The Indy Fab is flying solo somewhere....

After a long hiatus from bike postings (since the end of the tour)! I feel compelled to write an ode to my recently stolen bicycle, my amazing Indy Fab: my one and only road bike, the gal I was committed to spending the rest of my life with, my most trusted (and most sexy) steed. But first the story. On February 13th, in the afternoon, some asshole bike thief took advantage of a small mistake on my part, which was only bringing the thick cable lock to school rather than both the cable lock and u-lock (which I do 99% of the time). I came out of school after class to see only the cut lock and my helmet sitting sadly on the ground. My chest tightened and I had a moment of denial before realizing that my favorite material possession was gone.

I've spent the last two weeks frantically looking everywhere for the bike.

Samuel P Taylor State Park to the Golden Gate Bridge

We woke up this morning and sadly said goodbye to everyone. We opted to back track a little bit and ride the 1 all the way into the city, rather than sticking with the shorter, flatter route along Sir Francis Drake Boulevard, because I wanted to see the spectacular scenery along the coast line. Jack and Albrecht were doing the same
route as us but left much earlier in the day, and Frank and Rike opted for the short ride as Rike had 2 more broken spokes and they were anxious to get in and get off the bikes.

Chad and I stopped for lunch in Bolinas, one of the most offbeat, hippie, cool places I've ever been. It is located just across a narrow channel from Stinson Beach, but to get there by car you have to drive around a sizeable bay. The locals are very protective of their town, and the county has stopped putting up road signs that point to Bolinas because every time they put one up, someone from the town takes it down. I was thinking, as we rode into the town, that Bolinas is also unique to me because while I've visited it exactly three times, I've arrived by bicycle to visit it exactly 100% of the time. I think I'm going to make a personal rule, actually-- Bolinas will be a place where I will only allow myself to arrive by bicycle.


Perhaps the other thing that draws me to Bolinas is the town's heavy emphasis on organic agriculture. Something about the proximity of the farms in Bolinas to the beach makes me think that this would be a great place to retire to, should Chad and I ever decide to take a break from the daily grind and become farmers. Anyhow, I bought lunch at one of my favorite haunts, the People's grocery-- it was a yummy tofu curry sandwich with peas and carrots-- something I'm not usually that into, but that was excellent today. Then again, everything tastes great when you're riding your bike all day.

We left Bolinas, rode around the bend and began the breathtaking ascent south of Stinson Beach. It was every bit as glorious as I remembered, and I hope that Chad felt the same way!

We continued up through another brutally steep section of coastal ascent-- my inclometer read 23%! This time I didn't gasp or start crying-- I just stood up and powered through, and I heard Chad give a mighty yell in front of me as he did the same.

At the top, we stopped to look around at some of the most spectacular scenery of the whole trip. We caught our first glimpse of the city, lying just beyond the Marin headlands. I got sooo giddy... but there was still lots of scenery to see. Just above Muir Beach, we headed inland to see the Muir woods national monument. I thought it was a fitting thing to do, given the impact that John Muir had in preserving all of this amazing land for everyone to enjoy. I spent a long time in the gift shop while Chad took a nap outside-- it was nice to reflect on Muir's contributions to our collective environmental consciousness, and to read some of his quotes and thoughts.

We climbed out of the Muir Woods National monument and were greeted with another spectacular view of the Marin Headlands, stretching out for miles to the east of us. The descent down was bittersweet-- amazing, fast, fun, and familiar, but also a little melancholy because it was the last real descent of our journey- we were nearly at the end of a three week odyssey into an adventure neither one of us knew anything about before we left. There wasn't much time to be sad, though, because the Golden Gate lay just ahead.

We finished our windy descent down into Mill Valley, past cousins Clint and Cori's homes, and dodged traffic to get onto the bike path, right past Mike's Bikes of Sausalito. It felt great to be back in familiar territory, where my love affair with the bicycle began. How fitting to arrive by bicycle!

As we rolled through Sausalito and were enjoying the views of the Transamerica tower, we had a big surprise-- there at the pub on the sidewalk, Frank, Rike, Jack and Daniel were waiting for us with COLD BEERS! What an amazing surprise. We laughed like old friends and hugged, then sat down to enjoy our beers.

When we were done, we all decided to ride across the bridge together... a fitting end to an incredible journey with our wonderful friends from the road. Truely an adventure of a lifetime!
Here's Chad, going across the bridge.




A picture of the boys, celebrating their victory!





Here's Daniel giving a solid fist pump.
Daniel is the MAN!





Chad and I, paused for a photo op in the middle of the bridge. The weather is of course absolutely fabulous. Yeee hawah!













Jack, savoring his Golden Gate Moment!
















On the other side, Frank and Chad giving a mighty high five.














Frank and Rike celebrating their love for bikes and for each other!










Chad and I-- we made it!!!!!!
Today's stats: 50 or so miles, 3500 ft. of climbing.

Trip totals: 1031.38 miles, 48,731 feet of climbing!!! We averaged 57.3 miles per day.

Bodega Dunes State Park to Samuel P Taylor State Park

This morning we were tricked by a Eucalyptus tree, under which we had placed our tent the night prior. We woke up early and heard rain on our tent, so we went back to bed and slept in-- although we could have reached San Francisco today, we decided to extend our trip one more day and take our time today. When we woke up 2 hours later, it was still raining! Or so we thought-- when Chad stuck his head out of the tent, the only place it was raining was under the Eucalyptus tree! It was misty out, and the tree was especially adept at gathering moisture with its long, pointed leaves, and watering its own roots. Pretty amazing adaptation!The pic above is of Chad looking tricked by that tree.


