Day 2: Comedy of Errors

Day 2

Well, as mentioned in my last post, Day 2 was off to a rough start.  It turns out, it was also a rough middle and a rough end.  Our original goal: 70 miles.  Our actual mileage: 22 miles (although we did climb 3,000 ft).  Instead of narrating the day, I'll just list every problem we ran into.

1. Jonathan has no reflectors or lights.  Put one on.

2. Jonathan's front brake rubbing against the wheel.  Fixed it.

3. A bungee cord wrapped around the axel of Jonathan's pedal.  Removed it.

4. Jonathan's back brake rubbing against the wheel.  Fixed it.

5. A screw falls out of Charlie's shoe (which clips to his pedal), and he can no longer pedal.  Fixed it at a bike shop.

6. Bill gets a flat tire.  Adjusted bent valve and pumped it up.

7. Bill's tire loses air.  Adjusted valve again and pumped it up again.

8. Bill's tire loses air again.  Tried to adjust valve and valve broke.

9. Replace the tube with Bill's spare.  Tube didn't hold air.

10. Attempt to replace tube with Charlie's spare.... but he had forgotten it.  Kriss backtracked 1.5 miles to supply his.

11. Charlie's back brake rubbing against the wheel.  Fixed it.

12. Charlie's wheel rubbing against frame.  Temporary fix.

13. Charlie's wheel misaligned.  No bike shop for miles, hardware store can't help.  Stuck in Julian, with Dennis 18 miles ahead, waiting for us with no cell phone signal.

14. We're all in shorts and t-shirts, temperature drops to thirties with 50 mph winds.  People of Julian laugh hysterically at us.  We buy clothes, take shelter in a Mexican restaurant, drink beer, eat burritos, chat with the locals, and hope that Dennis wonders what happened and comes back to save us.  Three and a half hours later, he shows up!!  At least we have a place to sleep.

Even with all the problems, we squeezed some good biking in and had a great time!