Flea The Race

Day	23	Date	31th May 2015
Distance Total Distance	92.1km 1,353.7km	Weather	Sunny Spells, Warm
Rolling Time Total Rolling	05:08:58 78:05:45	Terrain	Hilly
Climbing Total Climbing	795m 11,832m	Spend	Beer & Burger $11.00 Beer & Hotdog $10.00 Beer $5.00
Average Speed	17.9k/h	Sleeping	Camping
Max Speed	54.0k/h	Difficulty	Easy

 

Sluggish morning this one was, I didn’t get going today until after 11am, I first cooked up 2 huge baps filled with lettuce, mayo, fried bacon and eggs, I was totally stuffed after horsing the two of them down, after that I took a shower, packed up and headed away from this really cool national park.  There were a couple of trails there to hike that I would have liked to do if I was hanging around for the day.  There didn’t seem to be anybody at the entrance hut yesterday evening when I arrived so I didn’t pay my fee for the use of the campground last night…..my bad!

I jumped on my bike and decided to make a town called Trinidad my first stop of the day to get coffee and WiFi, it’s really cool that the road signs since yesterday have San Francisco listed at the bottom, by the end of the day the last sign I came to listed it as a mere 283 miles away, this is now less then 5 days until I get to cycle across the Golden Gate Bridge, the biggest icon of my trip!  It’s also going to be cool to stop about here for a day or two and explore it again.  I lived here for 3 months with my brother and his friends on a J1 back in 2000, fifteen years ago, can’t wait to check out some of the old haunts to see if they still are what they were at the time!

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I got to Trinidad around 4pm and came across a bunch of cyclists beside a BBQ grill that was part of a grocery store.  I got talking to these lads for about half an hour, there was a good ten of them in the group and they were all from down south about 1 hour north of Mexico.   They had driven up to this way with their bikes and were riding from here to San Francisco over the next week they were a very friendly bunch, they all had a go at lifting my bike and were in awe at the bloody weight of it, like myself, nobody could really lift it.  Their bikes were light and they weren’t carrying very much, definitely half the weight of mine.  One of them, Richard, wrote me a note on the back of his business card of a hostel I need to check out down south one days ride from ‘Big Sur’, he said he has stayed three times at this hostel and said something magical has happened every time in the sense that he met someone and made a lasting connection there every time.  As with all local advice on this trip I will definitely check out the place once I get there.

I stayed here as the cyclists all left and ordered a BBQ cheese burger from the outdoor grill, went into the store and paid for it along with a pint bottle of a local IPA I rooted out of the fridge and went outside to the communal bench and ate my burger with my beer chatting with some of the other people at the table and also the guy cooking up the grill.  He was a sound guy who also gave me some local advice and recommended some local IPA’s that he really likes and also a microbrewery in Arcata a couple of miles south of here which he wrote down on slips of paper for me.  I decided to order a hot dog after my burger and another beer before going on my way to the next stop where I planned on checking out the brewery in Arcata for one before looking for my campsite for the night

I cycled on quite a bit and got to a town that I thought was Arcata, I remembered the the brewery was on H Street so I cycled through the town, entering at the X Street end and made my way to H where I stopped and made my way over to a guy walking my way to ask him if he knew where the Redwood Curtain Taproom was, he said that wasn’t in this town it was back a few miles, so when I asked where I was he said Eureka. I missed the town as I didn’t come off the highway in time, this guys name was Kyle who was on his way to a local bar for a beer with his buddy and said I was welcome to join them which is exactly what I did.  I parked my bike up outside the bar and went in for one, I didn’t have heaps of time as it was 7:30pm at this stage and I kinda need to be having the tent up at 8:30pm.  I stayed for one with them then had to be on my way, Kyle wrote me his number on piece of paper and said if I’m ever stuck he is south with work a lot and to give him a shout and he will come help me out.  Sound guy,  I love these random encounters with random people!

I had to ride 10km to get out of Eureka which has a big homeless problem, along the way it started pissing rain, the first time on this trip I’ve hit a proper shower but it wasn’t so nasty because it was quite warm and I was after my third beer of the afternoon so it was easily dealt with.  I found a place to stop in this marsh land beside a god house of some denomination where I found a relatively level patch to stick up the tent in the rain out of sight.  I hid out here from the rain for the night and cooked up some cheesy muffins, checked out what was coming up the next day then fell asleep for the night.