Untitled 19
Flying.
I'm flying.
The air rushes by my sticky, sweat-stained face-- it's refreshing-- and I feel like I'm being lifted up-- is this how airplanes work?-- and it's exciting how fast I'm moving and a little scary, but the adrenaline pumps through my chest and I just feel elation even as my eyes tear up from the sharpness of the wind and I think about how dangerous this could be so maybe I should just slow down a tiny bit but the thought of cutting back on this high-- of my heart feeling any less than it's feeling right now-- is just too much so I'd rather take the risk and keep soaring, even as the bike wobbles unsteadily below me and even as I imagine how much shit my entire body would eat if I hit a pothole at this speed.
But luck is on my side. There is no pothole on this road.
The road levels out and I'm no longer zooming downhill. The sweat beads up on my brow and I can feel it slide down my cheek until it drips off my chin as I slowly and laboriously pedal up the next incline.
I curse and pant for the next hour. It's endless. Every time, I think to myself, just one more bend around the mountain-- it'll be back to downhill, I promise!
And each time, I turn out to be a fucking liar.
Every day. Thousands of feet of elevation. I spend over 10 hours a day in the saddle of this damn mountain bike that weighs approximately a million pounds. I'm so slow and it's so hard and I think I'm going the right way but I don't actually know and I keep going around bend after bend after bend praying for the next downhill that never comes so fuck this.
But then it does come.
My mind is empty, my heart is full, the wind rushes past me-- or do I rush past the wind?--
And I'm flying.
---
I'm heading out now!
"When do you think you'll get to LA?"
My plan is to get there in 6 or so days but I might just come back this afternoon if I get bored.
"Mmkay, stay safe then!"
And with that I set off southwards with the sun just peaking over the horizon.
To be honest, I don't really know what I'm doing.
I was bored, broke and unemployed, and the butterflies in my belly rumbled with wanderlust.
Someone had once told me that you could bike from Canada to Mexico along the Pacific Coast Highway. I hadn't been interested at the time, because I thought cycling was stupid, but given my current state, I figured I'd look into it. I Googled information about the path and options for camping. I spent the evening writing directions that would take me from San Francisco to Los Angeles onto a half sheet of paper which I taped to my bike handlebars.
That was yesterday.
And now I'm here, biking to Los Angeles on my shitty $150 used mountain bike I bought off some guy in Oakland. All I am carrying with me are the clothes on my back (Old Navy flip-flops, leggings, a tank-top and a long-sleeve), my climbing helmet and headlamp, a summer sleeping bag, and a backpack filled with 3 liters of water, a jar of peanut butter, a bag of oatmeal, a spoon, a toothbrush + toothpaste, my wallet, my non-smart phone and charger, sunscreen and one change of clothes.
No stove. No guide. No tent or sleeping pad.
Up until yesterday, I'd never considered bike touring in my life and while I have a list of camp sites I can sleep at along the way, I don't actually know anything about bike touring.
I just know I have to go.
Not anywhere in particular, not by any means in particular. I simply have this overwhelming urge to go.
Staying in a house all day, idly waiting for emails or phone calls about the countless job applications I've chucked into the winds of San Francisco's tech scene-- is this real life, or have I already died and been condemned to some kind of hell? A hell in which you're watching paint dry as you perpetually wait for an unknown answer from an unknown person who maybe doesn't even exist, strung along day after day in hopes that something will come along, but you don't know what that something is and you're not even sure if you actually want it.
It's suffocating.
I have to go.
I need to know that I'm alive.
---
I wake up numerous times throughout the night from leg cramps.
The muscles in my thighs and calves are on fire and I can see them twitching underneath my skin. I wish I had ibuprofen, but I hadn't had the foresight to bring any with me.
It's the end of the first day and things aren't looking good.
In terms of distance and elevation, today is most likely the easiest day I'll encounter, covering just 57 miles and 2,700 feet of elevation gain. I'd biked up to 50 miles before, so the distance wasn't so bad, but I'd never done actual uphill cycling, and my muscles are not conditioned for it. My lower back is also quite sore, which I hadn't anticipated at all.
Overall, cycling is significantly harder than I'd expected.
On the plus side, it makes peanut butter and granola an amazing meal.
And with each twitch in my calves, I'm reminded that I'm alive.
Exhaustion overtakes the cramps and I sleep.
---
Each day, I'm stronger than the previous.
I can bike further and harder and faster, and after the first night, the cramps decrease day by day. By the fourth night, there are none left as I sleep.
