure of my jaw to hit the floor or a total lack of a gleam of hero-worshipping awe dawning in my eye, did not go down too well, not too well at all. I mean how hard can a 1000 mile dirt bike race be, they do it in teams and they have fricking engines! I managed to escape these fiends of the road about a days ride south of San Felipe (Where I met a con on the run from US law enforcement). Here is where the dirt started. The first couple of Kms where bad, the next 3 practically unrideable, with the kind of gradients I would have struggled on with a road of beautifully laid tarmac, combined with loose gravel and sand and rocks pushing you to the edge of the cliff, I struggled up about 1.5 km, riding the rideable, walking the rest. A pickup came past, stopped and offered me a lift to the top. I looked at the rest of the track, it was even worse. I didn't even hesitate. Descending down the other side, every bone in my body attempting to shake itself loose, I consoled myself, this was just the construction site detour, tomorrow the road would be better. I was so very very wrong. The next day started off with sandy tracks, which when more than half an inch deep, bury the front wheel and fishtail the rear flinging me into the road. This is usually not so bad as the landing zone is normally just as sandy as the crash site but every now and again you hit a rock. The worst one took the weight of both me and my bike, at a good tilt, right between my quad and hamstring, allowing me to unleash my Peter Griffin impression on the unsuspecting desert. The real problem with this injury was that every-other pedal stroke the two mussels squeezed the bruise between them, not fun. I managed to do 35 km of the 45 km stretch to the next water supply, before I was once again offered a lift (cars pass by about once an hour), by this time the road had headed into the hills and the 4x4's were travelling at about 10 mph and I was walking about 90% of the time, so I excepted. However, when he said he'd take me back to the tarmac I said no: I wanted to finish this road otherwise from now on i´d be afraid of going on dirt tracks. In Spanglish it is hard to put across this kind of psychological argument. I tried to set off that afternoon but a bolt in my pannier rack sheared off, leaving me neck deep in trouble. A dirt buggy passed by after a couple of hours of me trying to pries the bolt end from the eyelet, and they take my stuff back to the water hole. I follow and heading down to the Campo (beach side community of, mainly, Americans) I spot a guy working in his garage. Peter drills the bolt end out, dismantles my rack, puts it back together with new bolts and then does the same to my rear rack. Not finished with his generosity he then insists on me staying for supper and then gives me a bed for the night. I am truely grateful to Peter and Donna for helping me out when I was at my most vulnerable. The next day was pay(back)day for me taking those two rides. I reckoned if I could do the remaining 60 Km of this hellish track then I could call it quits with my ego. I preceded much the same as the day before but without the truly appalling sections of road (I didn't have to walk more than a couple of hundred meters at any one time to get out of the deep sand or over the ridiculously rocky sections). However I was only making progress at a rate of 5 kmph, slower than walking pace and by 12 had covered half the distance, with less than half the days light left. For the last day and a half I had been riding out of the saddle, it was just not possible to sit down and maintain any kind of control or keep my posterior from turning black and blue. As it was I stacked it more times than I can count on all my fingers and all my toes but I kept pounding away and by 2 had reached Coco's corner, where I was able to drink aenough beer to dull the ache in my feet, legs, hands and arms. Then on again: I finished the day 8 kms short of the road huddled in a canyon trying to keep out of the wind, feeling oddly extremely happy. The next morning it took me another hour to get back to the black-top but by 8 I was having huevos Rancheros and giving my legs a bit of a breather.

So. Cal.

2009-12-01T17:15:00.000-08:00

Cycling wise this is the most miserable experience you could hope to put yourself through. I mean honestly, who puts a beautiful coastal road there to tempt a cyclist and then puts two major cities in the way with a traffic light every 200 meters and fills the road with arrogant bastard drivers trying to push you off it? Not all was doom and gloom however, although the cycling was not fun I stayed with some great people: first was Mr and Mrs J Dutton in LA, Delyth was the perfect hostess and I wanted for nothing as I took my first proper break from the saddle (a luxurious 4 days!) and explored a little of what Santa Monica has to offer. Next in San Diego I stayed with Michael and Bernadette, who treated me like a son, feeding me almost too well (detecting an extra spare tyre on leaving) and helping me get myself geared up for my push into Mexico. Along the way I met the usual characters on the street, including a 50 year old guy, who apparently set up Ultimate Cage Fighting and is now in a multi-million dollar law suit with some fat cats who stole it from him, meanwhile he´s working as a street sweeper (hhhhmmmm). I also treasure a conversation I had as I was borowing a pump from a bike shop. The owner comes out to talk:

Him:"you know your cycling the world´s most popular bike route"
Me:"come again"
Him:"the PCH (pacific coast highway) through So. Cal. is the most popular bike route in the world"
Me:"Say´s who?"
Him:"Well I came up with the phrase but in 20 years no one´s ever challenged it"

At this point I´m thinking that 20 years is far too long for such a stupid, obviously bollocks statement to go unchallenged, I set about erring the ways of those who have gone before:

Me:"I´m not so sure buddy, have you ever cycled the route from Jasper to Banff I hear that´s meant to be pretty special"
Him:"Who cares about some beautiful remote route, I´m talking numbers of cyclists."

This statement encapsulates all that is wrong with the Californian psyche, but I´m happy, it keeps those tools off the nice roads.

Me:"well I was always told it was quality not quantity that counts"

I encounter a stony silence for the next 5 minutes, happy with my work I potter off.

Vanity

2009-11-06T12:20:00.000-08:00

I thought this would be a suitable topic seeing as I'm in LA. However I don't want to talk about the wonderful individuals, native to these parts, who have occasional difficulty seeing past their new nose job or pec implants. Instead I want to talk about the vanity of cyclists. Again you get the LA type, who care more about how they look on the bike than about where they cycle it, in fact the more crowded an area the more people to see them look absolutely super in their white bib shorts and on their $3500 carbon racer. However the tour cyclist suffers from a different type of vanity. For starters the men of this group look like bums: unwashed, unshaved, a mad glint in the eye; the women (somehow) manage to always appear clean and fresh, never too sweaty or exhausted, however they do not bother about make-up, their hairstyle is dictated by fitting under a less than fashionable helmet and both sexes are clad in supremely unattractive, practicle outdoor gear. So a tour cyclist doesn't (and definately shouldn't) suffer from vanity of apperance. However they definately suffer from ego of their trips. The common questions: Where did you start? (shit - early than me) Where are you heading? (Ha - I'm going further) How much weight are you carrying? How many miles are you doing a day? Take any detours? Every cyclist you meet is weighed and measured against yourself. Those who deny this are either Buddha like individuals, who have foresaken human nature, or full of bull. I have two things to say about this habit of nature. Firstly it is a good thing: it inspires and makes you want to push yourself to go that little further, take more of those little detours: in fact experience more and have a better trip. Secondly, it is pointless: every trip is completely different, even if you've headed down the same roads. The people you meet, the weather you encounter, the thoughts you have, the songs you sing, all are utterly different and no one is better than another.

San Fransisco, Big Sur and The big smoke (Oct. 24 - Nov. 2)

2009-11-06T10:21:00.000-08:00

San Fransisco passed by in a blur. I spent my first day rebuilding my back wheel (I'd had it re-trued (professionally) twice, had three broken spokes in a week and was re-truing it myself 3 times a day). Only took me 4 1/2 hours, when the bike shop could have done it in 40 mins but apparently they were too busy to help out an itinerant English pedal pusher. However they did let me use their tools and gave me advice; since then I've had no trouble with it. After this the next couple of days past me by, I just enjoyed the sights, sounds and people of this amazingly characterful city. In San Fransisco I'd been staying with Cyndi, who it seemed opened her beautiful house to a stream of cycle tourists, with huge trust and generosity. The first night I stayed there I met Amaya and Eric, a couple who have been cycling round the world for the last three years. They were hugely inspiring and I loved to hear their stories, hopefully I will run into them again in southern Mexico or Guatemala.

