There are better ways to start your day. I was maybe a mile in to today’s stage when this flashed across the bottom half of the Hammerhead Karoo head unit, “Climb 1, 24 miles, 5,000′.” Mother sucker. Or something of that sort.

Beautiful desert/mountain scenery that I was working way too hard to fully enjoy. Working hard doesn’t mean going fast. I was more conservative than your MAGA uncle who ruined last Thanksgiving. At one point, Matt, one of the Bay Area Boys, passed me like I was standing still.

No real shoulder to speak of. Cars flying by. Death grip on the bars. And you may not know this because you’re way faster than me, but it’s hard to hold a line when you’re doing 7-8 mph.

Three hours to get to the top where several guardian angels appeared in succession. First, Skip, today’s van driver, materialized out of thin air about 4 miles from the top with water right as I emptied my second bottle. Then, he drove ahead to the small/rural restaurant that doubles as a mail station for Pacific Coast Trail through hikers. There, Linda split her amazing breakfast with me. Then Skip split his with me too. Then some bikepacker who couldn’t finish his breakfast burrito at a nearby table, offered it up. Then Chucky Chuck gave me one-fourth of his tuna melt. I just sat there and vacuumed everyone’s sloppy seconds for an hour! It cost me the stage victory, but was SO worth it.

Griffin loved the descent. My bod is too broken down for me to have fully enjoyed it. Wrists hurt from all the braking, bony ass is screaming for relief, lower back is uber tight. Plus, I was thinking of Jeanette who told me, before I left, it’s “different having one parent”.

Following the 12 mile descent, the flat, hot run in to town was pretty uneventful except for Linda’s flat which was difficult to fix. No doubt Griffin’s fault. Once he flatted yesterday, others thought they’d join in. Since I smelled the barn, or in this case a gritty hotel, I did all the work. And no, to answer your question, neither Marky Mark or Chucky Chuck thanked me.

Postscript. So disappointed in all of you. Walter and Jesse weren’t making cocaine in the desert in their RV, they were making meth. Let’s all commit to reading a little closer.