I just got my bike back from the shop. It was in getting a major service including new chain and new rear cassette along with replacing all the cables and clean and lube all the bearings. I went two weeks without the bike which had me jonesing for a long bike ride. After I picked it up I rode along the San Francisco Bay Trail that circles the bay. It was a beautiful cool sunny day for a ride along the bay. I would have liked to ride the entire 200 miles plus or minus a few miles. I will not be posting very often until next April when I plan to leave San Francisco and head up to Seattle WA then turn right and go across the northern tier to Bar Harbor Maine then turn right and ride down to Norfolk Virginia to complete my circumnavigation of the states. Meanwhile you can read from the archives if you still have not read all my posts. There are posts talking about my African adventures and my European and Central and South American journeys also. The most popular posts are Calabar which is the very earliest post followed by First Opium Den then P.O.W. which was posted on May 20 2010. All the bike ride posts get a lot of hits as well. Enjoy and I will post a few things here and there if there is something interesting. Thanks for reading. PURAVIDA

I need to ride

It has been about 2 weeks now with me not doing much riding. I am still riding around town here and there for about 20 miles a day but it is not enough for me. Since I stopped my touring, my daily pain level has slowly climbed up more and more each day that I don't do a long hard ride. It seems that the extreme exercise is needed by my body to keep my high chronic pain at bay. I do not know why it lowers my pain all I know is it does lower it dramatically. It must have something to do with all the endorphins created by my pituitary gland when I push myself while riding. I must admit that the hard riding, where I make myself hurt from pushing myself to my physical limits, hurts way less than the high chronic pain when I do not ride. I guess the reason I am now addicted to hard riding is because of the similarity of these endorphins and morphine. I prefer the endorphins over the morphine. For twenty years I took morphine, sometimes copious amounts of it, to try to block the pain. Last night I just wanted to scream from the irritating constant relentless pain in my legs. I still have high pain when I do my riding but it is no where near as high and debilitating as it is now when I do not ride. I wish there was a pill that was nothing but endorphins for when I can't ride. Such is the life of a crippled old man.

Just Thinking About Plans

Well my bike arrived from Virginia the other day. I put it together and started to check it over to see how it stood up to the rigors of the last 7000 miles of riding. The bike is an REI touring bike and held up well considering how much I punished it. After four months of hard riding it needs another chain and rear cassettes (the sprockets on the rear wheel that the chain drives). I also am replacing all the cables and cleaning and lubing all the bearings. Other than those items which are normal wear and tear things, the bike is holding up well. Of course I will start with fresh new Marathon Plus tires and new tubes before I leave again on another long ride. I am happy with my bike now although I do wish it had a slightly longer wheel base because the front wheel is too close to the pedals and my toes tend to hit the wheel when I stand up to ride. Remember I have to pedal with my heels on the pedal due to my disability in my lower leg and this makes my toes stick further forward than most riders that use the ball of their foot on the pedal. I also spent time with my maps. I wanted to study the route I would need to take to complete a circular ride around the entire United States. I thought my 5000 miles already logged going from San Francisco to San Diego to St Augustine Florida to Norfolk Virginia was more than half way around. To my surprise there is still another 6200 miles or so to complete the circle. I am not even halfway yet! I studied the route going north from San Francisco to Seattle Washington then turning right and riding the Adventure Cycling Association's Northern Tier route to Maine then turning right again and riding down to Norfolk Virginia. The length of the route caught me off guard. It is also a very mountainous and hilly route to ride. I am considering riding from Seattle to Maine with the MS group ride which is a supported ride for charity starting in April of 2013. I would need to raise a minimum of $4300 to join this ride. That is a lot of money to raise in only a few months. I am considering going that route but am not sure yet if I want to commit to it. I will need to decide in the near future if I am going to try to raise that kind of cash for MS. My health is not bad right now. I am still a bit stiff from my long ride. I need to get back on my bike as soon as it is ready to ride again. I am addicted to riding now. I have not figured out how to deal with the increased stiffness in my body since I started riding this much. I try to stretch out but just can't seem to loosen up. It has been 10 days since my last century ride and I still feel it. Getting old is no fun. When I was younger I would have healed in a couple of days. My weight started at 210 pounds when I first started my cross country ride and my weight dropped to 175 by the time I arrived in Florida. I have since been trying to gain some weight back. Today I was 182 pounds. That is a small gain but not enough of a cushion to keep me going for another 6200 miles over five mountain ranges and across the great plains and the rolling hills of the northeast. I would end up under 150 pounds at the rate I lost weight on the first leg of the tour. I don't mind losing some weight because I was a bit thick at 210 pounds but 150 would be just too light for my taste. If anyone has experience with maintaining weight while on long tours like this I would like some feedback on the solution that worked for you. I do try to eat a healthy diet high in protein with lots of fruits and veggies and sufficient carbs but I still lose too much weight while on tour. I ride hard, about 85 miles a day, which according to charts is about 5000 calories for the riding plus another 1500 for my daily calorie burn just living means I need to consume around 6500 calories a day to maintain. That is difficult to do. On my just finished ride, I ate yogurt with fresh fruit and granola for breakfast usually with juices also. Then I typically ate a second breakfast a couple hours later of something like a breakfast sandwich consisting of an egg and meat with cheese on a bun or bread along with some bananas or oranges. Then a couple hours later I would eat a big cheeseburger with fries or a large deli sandwich or something. In the mid afternoon I would usually drink milk with something like a muffin or whatever I could find. I then would eat a dinner that varied a lot depending on what I could find or cook. It would be something like liver and onions with sides, meatloaf with sides, spaghetti and meatballs or something else along those lines. At night I frequently would need to eat a granola bar and more fruit like bananas or apples or maybe a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. It was not enough food or calories to keep me from losing weight. It is hard to eat that much on a daily basis, and expensive as well. I am looking for advice about this issue of maintaining weight so feel free to comment if you know from experience what works. More later...