As I'd come into San Fransisco the traffic had rapidly increased and it did not diminish again till I reached the Big Sur coast 120 miles south. During these miles I passed through Santa Cruz, Monterrey and Carmel; I'd stayed in a lighthouse, got sandblasted by a big wind whipping across the sand dunes skirting Monterrey bay, had a picnic on the white sands at Carmel, and met countless more great people (including Jacob my riding partner for a day). However despite this I longed for a little space, I missed the freedom I'd felt up in the Casscades on the way to Crater Lake. It was OK, I got that in spades when I reached Big Sur: a 90 mile stretch of coast running from Carmel to San Simeon with the most dramatic and beautiful cliff roads I had yet been treated to. I camped in the redwoods there and spent a day walking some of the trails and relaxing, that gave me the space I needed. In San Simeon I met Greg, touring by motorbike. I hoped on the back (which made think perhaps I had chosen the wrong transport for this trip) and he treated me to a great supper and offered to sort me out with a friend of his in Laguna beach, a very generous guy, who loved to meet new people and chatted up just about everyone we came across that evening, your typical extrovert Yank.

At this point I'd like to point out a cultural difference between us and them. In England Halloween is a minor blip in our lives merely an excuse for Pykies to chuck eggs at houses and little obese kids to add an extra tyre to aid their Michelin man impersonation. In America however it is their 2nd largest holiday (in retail terms), they go to town on this night. Little children will be preparing their costumes for months in advance, houses will be decked out in cobwebs (fake naturally, a mere $4.99 + tax), skeletons will hang from trees, while ghouls stalk the front lawn. And apparently this is also the night for getting hammered with a fellow English man and a Frenchy. I met this anglo-franc alliance: Francis and Steph at Refufio beach (I got there for a glorious sunset over the channel islands - the Yanks love to steal our names), which was packed out for the festivities. They generously shared with me their booze, their cheese and their stories of living in the US and travelling in Central America.

Two days later, after driving through Santa Barbra (a remarkably beautiful town but containing some questionable individuals - "I'm sorry I can't help you, its the day after a holiday, this is SB and we know how to party, my head is just everywhere"- tool), I arrived within sight of a brown smudge on the horizon, my first glimpse of LA. I was in Malibu and I for one was massively disappointed by the paucity of scantily clad young ladies frolicking on the white sands, could it be that Bay Watch was a sham? I entered this ridiculously large sprawl of habitation (it covers an area of 470 Sq miles), along a six lane highway - a mere pup compared to their twelve lane freeways. I had had a growing feeling of the bike being a rarer and rarer form of transport (the cloud of smog supporting this) but in LA I felt like an alien. It didn't help that I was covered in bike grease, a healthy beetroot colour from the attention of the sun and dripping with sweat. You could see the hesitation in all the drivers, they just did not know how to cope with this freak on their beloved asphalt. After taking a wrong turn and having to stop to ask directions a couple of times, I started to climb away from the smog and into the hills of Brentwood and eventually arrived at the house of Catherine's (a university friend, who could teach angels how to be graceful) parents, my home for the next four days.

The Lost Coast and Highway 1 (Oct 17.-Oct.23)

2009-10-24T12:45:00.000-07:00

So being a typically foolish individual, I followed the advice of Paul (from Eugene) and some guys in a bike shop in Eureka and took the Lost Coast road south from Eureka. I should have known better when I saw the glazed look in their eyes and the talk of these deserted roads with spectacular views. There is only one reason why cars do not follow a road and that is because their is an easier way. However in my naivety I happily clipped into my pedals and pottered off to Ferndale, about 20 miles south, and the jump off spot for this legendary route. Knowing I was letting myself in for a bit of a climb I had a quick beer in a victorian pub in Ferndale and then went to find the road. It did not even wait to get out of the town before it began to snake skywards into the clouds, for an hour I pounded away even having to resort to my granny gear at times. Eventually the road began to flattern and I paused to take stock, this is when I came across Winnie driving in the opposite direction. We chattered and when I said I'd find any old place to camp she advised me that the locals don't take kindly to trespassing and I should ask in Cape Town (a megatropilis of 4 buildings). As I reached the top of this first climb the sun burst through the cloud and hit the mists curling up from the pine trees in the valleys below, eagles and vultures were circling overhead and to say I was euphoric is a slight understatement. I hit some beautiful switch backs descending down onto a plateau of grassland and a higher than average density of no trespassing signs (Violators WILL be prosecuted), maybe Winnie was right. As I descended into Cape Town with the sun setting over the ocean I began looking for lights in the three houses I could see, there were none. I knocked on each door, no response - shit. I looked up the road and saw another near vertical climb, I did not fancy facing it in the gloom. I had just strapped my rear light on and was preparing to pedal on, when I noticed 500 yards down a dirt road smoke and light. I headed down the dirt track (past more no trespassing signs) and began to get nervous as I heard laughing and shouting, maybe it was a lynch mob getting pissed up before heading out to find trespassers to punish? Then a dog started barking and I was committed. I headed up to the house and was greeted with "What in the hell are you doing?", I excused my interruption and asked if I could camp on their land next to the river. Jason as soon as he realised what I was after, told me it was his 30th birthday, that I'd stumbled into the middle of his party and that I should grab a plate and join in. I hesitated but as soon as I saw the food I got heavily involved. The rest of the evening past by in a flash of red wine, debate about everything from health care to which are harder Rugby or Football (American) players and a lot of laughter. Joyce and Mike (Jason's parents) couldn't have made me feel more welcome in their home and I am blown away by their kindness to a complete stranger. The next morning I woke with a splitting headache and a mouth that tasted like home to a badger. I set about punishing myself for my excess with an immediate climb out from the farm. This climb was a lot shorter than the one the day before but a lot steeper and my cold mussels screamed at me, I screamed at them to man up and they eventually complied. Then came the descent down "The Wall", my speedo was broken so I'm not sure how fast I was going but I'd topped 44 mph a couple of days before and this felt faster, I then breakfasted next to the sea before heading inland. I had two major climbs left before rejoining the highway, the first wasn't too bad but the second was relentless. For an hour and a half I climb through countless switchbacks - after 40 minutes I could still see vertically below me the place I'd had lunch, as the crow flies I had gone less than 1/2 a mile. Eventually I reached the summit and headed into my final redwood forest where I stayed that night. The next morning I awoke at 3.30 to rain falling on my face, I hadn't bothered to pitch my tent as it had been dry and warm that evening. After trying to keep as much of my stuff as dry as possible as I packed it away I headed off into the rain, I had an 110 mile day ahead of me and had to keep a good pace to achieve it before night fall. By 5.30 I had reached Fort Bragg 20 miles from my camp spot and I was confident of reaching it before it got really dark at about 7. I had not factored in the hills and after an hour had done a little over 10 miles, it was getting dark and a sea fog was rolling in. Well I was up shit creek and my paddle allowed me to see approximately 2 meters in front of me with the density of the fog. The road was hanging on to a cliff edge with lots of nooks and crannies for cars to hide in. After 45 minutes of adrenaline (brought on by utter terror) pumping through me, I eventually crossed a bridge and got off the switch backs, my pace had slackened to a crawl so that I could see the edge of the road ahead and when I turned up after 8 having finished my mileage I was utterly exhausted. At this point the author would like to recommend not to cycle at night, in a dense sea fog along a cliff face with an under powered head torch, it is a rapid route to gray hair and stomach ulcers and I for one will not be repeating this experiment. The next three days took me down highway 1 and into San Fransisco, parts of this road were some of the best cycling I've ever had the pleasure of doing: beautiful views across the pacific, with descents that felt like they were going to throw you into the ocean before curling round themselves into a tight hairpin and always a gusting tailwind to help ease you up those climbs, I would like to give particular praise to the section between Fort Ross and Bodega Bay, during which I couldn't wipe the grin off my face...More pictures to follow!

