The Life's Too Short Tour

Starting May 20, 2009, I rode a bicycle from New York to Los Angeles, as a memorial to my late cousin, pedaling 3,600 miles in 105 days. I kept this journal along the way:
  • Day 100: Into California





    I made it to California.
    Yesterday I rode 40 miles from Las Vegas to Primm, Nevada, on the California border. I took a hotel room at Primm, for a ridiculously low $13 at Whiskey Pete's Casino and Hotel, which is just yards from the California border. I can see the Golden State from my hotel room window. Leaving Las Vegas I started riding early in the morning and so heat was not an issue throughout the day. The ride on Interstate 15 was easy and flat through low desert dotted with Joshua trees and cactus. It was a desert valley skirted on either side by bare and jagged mountains. Traffic rushed beside me, but I was safe on the highway's wide shoulder. Haze from the smoke of the wildfires raging in California was visible throughout the valley. I was breathing the smoke in, no doubt, but then again I've been inhaling vehicles' exhaust for three months now. I'll be riding directly at the fires in the next few days. It's just another obstacle to overcome, one of many I faced this summer.

    Today I will ride to Baker, California, about 50 miles away. Unfortunately, as I was finishing up yesterday's ride another spoke broke. Once again it is a spoke on the drive side of the rear wheel, and so I can't make the repair myself because I don't have a special wrench for removing the rear gear cassette. I have no choice but to ride for the next two days on the broken spoke, until I can reach Barstow for the nearest bike shop. The rear wheel is wobbling out of true, but I must push ahead nonetheless. I'll try tightening up the spokes around the broken one to keep the wheel as true as possible. I rode on a broken spoke for 70 miles through Utah, and now I'll have to do it again.As a precaution, in case the rear wheel spoke problem compounds during today's ride, I'll bring a magic marker and a piece of cardboard on which I can make a sign to solicit a ride to Barstow.

    I can finish the trek in about five days. There are 250 miles to the Pacific Ocean, and I plan to ride about 50 miles each day. I won't be camping anymore, so in order to lighten the load on the rear wheel I may ditch the tent and sleeping bag here in Primm. From here on out it's a bare bones sprint to the ocean.

    until later...

    The Final Leg

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