The end of my ride for now

Well I made it safely to San Francisco on American Airlines yesterday. My ride is officially over for now. I will not make it around the country right now. I may restart the ride going North from San Francisco to Virginia but I have no idea when that might happen. A number of things contributed to the decision to stop riding now. Number one was I was running out of money. I did this ride on my $1000 a month social security income and all the hotel bills I incurred due to the bad weather coming up the East coast were just too expensive. Also the campgrounds here on the East Coast are also very expensive. If I need to pay $30 a day to camp that would leave about $4 for food and everything else. Obviously it would not work. So I called it off. I still consider it a success. I rode 5000 miles in 67 days of riding through 12 states. Almost half that was in high heat and high humidity. I think I proved that being a crippled old man that can't walk does not mean that I can't do other things. Now if I could just get someone to pay me for riding my bike everyday I could even have a job and not be a parasite any more. Like that would ever happen. My flight to SF sucked to put it bluntly. American Airlines does not exactly go out of their way to make the experience pleasant or efficient. Like almost all the airlines they charged for everything from luggage to food and internet. They were not helpful at all. Sure they were polite if you call automaton responses polite. They refused to call over to the other connecting plane to tell them that we were going to try to make the connection after our plane was late arriving. They did look it up and tell us it had not left yet but that was all they would do. I had requested transportation assistance because I can't walk and it was not there when I arrived. They repeatedly told me there was no way that I was disabled and made me prove it with my ID. That is probably illegal. I was not impressed at all with American Airlines and will try to fly with some other airline next time. Once in SF I was too late to take BART because of the delay. I ended up taking a taxi that cost me another $90 to get to the house. So now I only have $200 to last for the rest of the month. That is only $10 per day, barely enough for food if that. I think I will survive but I will need to rely on help from others to do it. Makes me feel like I should have kept riding in a straight line when I hit the coast of Florida. Such is the life of a poverty stricken crippled old man. More later but no more daily posting until I get a little interest going in my life again. I will miss my bike touring for now. Enjoy life while you still are able to. P.S. If you have not read the beginning of this blog maybe now is the time to go into the archives to the right of this and click on the first blog in 2010 called Calabar and start reading from there. Some people can't even believe that really happened. Real life is more crazy than fiction sometimes.

Chesapeake Virginia

Well today I rested. I can't even walk around the block and I am having a hard time believing that I have already ridden 5000 miles around the country on my bike. My body believes it though and it is telling me loud and clear. I am very stiff and sore today after my 435 miles in the last four days riding. I have been trying to gently stretch and move to try to loosen up but I think it is going to take me a few days to recover. I ate well today. A friend of Wendy's and her family came over for lunch today and we had home made spaghetti with meatballs and also crawfish gravy over fresh mahi mahi that Wendy caught the other day. It was a great meal with great people. I need to learn how to make both of those dishes like they made them today. After the lunch I have mostly been catching up on all my internet stuff like sorting my pics and things and reading all my backd up messages. I have been getting some questions about my plans again. Well here is a surprise twist in my plans. On Tuesday I am flying back to California to visit with my grandson and the rest of my family and friends. I just booked the ticket to San Francisco International Airport. I will ship my bike back through the bike store. That will leave me with a few days of not having any wheels but I think my body could use the rest. I will either fly back and continue my ride or maybe go north from San Francisco to restart my ride. No promises about any thing though because I live for today as tomorrow may never come. Enjoy life. more later...PURAVIDA

