Loaded down

Days remaining to get ready for a ride across South Africa are dwindling, and I'm working on making final decisions about gear. This trip is particularly scary because mechanically, I'm virtually on my own. The Freedom Trail travels through rural and remote parts of South Africa, and bike shop availability is even more slim than it was on the Great Divide. As such, I'm bringing an entire mini-kit of spare parts that I can only hope I don't actually need to use, as I have low confidence in my own field repairs. (I get it, if you're going to be a cyclist, it pays to work on your own bikes. But trust me, you would not want to ride any bike that I took apart and put back together, and neither do I.)

So, top of my list, spare parts. Next on the list is gadgets. When a race organization explicitly forbids GPS, you need a lot of gadgets to make up for it: Odometer, spare odometer after mud inevitably kills the first one, spare magnets, compass, handlebar map holder, and an ingenious little electronic cue-direction device that Beat has designed, built, and programmed. Hopefully I'll have a chance to write more about this device after I have a chance to test it more extensively. It has high potential for usefulness and also for being broken by me. But it's made with love, and that is reason enough to value it highly. Gadgets also include a handlebar and helmet light, spare batteries, battery charger, camera, camera charger, cell phone, iPods, and a South Africa plug adaptor. You should see this plug adaptor; it's the size of a rear derailleur. Seriously, everything is bigger in Africa.

Liehann and I won't be carrying camping gear, as we plan to utilize the support stations set up by the Freedom Challenge organization, even if it means pulling an extra long night ride to make it to the next stop, or stopping early if the next station is too far away. Cowboy camping in rural South Africa is discouraged, and I figure the farm house accommodations will be part of the whole cultural experience. There are also occasional warnings on the maps such as "watch out for rhinos" ... so yeah, there's that. I do have a robust emergency bivy (that won't fall apart if I need to use it), fire starters, and extra clothing for potential unexpected long stops.

And clothing. South Africa is located at a subtropical latitude with oceans on three sides, so winters are relatively mild. Storms can be more frequent and severe during the winter months, but the Interior is usually characterized by crisp, sunny days and frosty nights. It actually seems comparable to a coastal California winter — 80-degree heat is a possibility, but so are temperatures in the low 20s. There are also points on the route that climb near 3,000 meters (10,000 feet.) Even coastal California is a not-so-nice place in the winter at those elevations, and one poorly timed storm could bury us in snow. Liehann warned that we could also spend a lot of time soaking wet, so I'm carrying a lot of the same clothing I took on the Iditarod Trail in February — Gore-Tex shell, rain pants, wind tights, nanopuff jacket, windproof hat, windproof buff, mitten shells, fleece socks and vapor barrier socks. I even purchased a pair of size 10 Montrail Mountain Masochist shoes to accommodate extra sock layers, with the added bonus of not being Gore-Tex (as are my current winter shoes) for better ventilation. My everyday kit is a Castelli skort and Patagonia capaline mock turtleneck long-sleeve shirt — which I also wore in the Iditarod, and believe to be the best shirt for all occasions. It's somehow sun-protective yet cooling when it's hot, and reasonably insulating when it's cold. I'm also carrying a pair of light running shorts and a T-shirt for sleeping, and also for wearing on the bike if the chamois become a problem (Over long distances or rainy days, chamois take on some of the properties of a dirty diaper, and that is a problem.)

I loaded up my bike and backpack with the lot of it, as well as a day's food and water, and set out this afternoon for a weighted ride. I planned a particularly climb-intensive route to get a feel for the heft on steep terrain, but started to feel bad surprisingly early. So bad, actually, that when I slashed a brand new tire at mile 3.5, I very seriously considered pulling the plug on the whole ride. There was a dime-sized shard of glass stuck between tread, and sealant was spewing all over the place. But when I pulled out the glass and spun the wheel, the sealant seemed to hold. A few pumps of air was all it took to get everything back to normal. I had my entire spare-part kit with me, including tire boots, two spare tubes, extra sealant, and a patch kit, but I was trying to justify my way out of riding. "Maybe the sealant won't hold. I should just go home."

