Tuesday, April 30, 2013

Ride Day 72



Fort Bragg to Leggett 46 miles 5000’ climbing.  Today was a hard ride for an old man like me.  I had rolling hills for thirty miles then a 500’ climb followed shortly after by an 1800’ climb.  I had to work on my tempo to get through the day.  At first I was pushing too hard on the pedals and getting winded then I would have to stop and rest a bit to let my heart slow down and my breath to catch up.  Then I let up on the pedal power, put it in grandpa gear and just started to spin with as little effort as I could to maintain motion going up the hill.  That worked out much better and I spun my way to the top of all the big grades today.  I am also getting into shape for riding long distances up and down lots of grades.  My first day out of SF I was too gungho remembering how I rode at the end of my last long ride and assuming I could ride like that again right off the bat.  I paid for it with cramps that day but have not had cramps since I eased up on the gas pedaling. 
The coast was once again gorgeous to ride along.   There was just beautiful views lined up one after the other.  I finally stopped taking pics of so many because there are just so many.  Then I turned into the redwoods.  I had just gone through the lumber company museum in Fort Bragg so I was thinking about how they raped this forest only a bit over a hundred years ago.  As I rode through the new young trees, I saw lots of stumps left over from those heydays of logging and clear cutting huge swaths of 1500 plus year old trees.  We are lucky the species survived.  The old stumps of redwood resprout and usually as many as five or six new trees start growing from the stump and for a big tree even more.  So eventually the redwoods will again tower if people don’t let the corporations hack em down again.
I got my tent rifled through at the last campground.  The only thing missing were some of my prescription meds.  The rangers seem to think they know who did it and are going to try to get them back but I doubt if I will ever see them again.  That was irritating because now I am going to be thinking about theft all the time.  Such is life though and I am over it already.
An abalone fisherman also died in the camp that same morning.  Tourists saw him floating facedown and by the time he was pulled to shore he was already gone.  The news today said three ab divers died last weekend.  The divers need to be more careful in the rough weather that was pounding the coast yesterday.  The salmon season here is open but the boats have nor been able to get out except for a few hardcore fools.  They are getting less than a fish per rod.  Rockfish opens up here on May 15th and com salmon on the first of May.
More later.