This is what Barb thinks of a long grade...FUN!!!

We have a professional birder, Kathy, on staff identifying birds.  the big one on the last blog was a Turkey Vulture, so good thing I didn't lay down on the side of the road as I have been called a Turkey before....my life could have been in immanent peril.......

New day and Lots to tell

You will have to piece the pics with the blog, don’t have time to do that today….

As we left Lompoc it was overcast, but the first hill of the day got rid of any thought of being cold.  Then we got to go up Harris Grade!!!!!! So much excitement By tne time we had gotten to the top we had done 5 miles in an hour and a half.  What a way to start off a 50 mile day.  But it wasn’t really too bad, lots of switchbacks, so the grade was broken up, not like the long continuous haul before Lompoc.  No shoulders, but road was slow so cars worked with us.  Great Vistas too.   

Then came the decent…. First time I’ve been able to go above the posted speed limit (15-20 mph).  As  my sister Peg would say it was a WheeeHeeee ride down with all the switchbacks and stuff. 

When we got to the bottom of the hill, my bike was making noises, so when I looked at it one back rack bolt was missing from just below the seat, and the other was very loose.  A little backtracking….. there are some people that do these rides as minimalists.  They take bare essentials, and use credit card for dining and lodging…. Then there are others like me who take two kitchen sinks and a commode.  Fortunately, I had extra bolts for the rack so I replaced that and tightened up the other.  Of course what would be really nice would be a little LokTite…… oh yea, I had some of that and used it (non-minimalist)….but you have to read on later to see what else I am packing,

Then it was off across the flats to Guadalupe.  Alls I can say is HEADWINDS…….. We were going as slow as 7 mph on the flats ( we should be able to cruise at 12 to 14).  In Guadalupe, we stopped at the Falafel King for lunch.  Real nice lady from Lebonon took our order and Great Food!!!  Of course some of that might be after a steady diet of Cliff bars, anything tastes good.  But we got one falafel and one avocado pita sandwhich which we split,  with an order of fries and NO WIND!

I have a picture of Barb with her wind Dooo.

So we were about 10 miles from our Pismo Beach camp ground, when my bike didn’t feel right.  I started watching my wheel for the dreaded wobble and shore nuff, it was there….broken spoke on rear wheel.  And it was inside of the gear hub.  Middle of nowhere, but had an asphalt driveway we could pull off into.  Of course I had extra spokes, and you have to remove the gear hub….and of course I had the tools to remove the gears.  So spoke replaced now to true the wheel.  I have always had luck using a small screw drive taped to the frame to adjust the true.  You just assume the rest of the wheel is right and pull the wheel back inline with the rest of the wheel.  But I had two wobbles in the wheel….Uh Oh, another broken spoke this one on the other side of the wheel…….this gets better.

So to get the other spoke on, I had to remove the disc brake rotor.  Oops, it is torx, oh I just happen to have that size on my handy dandy alien all in one wrench.  So 1,2,3,4,5,6,…..came off easy, the last two wouldn’t.  about that time one of the owners on the driveway came home asked what we were doing when we told him he just said Bummer and went on his way.  So this time it was now or never, so I applied more torque to the wrench and….it twisted the end of the bit.  Oh Oh,,,, so it is no longer now, it is only never and on more attempt, It Came Off!!!!! Only one to go.  But alas and forlorn, it was  not to be, I finished off the wrench and while I was at it, I ruined the top of the bolt.  So it was back to Mr. bummer ,who it turned out had the name of Brian.  We tried his torx set, no luck bolt messed up too much, then we tried vice-grips, no luck.  PB Blaster, no luck.  The he said he could braise the wrench to the bolt as he had a TIG welder.  At this point I am thinking what the ‘ell, he had  said that the nearest accomodations was our campsite 10 miles ahead.  We packed the rotor and rubber seal with wet rags and off he braised.   It worked!!!!! I think the heat helped a lot.      

So spoke back on rotor back on (I had an extra bolt), and of course LokTite applied.  So now truing a wheel that is off in both directions…..how my going to do this.  My back was cramping from bending over and I wasn’t sure I had the patience to play with the wheel, and Then we met Howard…..

Howard pulls off the side of the road and says something about being from the same tribe.????  Me being hard of hearing and the word tribe being out of context, not to mention being pre-occupied with wheel wobble…. As I  came into mental l focus I translated, he was a biker too!!!!  In fact he had just helped support the Wildflower Classic Century the day before.   He asked if it was a flat and I explained that it was spokes and I potentially had a truing problem.    He then went on to say he lived a mile and a half up the road and he had a wheel truing stand and we could spend the night if we wanted to.  It was 5:30 and we still had a bike to finish repairing.  So I deeply pondered his offer for the better half of a millisecond and said Shore!!!!!!!  So we owe much to both Brian and Howard.  Howard got the wheel trued (actually a tool I don’t have….hafta look into that).  And we had a nice evening with Howard, ordered out pizza and talked biking among other things…

So off the next day, bought more spokes and two torx wrenches in San Louis Obisbo.

Here is a picture of Barb in her own personal dressing room (boy this California has everything….so accommodating).

Did I mention headwinds…..just like the books said, north to south, you are going the wrong way, oh well. We made it to San Simeon state park and well we slept….  Last pic of low clouds/fog...why did we leave seattle????

Next morning had a real breakfast and worked on the blog.  Need to get going have 40 miles to go with some headwinds (did I mention those) and monster hills.  

Adios