Maybe feeling this way was predictable. Allergy season is in full swing, so there's that. I also had a blood draw in the morning. Fasted for twelve hours, gave three vials full of blood for different tests, ate two bowls of cereal and coffee, and set out for a 50-mile ride with 8,000 feet of climbing on a loaded mountain bike. But it wasn't *that* much blood, so I was incredulous. "Why do I feel so weak? This bike isn't *that* heavy. I'm just being lazy."

By the time I hit the Waterwheel Trail, I was feeling lightheaded, almost dizzy. But it's good learning experience to practice recovery on the bike — dialing back the effort level and trying to recapture energy while maintaining forward motion. I ate a few fruit snacks but my appetite was low and I didn't want to add nausea to the mix. Still, I had so much fun descending Bella Vista and Alpine trails that I forgot all about the dizziness.

That is, until it was time to climb up Windy Hill. Grades sometimes approach 20 percent, and I could not stay on the bike without feeling like I might black out. I stumbled and wove as I pushed up the loose gravel fire road, wondering how I could possibly become so weak and delirious with this scant extra weight — I can usually ride up this trail without issue. About a half mile from the top, I finally sat down in the high grass that ignites my allergies and ate two Clif Bars. Results weren't immediate, but I started to feel a whole lot better within the next twenty minutes. It seems obvious as I write this, but at the time — before Clif Bars — my world was crashing down on me. I was too weak to pedal a loaded bike. My legs were shot. This Africa trip was going to be a disaster. Low blood sugar — such a humorous physical state, when you think about it.

Anyway, it was a great ride — scenic loop, rolling steep hills, lots of singletrack, almost all dirt between the first and last eight miles, and it starts right out my front door. Even with low blood sugar and loaded for touring, it's fun. 

Hot lips

 Have you ever had an extremely minor injury catch you off guard and take over your life for a few days? This was my week. I sunburned my lips. It happened during my long ride over Diablo and Hamilton on Saturday. I'm usually very meticulous with the lip and face sunscreen; I keep a stick of SPF 50 within reach at all times, and Saturday was not an exception. Maybe it was the wind and excessive licking or maybe I just lapsed from my burned-in (ha!) sunscreen habit, but I fried my lower lip.

On Sunday it hurt a little, but something erupted on Monday and it bubbled into a full oozing blister complete with frequent bleeding and intense pain. Symptoms also included difficulty eating, drinking coffee and all other liquids through a straw, inability to sleep at night because it felt like a hot iron was pressed against my mouth at all hours, and uncharacteristic reluctance to venture outside. I had absolutely zero interest in the hot sun and anything under it, but figured this wasn't the best timing to sit inside for a week nursing this "injury." I slathered the third-degree mess in a thick layer of sunscreen and balm and forced myself out for a few short runs, reasoning that running is slower than biking and thus less likely to produce pain-inducing wind. But my spring allergies are also a mess right now; I can only breathe through my mouth, and every breath was like sucking fire. Argh. I was in such agony, but how much can you sulk over things you do to yourself, and silly things at that?

On Thursday, I headed down to Orange County to visit my little sisters. My youngest sister, Sara, lives in Huntington Beach, and Lisa was flying from Utah for the weekend as a birthday gift to herself. It was the perfect opportunity for quality sister time, and it was also sunny and 106 degrees in Los Angeles on Thursday. The lips were still a mess; it was embarrassing. I purchased some zinc oxide and enjoyed several fun outings that all three of us could enjoy, including an afternoon on the beach.

We had some fun re-enacting a favorite family photo. I took the photo when I was 11 and my sisters were 8 and 3, during a vacation to Southern California. I remember the camera; it was a purple Mickey Mouse Kodak point-and-shoot that ran 110 film cartridges. It was my first camera, and I relished the freedom to shoot my own images and capture my own memories. Shortly after I took the top photo, a church group was putting together time capsules that we were to open when we turned 25. That beach photo went in the mix, and was forgotten until I found the sealed can in my parent's basement and opened it in 2004. The photo was badly damaged in a misguided attempt to laminate it, but I retouched it in Photoshop and ordered a large print for my mother. My parents love that photo, and I thought it would be fun to recreate a 2014 version.