I wake up with the sunrise every day, around 7am, and start cycling by 8. I'm faster than before, but by far the slowest cyclist on the road as the others zoom by on their road bikes fitted with waterproof panniers. It usually takes me all day to get to the next camp site. Some days, I finish the last few miles in the dark.
But I always make it to the next camp site.
And I learn that for every uphill, there is always a downhill. The more I sweat and curse, the longer I soar.
---
For most of the day, my mind shuts off for hours at a time. I can't even say I'm focused on cycling-- it's just automatic, really.
But in between the lulls, there are moments of magic.
In Carmel-by-the-Sea, I gawk at the gorgeous houses all just a stone's throw away from the beach, and I window shop as I stroll the streets of Monterray. At the highway pullouts, I watch the whales splashing in the not-too-far distance and in Big Sur, I walk to the oceanside waterfall. The Elephant Seals in San Simeon are simply unreal in everything they are!
The strawberry fields south of San Luis Obispo though are my favorite. They stretch for miles and for hours as I cycle, all I smell is the sweet scent of strawberries which saturates the air.
There is another moment I love-- just before San Simeon, there is this mile or two where I am hit by such a strong tailwind that the wind literally pushes me forward on my bike. It's angled just right so I barely have to pedal even as I coast along.
To be honest, most of the day is a blur as I sit in my saddle, cycling for hours upon hours. But each day is sprinkled with just enough magic to remind me that the world is far more brilliant that I remember it to be.
---
But the thing I live for is the people.
At the camp sites every night, I chat with the other cyclists on their way south. We're all going on the same path-- there are a set number of parks with biker/hiker camp sites that are open to only those who arrive by foot or bike. Some people are taking it easier, stopping at the parks spaced every 30-40 miles, while others skip parks, going anywhere between 60-120 miles a day. Depending on how your distances align, you see some people once and never again. Others' match up perfectly with yours, and you see them every single night.
I'm inspired by all of them.
There's the pair of retired women. Longtime friends, these women in their 60's decided to make their dreams a reality, and embarked on this bike tour down the coast.
The Brazilian couple has been cycling for over 3 years with no intention of quitting. They claim the most difficult country for them has been China, because of how vast it is and how far apart towns can be-- they had to be careful with planning supplies as they traveled.
The boy in his mid-20's is trying to use Tinder to get housing some nights instead of having to camp. It's actually quite a genius idea though I'm not sure how much success he is having.
The best are the pair of Swedes and the kid from San Luis Obispo who are on the same schedule as me. We end up hanging out two nights in a row, and then taking a rest day together in San Luis Obispo where the kid lives. We play volleyball and eat pizza and sleep comfortably indoors until we part ways the next day.
In our day-to-day, I feel so awkward even around people I've known for a long time. But somehow, bounded together in this singular passion, I can comfortably share floorspace and beer and food and ice cream with strangers. We are like people even though we know so little about each other.
Yet beyond our current goal, we're so different.
Our ages, our experiences, our languages and passions and motivations and everything are all so different.
And I love it.
Because sometimes I feel like an incomplete person.
There are so many emotions I've yet to feel, so many things that are so completely foreign to me, like going getting a PhD, being a investment banker, getting married, getting divorced, suffering from loss, being able to go into the water and not drown, growing up in a different state/country/continent/tax bracket/race, what have you.
I love that I get to meet so many others. In hearing their stories, I can imagine that I'm filling in these incomplete parts of me, even if it's just a little bit. There's a whole world out there that is infinitely vast, and slowly, I can reach out and see just a tiny bit more of that infinity.
It's beautiful.
It's beautiful even when it's not beautiful, because within that infinity is infinite goodness and infinite suffering.
While I cycle, there is a moment when a car slows down beside me, and the boy inside the car yells something obscene and flicks me off as he speeds off for no apparent reason. There is also the town I pass by which, because of the long drought in California, can no longer keep public flush toilets or even private laundry machines. The residents learn to make do in other ways.
Some people in the small towns I pass through smile at me while others stare in suspicion.
In this way, I get a glimpse of so many feelings and so many lives.
So many lives.
And so I know that we're alive.
---
By the end, I'll have cycled up 20,500 feet of elevation over 450 miles, spread across 6 days.
My longest and hardest day is the last-- 118 miles with 3,400 feet of elevation gain in temperatures that peaked at 94 degrees.
When I get to my destination, it is nearly 10pm. My friend meets me there with a plate of chicken which I inhale. He drives me and my bike home over the last mountain pass which I refused to cycle through. Once home, I chug several cups of water, gorge myself on leftovers from my parents' fridge and pass out in my bed.
It is good to be alive.