Wednesday

Hey, you know me. I wear glasses. My vision is terrible and even with glasses I have trouble reading roadsigns from any real distance. Wearing glasses, as much as I might actually like it, is inconvenient while riding a bike in the rain. During any sort of real rainshower I've only got about 30 seconds before my entire corrected field of view is covered in water. I sometimes want to ride without my glasses, and without the constant glasses-accompanying fear that the rain will make my frames slippery enough to fall off while I'm riding. I think about this most on the long, fast downhills when a fall would be the most injurious. Realistically, most of my falls occur while moving very slowly or standing still, so I don't think I really need to fear the bike in motion. That brings us to Wednesday.

We got started around 10am, and about a mile down the road, after a nice, long downhill and a short climb, I stopped to tighten the cleat on my right pedal. But the cleat was incomplete! Tuesday I had to loosen the cleat as much as possible in order to release the broken shoe. Now, a small but unique puzzle-piece shaped bolt was missing and my right shoe couldn't firmly attach to the pedal. Kayla and I rode back to the church, keeping our eyes on the ground the whole way up what had been a fun downhill. We had no luck finding the piece on the road, in the parking lot, or inside the church where our bikes had been. I spoke with Marlin about my problem and he offered me his computer to use if it would help. After having no luck finding a cheaper solution I went ahead and ordered new pedals to have sent to Tok. They should be there Monday. So should we. 30 minutes after our oringinal departure, still unable to use my right cleat, Kayla and I were on the road again.

Almost the entire distance between miles 105 and 107 is one long, winding downhill, which is, of course, fun. Approximately 200 feet before the bottom of this hill there had very recently been a landslide that still stretched aross most of the road. Luckily there were no cars coming from the other direction and I was able to blast through the small clear section. At the bottom of the hill I found Ben. He had not noticed the landslide until he was upon it, and he rolled through a rough, rocky section which caused the sidewall of his tire to punture. I stayed with Ben as he struggled to get his tire and tube fixed. In the end he was successful, but it was a hard fought, pyrrhic victory. Ben went through three tubes before he could ride again, leaving him with only one spare fit for use. Eighty minutes later we were rolling again, though this time slowly and uphill.

It was still lightly raining and we were literally pedaling through a cloud, but when we could see any of our surroundings they were beautiful. There was once point where it looked like clay was dripping down the mountain and the wilderness green and rocky orange were flowing together unmixed, like oil and water. I wonder if I would have noticed the same things if I had seen the entire countryside, or if seeing discrete portions was necessary for me to notice any of the same details. This is a specific case of the more general "seeing the trees vs seeing the forest" issue. If there is one thing I learned from mathematics it is to always seek further generalization.

Coming out of the mountains was refreshing. We left behind the rain and had a significant tailwind the rest of the day. We traveled faster now, and the 17 miles before the Eureka Roashouse went by quickly and effortlessly. We were still cold and wet from the half of the day spent in the rain, and so we stopped to warm up. When we left an hour later we were dry (there was a fireplace!) and full of 25 cent coffee and delicious, fresh pie. We left with the wind at our backs and rode for a few more hours, covering a total of 60 miles that day. That night we dragged our gear laden bikes off the road and into the woods, pitching our tents at the first place we found large enough to fit them.

Uh-oh! Before we stopped I had begun to notice pain in each of my achilles tendons, though the pain was stronger in my left leg than in my right.....