Pick up's, RV's and other road considerations

2009-10-23T08:19:00.000-07:00

As you might imagine i've had a fair amount of thinking time on the road and I would like to share with you some of my ponderings about my fellow road users. Firstly the pick up, that great American institution, they come in all shapes and sizes from the standard European size to the monolithic giants (standard American ones). More importantly i've identified four different types of driver: Gents, Lads, Shitheads and Rednecks. The gents are great: they see you on a road and slow down, if there is a hint of a corner or the meerest suggestion of oncoming traffic they wait patiently behind you, give a wave and maybe a friendly toot of their horn as they ease pass. The gents all live long happy lives and are going straight to heaven, no messing about at the pearly gates. The Lads: first of all it is neccessary to explain that the average width of your American pick up is about 9/10ths the width of a lane and a Herbert on bike is about 1/10th the width a lane. The Lads, who make up the vast majority of your pick up driver, know this. They are not malicious but equally there is no way that some snot nosed cyclist is going to slow them down. So if there is no oncoming traffic they just carry on past, if there is oncoming traffic they just carry on past and you get at least an inch of breathing room, very generous some might say. This is where the Shithead comes in. He's had a good look at his pick up and in general he likes what he sees, a fine ve-hi-cle that demonstrates his manliness in spades, with plenty of room for all the guns, dogs, dead deer, barbed wire, beer and jerky a man could use in a lifetime. But there is something troubling him: his pick up is taking up 9/10ths a lane of road, this means that for every dollar of tax he pays on road building and maintenance he's only getting 90 cents worth. Like every hard working man he wants his money worth but as mentioned his pick up is plenty big enough, then comes the eureka moment: he extends his rear axel by a foot, each wheel arch by six inches but leaves the rest of the pick up the same. Genious, now he's taking up the whole lane without a bigger load space and at the same time making it a lot easier to run those free-loading, hippy cyclists off his beloved tarmac. Lastly comes that special breed, the Redneck, with hate in his heart. I have had three run ins with Rednecks and so far i'd say i've had a win, a loss and a draw, so about par for the course. The draw: I am cycling into town along a wide road when I get a loud blast of horn from behind me and an encourgement to get the f*** off the road. 50 yards later I join my fellow motorist at a red light thus giving a perfect opportunity to exchange our philosophies on road use. The loss: I am cycling along a section of road with no hard shoulder, from behind I hear a series of loud honking and the hearty reving of an engine, tuned to vibrate at the resonant frequency of a cyclist's guts, I am in their cross hairs. I squeeze over, cycling on top of the white line seperating the road from the ditch, this is not going to be fun I think. I am not wrong, a green blur flashes past my left ear so close that I can almost smell the dog turds the driver uses as soap. The win: I am out my sadle climbing a short, sharp rise I feel a pick up behind approaching pretty close, weird I think: there is no oncoming traffic. Never mind he won't hit me, he does. I get clipped on the elbow by his wing mirror. My elbow is fine not even a bruise, his mirror is shattered and is now decorating the tarmac, you've got to love karma.

Now I've said some nasty things about pick up drivers but the truth is the vast majority are great, the opposite is true of RV (recreational ve-hi-cle) drivers. These monsters as tall as a house and wide as a Hull native on a deep fried mars bar diet are a curse to the roads. They are piloted by senile, half-blind, half-deaf fossils, whose sole remaining purpose in life is to cover every inch of road in the US, in the comfort of their air conditioned, aluminium fortresses on wheels. There are two real reasons why I reserve a special pool of loathing for them: firstly they drive like the Lads, they have many miles to cover after all and they will not be kept waiting. Secondly they choose, for the same reasons as me, the same roads as me. This point is infuriating because they can't enjoy the views from their tin cans and the invariably winding road makes them a big hazard. But that tarmac must be driven and that road smote from their list.

Finally a note on two wheeled etiquette: My first encounter in the US with another cyclist began with me getting a little over excited to see a fellow biker, a huge grin cracked across my face and I waved furiously across the two lanes of traffic at him. A huge grin cracked across his face and he gives me the two fingered salute. The grin is wiped off my face I am shocked by his wanton cruelty and rejection. Since I have learnt that on this side of the Atlantic the raised two fingers, far from being a medieval taunt at the French boys, is in actuallity the sign for peace. Ever since I have been giving pretty much everyone the two fingers and my inner child giggles everytime. The middle finger retains its meaning and I reserve it for the RV's and Shitheads.

