We got home from Lava Beds at 12:30 on
Wednesday afternoon and left for our bike trip on Thursday at 8am.
This involved a lot of chaos. What we should have done was
pre-packed all the bike stuff prior to leaving for Lava Beds.
Instead, we had nothing prepacked PLUS we still needed a bike rack
for the back of Jill's trail a bike.
In 2001 Shane and I went on a bike tour
on Vancouver Island riding over 500 miles in 2 weeks. In 2002 we did a bike
tour from Port Angeles, Wa to Skagway. Ak riding over 1000 miles in 6 weeks.
Back then we knew EXACTLY what we needed for a bike tour. Fast
forward 12 years.....add 2 children into the mix and we are clueless!
Our plans for summer 2014 are to bike the TransCanada Trail through British
Columbia. We have 7 weeks and are hoping to cover 500 – 1000
miles depending on how it goes!! We need to get this figured out!
For the Bizz Johnson trail we were
starting from scratch. We packed our gear one way, loaded the bikes,
then realized something wouldnt work, so we reloaded and tried
everything a different way. We tried Plan B and Plan C and then Plan
D. Something was going to have to work out eventually, right? I
pulled out the bathroom scale. One thing I remembered from our
previous trips was that the bags should really have the weight evenly
distributed. I could at least do that right!
Alli ended up with 17 #'s, I had 49#'s and Shane had
38#'s (plus, he has to pull Jill). We accepted the fact that this
was as good as it was going to get in the short period of time we had
to pack and we went to bed!
We set out the next morning hoping that
we had packed everything we needed. Our plan was to park in
Susanville and ride the 26 miles to Westwood, get the girls some ice
cream, and then ride back to the car on Easter. Shane and I can
easily ride 40 – 80 miles a day if we needed, but with Alli on her
own bike we would be going at her pace. We had 4 days to ride 52
miles. It seems TOTALLY doable. (and yes, all that gear in the back of our car was being loaded onto our bikes!!)
This is the motto of our life: The greatest adventures happen when nothing goes according to plan.
Believe it or not, we only rode .2 miles
before we had a serious malfunction! Jill's trail
The trail a bike was not fixed, but it
was better. Shane is a powerful guy. He was able to handle the
wobble. Even as loaded down as he was, with Jill attached (she does
NOT pedal), he was still going to be faster than Alli and I. The
deal was he would ride ahead and wait for us every so often and then
we would stop for a lunch break all together. The trail was hard
packed dirt and was barely a 1% or 2% uphill grade so Alli was doing
great. We would stop and rest every mile. When we would finally
catch up to Shane and Jill, she would be halfway up a hillside –
she wasnt using too much energy biking, obviously. At 5 miles we
stopped for lunch.
Well, “lunch” is probably
stretching it a bit. When you are on bikes and have to carry
everything, meals take on a whole new meaning. We had jerky, nut
mix, some raisins, apples with almond butter and a can of olives.
Shane, being as brilliant as he is, grabbed some frozen bratwurts and
some fresh diced up bell peppers for dinner. We figured, at least on
the first night we could eat gourmet.
We had about 5 miles to go
to the campground (we thought). The grade started to be more like 3% and Alli was
needing to break every half mile. At one point we loaded her bags
onto the back of Shane's bike (cuz, you know, he didnt have enough
already!) but that made the trail a bike go all over the place. So
then we unpacked her bags, loaded up my bags with as much of the
heavy stuff as we could and had her carrying only clothes and her
sleeping bag (maybe 6 pounds). Problems 2 - 5 resolved.
Then Jill's pedal fell off.....then
Shane's rack disconnected on one side......then the trail a bike had
a flat. But, nothing is too much for us..... Problems 6 - 9 resolved, nothing stops us so ON WE GO!!!!
At some point the trail got
incredibly sandy. Do you know how hard it is to walk on the sand at
the beach? Well, now we were having to pedal our bikes (loaded with
gear) through sand. To make matters even crazier, there were some
massive thunderclouds coming in. Alli was needing to rest every .25
mile, Shane and Jill were NOWHERE to be seen and we were at least 3
miles from the campground. Problems 10 - 11 being dealt with.....
Alli and I were taking a LONG rest
(typically we would stop for 2 – 3 minutes. Just enough to get
some standing vinyasas done) but Alli was DONE so we were just
stopped for 10 minutes with no way of telling Shane that we were
needing a serious break.
Apparently the campground was about 2
miles ahead (and the road conditions would only get worse –
according to the biker we met). The clouds were getting crazy dark
so we decided that Shane would take the tent from me and ride ahead
to set up camp as the girls and I walked and pushed our bikes. Problems 12 and 13 working themselves out...
Finally we saw Shane walking toward us.
I figured he had found the campground, but he hadn't, he was getting
too concerned about the clouds so he just found a meadow to get set
up in. As we started to set up camp Shane asked me, “How long do
you think until the rain starts?” I said, “15 minutes – TOPS”
Luckily we are crazy fast at getting tents up – 2 tents up, all
the gear safe in the vestibules, and 13 minutes later the crazy rain,
thunder and lightning started. We hadn't dealt with our bikes back
on the trail, but they would survive the rain. Problems 14, 15, 16...
When I say this was a crazy storm, I
mean CRAZY! The rain was coming down in sheets, the thunder was
rolling for 30 seconds starting at one side of the mountain and going
over us to the other side of the mountain, there was lightning every
45 seconds. Jill is TERRIFIED of thunder, Alli LOVES it. Made for
an entertaining hour as we were all smashed into one small 2 person
backpacking tent. At one point I remembered that my phone (there was
no signal, but I had been audio recording the girls) was in an
outside pocket on the bikes so Shane – always the gentleman –
braved the crazy storm to go save it. Problem 17, Shane to the rescue - as usual.
It was 7:00 we had ridden/walked 12
miles and not eaten since “lunch” at 1:30. Shane and I looked
sadly at each other as we realized that our bratwurst were going to
go to waste. It is not safe to cook in a tent, even in the
vestibule- there isnt enough room or air movement. There was a metal
bridge we could have cooked under if there had been no
lightning.....so instead, we ate nut mix for dinner. Problem 18 - compromise made.
Around 9, Shane and Alli crawled over to their tent. The rain was still going strong but there was no more thunder or lightning. We all managed to fall asleep in tents being pummeled with rain (if you don't know what this sounds like, I equate it to feeling like you are inside a radio stuck on a station with only static. But guess what, we were all so EXHAUSTED that we slept until 8 the next morning!!!
Around 9, Shane and Alli crawled over to their tent. The rain was still going strong but there was no more thunder or lightning. We all managed to fall asleep in tents being pummeled with rain (if you don't know what this sounds like, I equate it to feeling like you are inside a radio stuck on a station with only static. But guess what, we were all so EXHAUSTED that we slept until 8 the next morning!!!
Days 2 – 4 link to it below.......here's a preview - Problem 19 - Sandy trail does not get any better when it is wet....
TEACHING PERSEVERANCE ON A BIKE
TEACHING PERSEVERANCE ON A BIKE