This was a one week trip to Shasta County in NE California. Instead of taking my beloved workhorse the touring bike, I decided to keep the gear to a minimum and take my '88 Bridgestone road bike,
aka the Fuchsia Wonder. FW and I have been on many an adventure together, but this was new territory for us.
Thanks to kt for lending me that spacious Relevate pack for the seat in which I put some clothes and maps. That's a VeloOrange porteur rack up front with sleeping bag, small food pouch, ground cloth and a few other items.
This is the approximate route I took. It was two days and 250 miles to
get there, I spent the weekend resting and visiting with friends, and
then > 300 miles and 3 1/2 days getting back.
Sunset on day 1, outside of Red Bluff
Unfortunately I got a very huge piece of glass in my back tire around this time, which managed to go through the brand new tire and the tire liner and was patiently sitting there inside the tire when I went to pull it out. So I decided to call it a day at 160 miles despite the appeal of riding in the cool after sunset hours.
Sunrise, day 2:
Just 90 miles to go and I made it to Burney only an hour behind schedule, I told my hosts I'd be there by 4pm and it was actually closer to 5.
Had a nice weekend relaxing, visiting with friends, and even got in a bike ride along the Pit River and a tour of a hydroelectric facility.
Due to having a local with us, we took a snazzy back door entrance to the MacArthur-Burney Falls state park.
Time to take my leave Sunday afternoon, and I headed up Lassen. Even though this was the highest elevation of the trip, the grade on that road is very gentle so while the climb wasn't quick, it wasn't particularly difficult. There's nothing like having spent a couple of days riding through the central valley in July to make you appreciate the loveliness of being in the mountains.
Boiling mud, no swimming:
I took a little traveled road down to Chico, even got enough rain to be glad for the fenders. Then outside of Orland I noticed my wheel was making that loud lub-lub-lub sound like there were pavement cracks, but the pavement was smooth. While I started with a brand new tire on the back, I thought the front one might have one more trip left in it. Alas, the tire thought otherwise. Both the sidewall and the tread gave up the ghost right there on the road to Newville. Huh, what to do? I pulled it off, shoved my boot in there crosswise, which didn't do much, and back tracked (lub-lub-lub) the 2 miles to the last gas station, which hopefully was called 'Sportsman's Friend'. Amongst the fishing supplies was duct tape, but this was not the greyish stuff I was used to. Either swirling purple peace signs or leopard print.
I put many overlapping layers of tape on the inside of the tire, worked my boot in there, and then replaced the tire liner.
It's a nice look, yes? Thanks to cc for having modeled the duct tape tire repair trick years ago, little did I know how handy it would be.
And with that I was off to a little traveled stretch of California, road 306 hugging the eastern side of the Mendocino National Forest.
It was a little surreal how desolate it felt after the hub bub of the National Park and the Central Valley.
Even if I saw very few people, I was predisposed to like them (if you can't read the sign, it's worth clicking on the photo for the closeup view):
I stopped at the cafe in Elk Creek for a big home cooked meal, then peddled on.
A final sunset, my last night out, around Leesville.
Made it home around 4pm on Wednesday, having departed 5:30am the previous Thursday. Kind of neat how much you can fit into a week. There's a few more photos posted
here. Thanks to RED for encouraging me to come out to Burney for a visit and to all of team Burney for a great weekend there.
