March 2010
1 post
I must say
I miss the sweet peace of middle America. The cold, clear Colorado; knee deep in Needles. The vast ocean that is Kansas. The Missouri midnight skyline.
October 2009
2 posts
Mission Accomplished! (In SF Baby!)
Todd and I officially made it into the city Monday night. We are currently staying at our friend Allyson’s flat. Separate updates about the final week are in the works from both Todd and I along with tons of pictures. We just have been exploring the city and keeping too busy for a blog update. -Karl
September 2009
27 posts
Day 51 (El Segundo)
We have taken 2 rest days in El Segundo after a long hard push to the coast. Jeff’s high school friend Billand his roommates kindly opened up their home to us. It has been nice to shower, do laundry, and play video games on a huge LCD tv. Luckily Bill’s roommate Chris had Burnout 3, one of my favorite video games. After playing several rounds,crashing cars, and getting beat, I switched...
Day 48
Today we reached the coast. After a shitty little detour, we found our way, crushing 113 miles to El Segundo, CA, where I hope to find Q-Tip’s wallet. Today was important on a number of levels. We officially reached the Pacific (though we haven’t actually seen it yet), plus, this was our last day riding with our longtime companion, Jeff. His trip ends in LA. I’m fairly...
Day 47
Today we rode from camp, roughly ten miles from 29 Palms, to a town called Cabazon. We took a long break in Yucca Valley, where we had some spicy tofu for Karl’s birthday lunch. Not much happened today, a lot of private reflection amongst the group about our trip, as it comes to end. There is so much we’ll miss, so much we already miss, and so much uncertainty and excitement about the...
Day 42
We left Williams, AZ, bound for Kingman, with the intention of taking a 4-5 hour rest about halfway. We split off from our Japanese comrade relatively early on, but we eventually met him again and decided to camp with him in Grand Canyon Caverns, AZ. They had incredible showers, for a campground.
Day 43
We left GCC bright and early, reaching Kingman around 12:30pm. There was a pretty...
Days 39, 40, & 41
Day 39
We from Kayenta, AZ to Tuba City, AZ, a total of 75 miles. Not a very eventful day. We stayed at a KOA/hotel with tent space for fifteen bucks. It was worth it, for sure. We met some Israeli guys who were very excitable, but really, not much else worth mentioning.
Day 40
We rode from Tuba City, AZ to the Grand Canyon. The first twenty miles were really awesome, but the ascent (3000 feet...
Day 38 (Into the Desert)
Our new riding buddy, Jeff, has one of those tiny laptops that uses the Verizon Wireless Network to conect to the internet, which now allows me (Karl) to update a little more frequently. So here is a recap of the crazyness that was day 38.
We left Cortez around 8:30 or so after stocking up on food for the desert. We were only 40 miles from Four Coners (the point where Colorado, Utah, Arizona, and...
Days 34-37
Sorry for the lack of updates. This may be the last time I can do this for a while, so here goes… Day 34
Nothing crazy, a rest day. We sat in our couch-host’s house all day listening to cranked-up jams. We put some new brake pads on (the Monarch descent did a number on the old ones), did a little this and a little that. A typical rest day… Day 35
This is the day shit started...
Day 33
I’m on the verge of crashing, but I’ll try to give a little justice to the epic day we just finished… Today we left Salida no later than 8:30. There was a slight incline from the get, and after briefly stretching at a gas station in Poncha Springs (5 miles in) we started what we would soon find to be the gnarliest climb of our lives.
The first twelve miles were slow but...
Day 32
Today was a fairly easy day, 59 miles from Westcliffe to Salida. Both towns are great, and this whole Wet Valley experience has been awesome.
Salida is a pretty kickass town nestled in this massive valley. There are three bike shops, tons of awesome little bookshops and art galleries, and more in that vein. We were directed by one of the gals working at the bike shop to a restaurant where we got...
Days 30, 31
Double posts are difficult, cut me some slack.
Yesterday was comparatively uneventful. We rode 65 miles, from Sugar City to Pueblo, CO. I drank 96 cups of coffee at the SC cafe, we first saw the Rockies, ate awesome tofu in Pueblo…that’s about it.
Today, on the other hand, was pretty radical. We left Pueblo around brunchtime and headed into the mountains. The altitude makes breathing...
Day 29
We woke up in Eads, CO way earlier than we should have today. After going to bed at 4am (5am without the time change), after a 180-mile ride, we should not have been up until three days from now. But we got up and felt pretty good, considering. Our comrades left Eads northbound toward Colorado Springs/Boulder, but we left heading W/SW toward Pueblo, which we will go to/through tomorrow. It was...