We rode into Point Reyes station-- but on the way in we came across this guy who had ridden 1000 miles so far, packed to the gills with stuff and RIDING WITH HIS DOG RUNNING NEXT TO HIM! He told us that the dog had 1000 miles on her, just like his bike. We felt sorry for the dog, but actually the dog seemed okay with the whole arrangement,so we opted to mind our own business rather than call animal control. Strange the things you see on a bike tour. This was the second dog we've seen on a tour-- the first was in southern Oregon, but that one was in a Burley-type trailer, watching the scenes go by.

When we got into Point Reyes, we stopped and chilled out for awhile, as we decided whether to stay there in Olema or head on to Samuel P Taylor. We soon saw Albrecht, who had stayed at Olema the night prior, at the price of $40! We decided very quickly that Samuel P Taylor would be a better choice. Albrecht decided the same thing. Not too much later, Jack came rolling into town, and his plan was also to stay at Samuel P Taylor! Not only that, but Frank and Rike, who stayed at the same campsite as Jack the night prior, were also planning on staying at Samuel P. Taylor, so we would have a reunion on our last night in town!

We got to camp and set up, in one of the most beautiful hiker biker camps to date. While the scenery was fantastic, it was the people whom we were more excited to see.
Albrecht arrived first, followed soon by Jack. Finally, Frank and Rike arrived, and we greeted them like old friends!

We stayed up very late talking, drinking a little wine, and enjoying each other's company in an amazingly beautiful backdrop, apparently one of the very first campsites in America to be promoted for recreational camping. The only down side to our last evening was that the raccoons scored a very smashing victory over us. Just after dark, they stole a bag of bagels off our table, then in the middle of the night they managed to steal most of our food supply out of the bear/ raccoon cupboard we put our food in. SNEAKY little buggers! Oh well. All in all, a great last night of this amazing tour. Today's stats: 41.91 miles, 9.6 mph avg, 2726 ft of climbing (my legs were again really tired today, due to yesterday's huge climbing).

Manchester State Beach to Bodega Dunes State Park

We started the day early in the morning mist and stopped for breakfast at this wonderful organic grocery store/ cafe. Chad had a huge egg, cheese and sausage sandwich and I had corn meal blueberry pancakes that were amazing. Not bad for a town of 525 people. Chad was pretty sure he saw Ken Kesey at the cafe, but we couldn't actually confirm that. As we were eating Jack and John both showed up-- Jack brought my favorite shirt, which I had left at the camp that morning-- so nice of him to look out for us! Unfortunately, Jack had decided to ride shorter than we were aiming for today, so we wouldn't get to enjoy his company for another night. We shopped for a few lunch snacks, and the shop owner gave us some free bananas, which were much appreciated. We also met a HUMUNGOUS chocolate lab named Webber who kept trying to sneak into the store.

We departed breakfast with happy, satisfied tummies, and began a short climb to the top. When I got there, I had a feeling my wallet wasn't with me-- looked in my bag, and sure enough, it wasn't there! I booked it back down the hill and there it was, sitting on the steps to the shop.

The first 35 miles were pretty easy and breezy-- our tail wind has returned! We took an early lunch and again enjoyed tomatoes, avacado, cheese, and whole wheat bread, with a banana, an orange, and a peach.

After lunch we began a climb that turned out to be much less challenging than I was expecting with absolutely EPIC scenery. The road was really exposed, and although the traffic was heavy, we were blessed again with road construction and a traffic light that pretty much made the road empty for us, as long as we let groups of cars pass. That wasn't a problem, because the scenery was so amazing.

The cows along the edge of the bluffs were especially funny to me. The guidebook warned about cows jumping out, but they don't exactly jump. Mostly, coastal cows are not any more intelligent than inland cows, it seems, nor do they move any faster.

We had an amazing, spectacular descent into Jenner, along one of the windiest roads in CA. I saw a postcard advertising it as Dramamine Drive because you are forced to stay awake while driving it. Looking at it from the top, the road looked like a giant piece of grey ribbon candy with a yellow stripe. At times on the way down, around the corners, I felt inverted momentairly, the hairpins were so sharp and you changed pitches so quickly.

At the bottom, Chad stopped and looked over a cliff into the bay that the Russian River flows into, and saw a bunch of seals playing in the water. Turns out they do more than just sunbathe, and watching them in the water was really entertaining.

We climbed out of the Russian River gulch, and from that point on the traffic became almost intolerable-- it was Labor Day, and by the late afternoon we felt like we were nuts to be riding. Although drivers were very polite, the motorcycles' noise freaked me out, and by the end of the day I was very happy to be off the bike. We set up our tent under a big eucalyptus tree at Bodega Dunes State Park, where it was hauntingly quiet after such a big day. After setting up camp, we rode into town and spoiled ourselves with fish n' chips and fish tacos. All in all, an amazing day. When I looked at our stats for the day, I could not believe it-- 4547 feet of climbing! 68.65 miles, 11 mph average! While I'd like to claim we are just getting stronger, our huge tail wind definitely helped out our mph over that many hills. This was our hilliest day.