Ride Day 67

I left Kittyhawk before it was light this morning. Crossing the bridge back to the mainland was fine with no traffic on it. Then I rode on and on and on with very little to see or else I am just too jaded by now. I finally stopped at a small store and had some breakfast which was soso. Again though the staff was friendly and entertaining to talk to. The road had been fine to this point with wide smooth shoulders that were relatively clean of glass and debris. the traffic was also light on the four lane road so most cars and trucks moved over to the middle lane for me. Then the road sign I dread appeared and it was not a detour sign, it said simply "UNEVEN ROAD SURFACE AHEAD". It was not joking. They were resurfacing the road into the nice smooth road I had been riding on and they roughed up the surface of the old road first. For about twenty miles I had a bone jarring teeth shattering tire eating ride in the high heat and humidity. The shoulder had also been reduced by more than half its width and sometimes disappeared entirely. I was almost at the Virginia state line when my tire blew out. I looked at the tire when I stopped and got ready to fix my flat and the tire was shredded to almost nothing left. I was a long way from anywhere and I am too disabled to walk so I replaced the tube and tried to gingerly ride on to a safer place to figure out where to get a new tire from. I made it less than a mile before my new tube was also history and I was again stranded. There was no choice but to hitch hike my way down the road. There was about nine or ten miles to go to get to Chesapeake Virginia where I was spending the night. I figured I could buy a new tire to get me going at a Walmart until I could find a real bike shop to get a quality tire at. I stood there with my thumb out for about ten minutes when a bright red pickup truck stopped. The driver jumped out and helped me put my bike in the back. He told me he would give me a ride up the road to a service station where I would not be so in the middle of nowhere. He told me that was as far as he could take me but that I would be better off there. I had to agree with him. He was a roofer that was staying home being the house husband while his wife worked because she made better steady money than he did as a roofer. We crossed the state line and then stopped at a service station. I was unloading my bike and putting my bags back on it when I had to stop to go wash the grease off my hands from changing the tire. On the way I met and started talking to a woman called Beth that offered to give me a ride to the Walmart just up the road. I had to wait a few minutes while here car was serviced and then she gave me a ride to Walmart. They did not have my tire but told me where to go to get one at a real bike shop and it was only a mile and a half away. Beth offered to give me a ride there so we were off to Fat Frog bike store. Beth dropped me off and I thanked her for her help. The bike store was just as I had been told, run by a nice friendly helpful man that knew bikes well. They did not have my desired tires in stock but I did buy one for my rear that would get me back on the road again. I replaced it right there in their shop and after a short conversation I left the bike in his shop while I went next door to a Starbucks for a cup of coffee and to look at a map of where my friend's house was here in Chesapeake. I was only a few miles away from their house so after my coffee I headed in their direction. A half mile up the road my new tire blew out. I grumbled and took it off to look at the tube. It had blown out along the seam on the inside of the inner tube which is a factory flaw. I had another tube and put it on to get me to my friend's house. I was again covered in grease with nothing to clean up my hands with so I rubbed them on the dry grass as best as I could. I then made a wrong turn on my directions as I had trusted the directions to my failing memory and the time spent changing the tire was just long enough to forget the exact turns. In other words I got lost. I asked directions a few times from the rare person out in the extremely hot afternoon. From putting all their directions into a general direction I finally got close enough to where someone actually knew where I was going. I pulled up to their house after pedaling 5000 miles from where I had started plus a few short rides with helpful good samaritans when I needed them. I was tired, hot, sweaty, dirty and very thirsty for a cold glass of water. Today was slightly less than 85 miles of riding so in the last four days I had ridden 435 miles and I certainly felt like I had ridden that far. I looked forward to a short rest in Chesapeake Virginia. More later...

Ride Day 66

I was out of my hotel room at the crack of light to explore the Cedar Island area. Five minutes later I had seen it all. I decided to eat breakfast instead. I pigged out on bagels with cream cheese, apples, bananas, cereal, coffee and muffins. Then I took a few apples for later. the ferry was right on time as expected. I enjoyed talking to a couple of other bikers that were just going out to the banks for a short look around. There were also a couple of families that were quizzing me about my ride. The ferry took 2 hours and 15 minutes so we had plenty of time to talk. Once off the ferry I was off to Kittyhawk 85 miles away. I started out riding strong but there was absolutely no shade and the sun was beating down all day in the upper 90s. I was disappointed that the famous light house was covered up with scaffolding. I started to overheat right after the second ferry that took me to Hatteras Island. I stopped for yet another breakfast at an air conditioned cafe. the food was soso and the price was high but the company of the staff was nice and friendly. I rode for another couple of hours and stopped for lunch this time. I had a philly cheese steak which tasted great and the staff again was very friendly and talkative. I enjoyed their company. Then I rode for several hours straight. To keep cool I went swimming in the ocean a few times or I would stop any time I saw a beach shower and just stand under them with my riding clothes on until I was cooled down then I would jump on my bike all wet and ride on. I made the mistake of stopping for an apple break along the road and I was eaten alive by mosquitoes and no-see-ums. Did I say I hate no-see-ums? I was seriously slowing down from the heat when I suddenly picked up a nice tailwind. Don't think I would have made it to Kittyhawk without the wind at my back. When I arrived at Kittyhawk I stopped at a cafe called Chilli's and had a shrimp stir fry that tasted great. I washed it down with some beer and then headed off to the campgrounds. It was dark when I finally put up the tent. I sat around and talked to a couple of young guys that were originally from the Chicago area. It was fun talking to them but I was passing out from my ride so I went to bed.