...Where the Giants live (Oct. 12 - Oct 16)

2009-10-16T15:09:00.000-07:00

The descent down from crater lake was epic, I averaged 25mph for 50 minutes, but due to a slightly late leave and more climbing in the morning I missed my campsite by ten miles and did some dodgy camping. The rain started that night but wasn't too bad, it gave me a preview the next day between Rouge river and Grants pass, where I got a flat and very wet. Then I hit the road hard, knowing that I was going into bad weather but naively asumming that once I got the far side of the coastal range and into California it would be all sunshine and roses, I was very wrong. I cycled 94 miles into the storm which turned out to be the tail end of a typhoon. It felt like the Pacific had got bored and decided it was going to hop a few hundred feet up and about 100 miles East. I kept going and eventually in a canyon, on the way down to the coast and about 20 miles into California play was suspended due to bad light. I got a wet nights sleep and an even wetter time packing up in the morning. The canyon continued a little further and then got into the redwoods. These trees are truelly unbelievable, I mean epic. One of the photos shows a car going past one so you can get an idea of their width (this was an average sized tree). The next day cycling through them with the mists curling through the trees was very special . The night after I got wet I stayed in a youth hostel overlooking the pacific (not that you could see it through the rain), I found it by chance and dived into it out the weather. Staying at the hostel where 5 other cyclists all sheltering from the storm. It was great to chat to them and hear their stories. Particularly interesting was Barry, an irish guy who decided to go to anchorage (alaska) buy a mountain bike and head down to San Francisco. The last 2 days have been beautifully sunny and at the moment I'm in a town called Eureka, I think i've done about 1,200 miles but my speedo broke on me yesterday so it's hard to be precise. I'm going to try to make it down to SF for halloween, apparently its one hell of a party. Take care all.

Into the Hills...(Oct. 5 - Oct. 11)

2009-10-16T13:59:00.000-07:00

Hello boys and girls, first off I want to apologise for taking so long to update but as Mike and Eric, two engineers/hunters I met at the top of a 6000ft mountain up a dirt track, put it i've been spending a lot of time "in the buttf*** middle of nowhere". To make up for it you are getting 2 posts, the first is about my journey up to crater lake.

From Astoria I headed south along the coast and stayed in a town called Seaside, I have been struggling ever since to get the Kooks song out of my head. Here I stayed with the Lathams. A couple of days previously I met a lady on the roadside, we got chatting and she said she'd hook me up with someone to stay with, this was the Lathams: Roy, Terry and their son Pat. They took me in, a complete stranger with no reference, fed me and gave me a bed as well a shower and their great company. This generousity has been repeated twice since but through a tourist cyclers website. The next people to take me in were Bob and Vickie, 80 miles down the coast in a town called Pacific city with a beautiful location right on the beach. They and their nephew Jason made me feel very welcome and gave me an amazing supper and breakfast and washed my clothes for me, epic hospitality. Two nights later I stayed with Paul and Monica and their 4 kids: Rainy, Torrent, Dare and Sanguine, in Eugene for two nights. Through games of cops and robbers, sardines and kickball with the kids, Monica's conversation and Paul's help with my bike, his advice and pro pizza I couldn't have felt more at home and I was sad to leave them. Between these amazing people I had biked up from the coast up the wooded Nestucca valley, into the rolling hills towards Salem and south across a broad flat plain through Corvallis to Eugene. Now it was time to hit some proper hills. It took me a day to get into the Casscade mountains from Eugene and that night I found a great camp spot about 20 miles after Oakridge, I swam in the cold river and cooked myself supper next to a camp fire before setting my lycra on fire which i'd put up to wash, clever herbie: clerbie. The next day I only managed 30 miles but 4500 ft of climb mainly up dirt roads (the third photo shows the valley I came up but I still had half the climb left), past snow by the roadside and smoke from a forest fire. This is the day I met Mike and Eric and without them I would have had a miserable night. I was elated after my climb but very short on water, without which I wouldn't have been able to eat. The guys gave me water, Jerky and even a beer, as well as a brief bit of company for which I was very grateful. The next day I mounted my assault on Crater lake. First I headed down hill and back onto paved road, which I followed to Diamond lake and then to the Park entrance. I arrived at the park entrance at 2.30 and it took me till 4.30 to cycle the 10 miles to the crater rim, by this point I had got to 8,000 ft up a relentless climb, a savagely gusty headwind and thinning air. The views at the top sorted me out though, the lake in the crater (second picture, with Wizard island) was mindblowingly stunning, I definitaley don't have the words to describe how beautiful it looked with the sun slanting down. Hopefully my pictures give a hint, and the satisfaction (maybe a little smugness) of having cycled up there, feeling I deserved to see this, whereas those coming by cars (passing by pretty frequently) had no appreciation of the scale of this place.