All in all it was a sister fantastic trip — we watched chick flicks, tried Shabu-Shabu (Lisa referred to the dish as "Japanese fondue"), ate frozen bananas on Balboa Island, and did the kinds of things sisters tend to do in So-Cal. My lip blister had almost sealed (not healed, I did mean sealed) when I drove home on Saturday. I'm pretty sure I'll have some permanent scarring from this incident.

 Sunday was the Ohlone Wilderness 50K. My friend Ann offered an entry to this race back in February, and of course I said yes because I love local 50K races and Ohlone is possibly my favorite. What's not to love about a classic point-to-point run through a scenic cross-section of the Diablo Range, with 8,000 feet of climbing in 31 miles, frequent and friendly aid stations, and a huge barbecue at the finish? Beat was en route to Nome when I signed up, and I forgot to ask about signing him up as well. The race was full by the time he returned. He volunteered for pre-race course checking, so he had the privilege of running the whole route two hours early and received the much-coveted tie-dye volunteer T-shirt.

I had a decent run at Ohlone. One couldn't ask for better weather (65-75 degrees, foggy in the morning and a fierce but refreshing wind in the afternoon.) The wind made the grass pollen situation quite bad; allergies got to the point where I could hear chirpy birds in every breath, so I blitzed the wheezing with two Benadryl pills. The drowsy side effect usually hits me hard, but this race necessitated such an early rise (4:30!) that it was difficult to tell whether the medication increased already prevalent drowsiness. It definitely opened my airways. Before Benadryl, I was becoming genuinely concerned about my ability to keep running; after Benadryl, I could breathe.

Besides the allergies I felt strong until a series of steep descents after Rose Peak, where I discovered that my downhill running technique is back to being sucky again. I suppose my running mileage has been reduced over the past few months and probably led to a lapse in confidence and return to bad habits. Every step was stiff and jerky; there was frequent skidding on the loose dirt, picking bad lines through the rocks and stumbling, panicking about hurting myself and and doing more downhill walking than anyone who calls themselves a trail runner should do. Pathetic. I shouldn't be running like this anymore, even if I took a substantial amount of time off. And I'm still running through my bike training, so I'm not exactly sure what happened today. At least uphill strength managed to pick up some of the slack. I mostly stayed near the same set of folks through the end of the race, so I finished where I should have. (Not sure where that was. 7:18 was the time. Nineteen minutes slower than the 6:59 in 2012 that I thought was fantastic, because Ohlone is not a fast 50K for most.) But yeah. Running. So hard. Why is it so hard? I do have fun with running though, in no small part because nothing about it comes easily.

I didn't do a single bike ride this week. I blame lips. 

Flow motion

There are a lot of roads to nowhere; many are fun and scenic places to ride bikes. Rare, however, are the collision of factors that tiptoe toward a more transcendent experience. On this day: A cold northwest wind, much cooler than we anticipated for the East Bay in mid-May. A steep, rolling backroad cut high above a gorge, waiting for the canyon to come to it. A 146-mile day ride over two big mountains and the physical reactions associated with that effort. Mile 89 — the gorge rises to road level and suddenly we're wending along a trickle of a stream. The grade is just uphill enough to always have to work for it, to never coast, and the route begins to trend southeast. Crosswind becomes a tailwind; I spin the pedals harder until I feel no air at all. The wind and I are moving in the same direction at the same speed. Everything becomes silent; even bike vibrations quiet, as though the wheels have lifted off the pavement. I feel everything else more intensely — the tension and release of leg muscles, the relaxation of shoulders, the hard leans into turns, acceleration against gravity. My hands, hot and calloused. My skin, chilled and sweaty. My breathing, soft and urgent. Everything else stands very, very still, as though I am moving in direct correlation with the Earth. Centered.

Just recently I came across the story of "Slomo." You may have heard about Slomo, as a documentary about him was recently featured in the New York Times and has since been brought up in discussions about the biology of bliss. Slomo is the alter-ego of John Kitchin, a 69-year-old former neurologist who has spent the past fifteen years skating the same stretch of boardwalk on Pacific Beach in San Diego. He's perfected an odd-looking technique of balancing on one leg for as long as possible, giving the appearance that he's skating in slow motion. This is effectively how he spends the majority of his waking hours. Skating up and down Pacific Beach. Every day. For fifteen years.