We're not in Kansas anymore
Yesterday we left Hays, with the intention of reaching Ness City, but a crazy-ass lightning storm kept us at Alexander, 42 miles. It was only supposed to be a half-day anyway. Today my stroke was incredible for about 80 miles. We both felt good so we decided to try to catch our friends. We crossed into Mountain Time, then into Colorado. We started at 10:00am and by 4:00am central we had climbed...
Days 25, 26
Bear with me here. The past two days have been really awesome and I’m about 4 Torpedos deep…
Yesterday, as showcased by the photos in the preceding post, we met up with some really awesome upstate NY-area kids (Chris, Emily, & Matt) on a similar trip to ours (they are in the process of moving to the Boulder, CO region by bicycle). We all have lots in common and decided to ride...
Day 24
We set off today from Cassoday around 10am, bound for Buhler. We started right away into a 38-mile stretch of nothingness, until we hit Newton. Newton was beyond awesome to us. At first, it seemed to be an average town in KS, just larger. Then, we found a rad health food store, where we meandered about for a while, just happy to be around some real vegan food. We splurged a little bit, just...
August 2009
50 posts
Days 22, 23
I wish I could’ve posted a blog yesterday, but my phone was dead. It’s hard to remember what happens in even a single day, and so catching up on two is extra difficult…but I’ll try.
We left Pittsburg, KS in the morning. We got on a road heading west and rode for about 300 miles. I decided to try to even my tan, and now I have black arms, my entire back is red, and...
Day 21
Today we closed up our third week and our stay in Missouri. We busted out 84+ miles and ended in Pittsburg, Kansas, thanks to a detour that cost us 15-20 miles. Overall, it was a good day. I didn’t wear my brace at all and we just blasted along with minimal pain. We finished up splitting a sixer of Dead Guy, the first good beer we’ve seen since Columbus.
While we’re excited for...
Day 20
Today was a mostly uneventful day. We rode a total of 76 miles through our highest points in the Ozarks, then started working our way back down, which sounds like it’d be a lot easier than it actually was. We’ve still a little way to go, but if all goes well, we’ll be sleeping Kansas tomorrow eve.
Although today was pretty chill, there was indeed a twist. We pulled into Ash...
Day 19
I’m tired and it’s late so I’ll make this short and sweet.
Mountains R hard.
Today was pretty easy though, comparatively, just slow. Tomorrow we hit our high point in the Ozarks relatively early, then slowly work our way down. We’ll probably hit Kansas Friday. We did somewhere between 60 and 70 miles today, now we’re crashing on the courthouse lawn in Hartville,...
Days 17, 18, etc.
Today was the 18th (including rest days) of our trip, and we are now in Summersville, MO, about a third of the way through the Ozark Mountains. Let me do a brief run-up to today. I haven’t updated in a week-ish…sorry. Last we spoke we were headed into Farmington from somewhere I can’t recall. I’m beginning to feel sympathy for those unfortunate touring musicians who forget...
The Trip So Far...
I decided to make a separate post for a recap of the trip facts so far.
Total Progress
Total Mileage 905 m Average Daily Mileage 75.4 Total Days 16 Riding Days 12 Rest Days 4 States Ohio, Kentucky, Indiana, Illinois, Missouri
Daily Progress
Week 1
Day 1 Saturday, 8/8 Mileage 59 m State(s) Ohio
Day 2 Sunday, 8/9 Mileage 65 m State(s)...
Some Words From Missouri
We decided to take a third rest day here in Farmington because we really like it here and we want to let Todd’s knee build back up as much as possible. Our Couchsurfing hosts Kelsey and Sara have been super friendly, hospitable, and accommodating. They opened up their home to us, fed us amazing vegan food (including cookies!), let us clean and rest up, and introduced us to good friends and...
In the land of Popeye...
It is day 13 and we are about halfway through our ride today. We are taking our daily afternoon library break here in Chester, IL. Apparently it is the home of Popeye the sailor man. Every business has some sort of Popeye cartoon incorporated on it. Other than that, the only thing else there seems to be is hills and semi-trucks carrying coal. Once we leave here though, we immediately cross the...
Day Twelve
Today was cool until it became tonight. We chilled in a library and got szechuan tofu in Marion, IL, which was rad. Then things got hectic/shitty.
We were lucky to find a Wal-Mart again today, heading into Murphysboro. It was a nice break from the Twister sequel we were shooting. When we came out, the torrential downpour had ceased, though it was getting dark, and we cruised into the city. All...
Day Eleven
Today was a good day, overall. We are still keeping the pace relatively easy since I cannot push any sort of decent gear, but we managed to cover 78 miles today fairly comfortably. We’re finding a rhythm that helps us beat the really hot, uncomfortable part of the day…leave by 6AM, take a small break here and there until around noon, eat some lunch, nap and dick around until 4ish, then...
I just barely missed an opportunity to take a shit...
Also, Karl just said something to me that I’ve heard several times before, but never from a man: “That is the most ridiculous beef stick I have ever seen.”