Towns Visited

2009-10-04T13:46:00.000-07:00

Blaine* (x2), Ferndale (x2), Bellingham*, Oak Harbour, Port Townsend*, Sequim, Dungeness, Port Angeles*, Lake cresent (north shore), Forks*, Kalaloch, South Beach*, Queets, Neilton, Humptulips, Aberdeen*, Grayland, Raymond, Bruceport*, Naselle, Astoria

First 9 days (Sep. 26 - Oct 4)

2009-10-04T13:05:00.000-07:00

Hi all, so 9 days in and exactly 500 miles done. I have literally just crossed into Oregon so that is also my first state ticked off the list. Washington was Fit (capital F necessary) but had possibly a little cellulite in some areas (Aberdeen AKA. shitsville). I spent most of my time circling round to the north of the Olympic national park, which was truly stunning and was definitely worth the effort to go see. It also provided me with plenty of opportunity for a little camping of questionable legality, and some pleasant skinny-dipping, to try and make me feel vaguely clean. Nicest person award goes to Mike just south of Bellingham, who gave me a basement to sleep in, and a bathroom and kitchen to use. My first few days have not been without mishap, I lost my wallet on day 2 and spent a frantic 3 hours and 25 miles of backtracking to find it again, big big relief. I've also had to re-true my wheels twice already, had my first puncture, already burnt through a set of brakes and lost my towel. Despite this I've had a great time: one day I cycled with a guy called Steve, who runs a custom brass instrument shop in LA, ************************************************* [edited at the request of Mrs Alicia Herbert]. I've had a couple of great camping spots a few nights ago I had a 4 mile beach on the Pacific in the National forest to myself but the prize has to go to last night (in the pretty picture), which was an abandoned campsite just west of South Bend, I also got the moon setting over the same view this morning. Although I've been alone a fair bit of the time its difficult to be lonely with views like this, I'm only lonely when on a boring, straight road with trucks whizzing past my left ear. The other blemmish so far has been seeing the logging taking place in around the national park, whole hillsides are completely ripped down and left covered in a brown mess. It seems incredible to me that a government could sanction this destruction, let alone gloat about the benefits it brings. I'm looking forward to my next section through Oregon, where I hope i'll be doing some surfing and head inland to see Crater lake. Keep well all of you and please send me knews you have (but only if its exciting).

Vancouver

2009-09-25T16:21:00.000-07:00

Hi there all, I thought I'd just write a few lines about what i've been up to now that I'm finally about to set off. I arrived in Vancouver on Sunday and went to stay with my cousin Tim, we went for a couple of drinks with some of his mates before going to see Arctic Monkeys in Stanley park which was a little unexpected but pretty cool. The last couple of days I've been in a little place called Tofino on the west coast of Vancouver Island where I (unsuccessfully) tried to do a little surfing, evidence of my now legendary skill can be seen in the accompanying photo. Today I finished up my preparations to set off cycling the bike is pretty good but not perfect so i'll be tuning him up on the road. I'm due to set off tomorrow about midday and I should be camping in the US tomorrow night. I'll update again in 10 days or so I guess.