Ever since I read Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi's "Flow" last year, I've been fascinated by the different techniques people use to achieve, as Kitchin calls the state he's seeking, "The Zone." My friend who recommended the book plays the saxophone; some people paint or compose music, others ski, surf, run, ride bikes. Some people find flow in meditation and yoga, others while working an assembly line, still others engaged in pastimes as mundane as generating repetitive rhythms with their fingers. What's intriguing is all of these wildly different activities aim to achieve the same end. There are many short and long ways to describe "Flow" (the book is quite long.) But they way I see Flow is an alignment — to, at least briefly, tap into the pattern underlying the chaos of life, shed self-consciousness and all the baggage of ego and individual perception, and just be.

When I contemplate my happiest moments on a bike, patterns emerge — I am usually somewhere surrounded by subtle beauty, a place that feels remote, riding a road or smooth piece of singletrack that traces the contour of the land. The terrain is generally nontechnical, so I feel no stress, and requires my physical input to create motion — meaning long downhill coasting doesn't usually generate the same level of joy. Another integral component is the endurance factor. The accumulation of distance and effort wears down mental barriers and helps pry open the gateway to this state of mind. If I were to ride the wending contours of Mines Road at mile three of a day's bike ride, I would find the experience enjoyable, pleasant, still completely worthwhile ... but bliss, that only comes later.

On Saturday Liehann and I set out to ride from the start of a 50K trail race Beat was running in Oakland, and ride home via the summits of Mount Diablo and Mount Hamilton. We pedaled through the Oakland hills in cool morning air but then had to cross a long swath of freeways and crowded streets in Walnut Creek. I have a love-hate relationship with road cycling. I love how much ground I can cover and all the things I can see riding roads, but don't cope well with traffic, and sometimes other cyclists. Diablo was an unsettling experience. It was a beautiful spring day and there were lots of bikes on the road — which is great, but there were some tensions. I got a few derisive comments about my backpack and platform pedals (I get it, I'm a dorky tourist who likes my comforts.) There was one narrowly avoided head-on collision with a cyclist who took a sharp curve really wide. And the descent was just terrifying — mostly because impatient drivers pulled out to pass long groups of climbing cyclists and other cars, with no regard for those already in the lane, riding at 20-plus miles per hour downhill.

As we rode away from the mountain, I thought this road ride was a mistake. But as we passed into more rural areas, I began to perk up because it was still a beautiful spring day, traffic became far less of an issue, and the joy of distance was beginning to set in. We devoured chips with Coke and Gatorade while propped against the window outside a gas station in Livermore. (Liehann said, "I feel so classy," and I said, "This is the best part of bike touring. You just don't care.") Then it was on to Mines Road, rolling through the remote heart of the Diablo Range.

By the time we descended into the San Antonio Valley, I had savored a few moments of bliss and felt genuinely excited about the next section — turning directly into that 20 mph northwest wind and climbing the steep backside of Mount Hamilton. We were north of a century and pedaling a section of road that climbs about 2,500 feet in five miles — punishing, but wonderful. I rode up to the closed observatory on the peak, gazed out across far horizons, and put on a thin wind jacket for what promised to be a frigid descent. My surly Mount Diablo demeanor had turned into a big dopey Mount Hamilton grin. When I thought about the reasons why, I thought about Slomo.

Slomo's lifestyle is based in advice to "do what you want," and one of the best parts of life is a freedom to do so. That freedom is a privilege, no doubt, but it takes courage, too — the courage to seek those things that spark passion, and do them for one reason — the sake of doing them. Life of course is more complicated than a quest for bliss, and Slomo's philosophy of a simple, individual path to happiness certainly has a lot of detractors. But it's an important thing to consider, especially after rare moments when the slate of self-consciousness is briefly erased. Questions like, "what is a life?" and "what does it mean, to do what you want?"