Sneaking down Highway 1 into Big Sur, the back way aboard the cross bike.
I don't love the highway. Whichever, they are all full. Full of take your pick among: tourists driving rental RVs while looking at the view, impatience, frustration, ill mannered boobs, and means to ends. I will ride Highway 1, but it is only ever a way to get to something I actually want to ride.
Steve Earle writes some songs I really like, and he played Fernwood (a campground/restaurant in Big Sur) recently. I figured on riding down and grabbing a campsite so as the wife and I could see the show and crash, and head home the following morning. It's only 30 miles or so down there. Plus, it offers the opportunity to leave the highway behind and head up into the hills via Old Coast Rd. Hop off at Bixby Bridge and it's fire road radness through the redwoods.
2 interactions with cyclists occurred. 1) speedy chatty fellow rolled up on me as I passed Point Lobos and wanted the scoop. Within minutes he had decided we would ride the whole way together. I told him I had to stop and smoke a lot of weed, so...he opted to see me later. Done. B) while fronting the line of traffic at the stop light at Rocky Creek, where the wait is extended, I shook my fist at the Northbound cyclist. It was funny to me to watch him wave in solidarity, only to think that I was doing some unity/fist-in-the-air gesture and hesitantly respond in kind, and to finally be very confused as he passed. Perfect.
I had driven down the day before to do some other stuff, and had stopped to stash some beers in some creeks in anticipation of this ride. SAG yourself if no one else will, I guess. It works for me.
Here is a very short film about my riding style:
So with a creek cold couple a beers, I moseyed on up the "apex redwood" trail to see what was the big deal. Turns out it was a trail to no place. You got a nice view of the soiled toilet paper pile- who are these people?
And, if you're into such things, there is a substantial fairy ring you can stand in the midst of and gently sway as you drink a cheap can of beer and think about the perspective of trees. They are stuck with one another anyway. No getting away from this shit hole if you are a tree.
And for what it may be worth, we're all free to think what we like. I think Kerouac was a self centered jerk who wrote about even more self centered jerks, but with an appealing lyrical style. I'll stand on Bob Dylan's coffee table in my boots and say that. In Big Sur.
That above is to illustrate the art of strategic bicycle parking. I was attempting to slither down the questionable bank of a technically off-limits creek in order that I might access a couple more creek cold beers, and who wants a bike parked right there announcing one's presence? And now, consider what your eyes would see if you were driving along there, righteously, in your king-of-the-road automobile. Nobody here but us chickens.(the bike is the orange spot to the left of the dozer)
I left a beer in both creeks as an incentive to ride down again before the rains come and warsh them away.
Topped out and looking West into the glare.
And North towards Bixby. I stopped for a sandwich I'd toted in a handlebar bag.
And East towards Pico Blanco.
I filled my pockets with empties. I think that's prolly the best use to which that particular bag could be put. I was hauling more than my own. I theorized it might be the same folks who had gone to such trouble to decorate the backish woods with toilet paper who were also so free with their colorful empty cans.
After which point, it was a quick drop and pedal over to the show. That was a Good Time.
I don't love the highway. Whichever, they are all full. Full of take your pick among: tourists driving rental RVs while looking at the view, impatience, frustration, ill mannered boobs, and means to ends. I will ride Highway 1, but it is only ever a way to get to something I actually want to ride.
Steve Earle writes some songs I really like, and he played Fernwood (a campground/restaurant in Big Sur) recently. I figured on riding down and grabbing a campsite so as the wife and I could see the show and crash, and head home the following morning. It's only 30 miles or so down there. Plus, it offers the opportunity to leave the highway behind and head up into the hills via Old Coast Rd. Hop off at Bixby Bridge and it's fire road radness through the redwoods.
2 interactions with cyclists occurred. 1) speedy chatty fellow rolled up on me as I passed Point Lobos and wanted the scoop. Within minutes he had decided we would ride the whole way together. I told him I had to stop and smoke a lot of weed, so...he opted to see me later. Done. B) while fronting the line of traffic at the stop light at Rocky Creek, where the wait is extended, I shook my fist at the Northbound cyclist. It was funny to me to watch him wave in solidarity, only to think that I was doing some unity/fist-in-the-air gesture and hesitantly respond in kind, and to finally be very confused as he passed. Perfect.
I had driven down the day before to do some other stuff, and had stopped to stash some beers in some creeks in anticipation of this ride. SAG yourself if no one else will, I guess. It works for me.
Here is a very short film about my riding style:
So with a creek cold couple a beers, I moseyed on up the "apex redwood" trail to see what was the big deal. Turns out it was a trail to no place. You got a nice view of the soiled toilet paper pile- who are these people?
And, if you're into such things, there is a substantial fairy ring you can stand in the midst of and gently sway as you drink a cheap can of beer and think about the perspective of trees. They are stuck with one another anyway. No getting away from this shit hole if you are a tree.
And for what it may be worth, we're all free to think what we like. I think Kerouac was a self centered jerk who wrote about even more self centered jerks, but with an appealing lyrical style. I'll stand on Bob Dylan's coffee table in my boots and say that. In Big Sur.
That above is to illustrate the art of strategic bicycle parking. I was attempting to slither down the questionable bank of a technically off-limits creek in order that I might access a couple more creek cold beers, and who wants a bike parked right there announcing one's presence? And now, consider what your eyes would see if you were driving along there, righteously, in your king-of-the-road automobile. Nobody here but us chickens.(the bike is the orange spot to the left of the dozer)
I left a beer in both creeks as an incentive to ride down again before the rains come and warsh them away.
Topped out and looking West into the glare.
And North towards Bixby. I stopped for a sandwich I'd toted in a handlebar bag.
And East towards Pico Blanco.
I filled my pockets with empties. I think that's prolly the best use to which that particular bag could be put. I was hauling more than my own. I theorized it might be the same folks who had gone to such trouble to decorate the backish woods with toilet paper who were also so free with their colorful empty cans.
After which point, it was a quick drop and pedal over to the show. That was a Good Time.
2 comments:
Like an old gray cat in winter.
I guess getting off of that LA freeway would have applied as well, 1 does go all the way down. But it is coming on Winter.
And the lyric about old women with no children holding hands with the clock is speech defying.
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