resistmuch.com

Today was supposed to be a mellow day.  Just 40 miles to the last accessible campground above San Francisco to set up a Sunday dash across the city, the Golden Gate Bridge and into Half Moon Bay.  I took off fairly early and had a mediocre breakfast in a town I’ve already forgotten.  Shortly thereafter, I hooked up with Gene from the last two campgrounds.  We road together and occasionally were passed by or met up with the kids from Bodega Dunes.  Riding with someone else was different and a fun change of pace, especially on a fairly mellow day.  There was still some climbing, but 40 miles and good weather made for a relaxing day.  We went through a couple storybook little towns in Sonoma and Marin that probably fulfill any cliches you have in your mind about those places.  It was here that I saw my first sign for a teeter totter crossing:

We got to our intended campground around 1.  Way too early to stop.  Gene was travelling light and not really set up to camp as often as me, so we started on the next segment of the route knowing that we’d probably stop in a hotel.  I didn’t mind as I was a little sore and working on some major clothes funk.  Also, getting a head start on the miles to cross SF and the bridge looked like a really good idea.  A major Pacific storm is scheduled to hit sometime around Monday night and it could require laying up for a while, depending on the severity.  I’m thinking I’ll be somewhere around Santa Cruz then.  Gene doesn’t have “the book” (everyone else has the same guidebook for the Pacific Coast as I do and refers to it thusly) or the ACA maps and didn’t know that you bail off the 1 before it gets too trafficy and gnarly around the Bay.

Gene is a retired and soon to unretire school administrator.  We were talking about San Francisco and he said that he always stops at City Lights Bookstore.  We started talking about poetry and he said that he really liked a poet that some people don’t like.  Charles Bukowski.  We had a lot to talk about.  He had also just read the Monkey Wrench Gang.  Like I said, we had a lot to talk about.

Gene was telling me about how Abbey was discussed in the new Ken Burns thing about the National Parks when we bombed a major descent into urban Marin and had to stop talking because we were single file.  We saw this Mercedes about to make a left turn come all the way across the street and onto our shoulder.  We both had to brake and swerve right.  We gestured at the guy.  He pulled up next to us and started yelling.  His passenger was yelling too.  Up until this moment, I hadn’t had a car confrontation this whole trip, and neither had Gene, who started at the Canadian border.  Me and the driver exchanged fuck yous.  He stopped in the shoulder and started yelling some more.  I stopped to look back.  He got out of his car and walked up to where I was straddling my bike.  He said that I was “dead.”  I told him to chill and that I just wanted to ride my bike and I wasn’t going to fight him.  He was bigger than I am.  At 130, a lot of people are.  He bumped me with his chest.  His breath stunk of wine or something.  His female friend was screaming.  Two or three cars stopped and asked if I needed help.  One woman had a pen and we started writing down his license number.  She asked if I wanted to call the cops.  Just then, a CHP cruiser drove down the street and another person who had stopped waved him over.  Gene bailed.

This was all in the space of less than 3 minutes.  Asshole in the Mercedes starts to back up his car and the CHP makes him stop.  They already had a drunk driver in custody (4 pm on a Saturday) but I didn’t really get to meet her.  She seemed to be in a great mood, though.

I told the cop what happened and that the guy stunk of alcohol.

The investigating officer was a trainee and I think he saw me taking pictures.  He didn’t know what to do.  I never actually talked to him.

Shithead was given a sobriety test.  He failed and got hooked up in the cuffs.  Cuffed, he told me that he was going to sue me.  Cool.  The cops asked me if I wanted to press charges on the assault and battery (he threatened and touched me).  I told them that I was pretty amped and tired and that my witness testimony wouldn’t be that great, which was true.  I said as long as they had him on the 502, I was cool with that.  The cop said that yes, he was going down on the “deuce.”  While this was going on, most of last night’s hiker biker camp group rode by and stared.

His girlfriend thing kept moving around when the cops told her to sit still.  Just like on Cops.  It looked like she was going to be taken in as well.

After I gave my statement, they let me go.  To my surprise, Gene was waiting a block away.  We started riding again, hoping to find a hotel down the way.  After a couple blocks, we came upon Biketoberfest in Fairfax, Marin County.  This was a huge block party with bike vendors and microbrews and bands.  It looked insane.  I talked Gene into checking it out as he was really intent on finding a place to crash and going across the bridge.

At the first vendor I stopped at, a guy in the booth says “hey, I recognize that bag” pointing to my Rivendell Brand V vegan handlebar bag.  I look at his bikes and realize it is the Rivendell booth.  If you don’t recognize the name, this won’t mean much to you but Rivendell is basically the pinnacle of a certain kind of well-made American steel bikes.  Especially touring bikes.  Getting a look at a bunch of their product at once is a really big deal.  One of the guys held my bike for me while I got a picture.  He said, “that’s a really have load you’re carrying” and gave me a few copies of their in house publication, the Rivendell Reader.  Thanks.

Next to them were Calfee, who make bikes out of exotic things like crab fiber and bamboo.

Other cool manufactures like Soulcraft were there too.

People at the fair, recognizing our loaded bikes gave us tips on affordable places to stay and one guy even offered a floor.  I would have stayed, even though it was late, but Gene wanted to bail and he was depending on me for the off highway 1 route we were taking.  We were using Marin’s very cool bike route, which was even painted on the asphalt with special symbols.  We were around people, lots of them, which was very disconcerting and overloading after all those days on the Lost Coast.  Finally, we found the Budget Inn and they weren’t kidding.  This must be the only crack house in Marin County.  My room has a kitchen with a range without knobs.  I may sleep in my bag it is so scary.  Across the street was a mall with the Marin REI.  That could have been nirvanic, but neither of us need anything.  Instead, I bought everything in the Safeway.  I probably had a lot more to tell, but I need to sleep and my knees are achey.

Here’s the track: