Bicycling to Harbin Hot Springs

In repose, unplugged, taking time away from writing after a very serious session of batting my screenplay SPINNING KARMA into final draft (using Final Draft, fine software) in preparation to hand it to a very cool Hollywood-type celebrity for consideration. And the travel, by Bob’s smoking pipe, it never ends.

Olympia to Portland to San Francisco to Hollywood to Redondo Beach to San Francisco to Santa Rosa, and now to Harbin Hot Springs, from where I now type for the first time in days. Whew!

I brought my bike with me for the whole trip, but the only leg I did fully by bicycle was this one, that is, Santa Rosa to Harbin. Google Maps calls it under 40 miles, but if I’ve ever done a more difficult 40 I can’t say when.  My bike is a modified-for-touring Specialized Rockhopper (the same one once infected with deadly Colorado Goats Heads; flat-free since the insertion of Mr. Tuffy’s, and since leaving Colorado for that matter).

The new tires are absolutely slick, a small and good mercy at 10:00 am as I climbed what was to be the first of two mountains, the winding, shoulder-free Calistoga Road.  It was cold and humid, and I was listening to show tunes, Fiddler on the Roof.   I was half blind, having given up on keeping my glasses fog-free, shoving them instead into a jacket pocket, huffing wet air as the road rose through the cloud line just south of the Petrified forest. 

Somewhere in the middle of If I was a rich man I stopped, changed tights for tattooed skin and took a few pictures.  Then it was more up, winding up, cars passing too close for god-damned comfort up. I’d never taken this road before, not on any of my previous trips to Harbin, and of course the thought occurred to me what if I am on the wrong road?

That would suck. I stopped and asked a local. I wasn’t. All was good.

I reached the junction of 128 at 11:30. There was no reason to go into Calistoga proper, so I stopped at a roadside café for a coffee. The last of the morning fog had burned off, and behind the café stood Mt. Saint Helena, which I’d climb for lunch.  On a motorcycle the road had seemed like an endless series of winding switchbacks, requiring delicate throttle work.  I’d never bicycled it. I had my coffee with a chocolate cranberry granola bar, and tried not to be intimidated.  I left the café at high noon and headed down Tubbs Road past Old Faithful (Music by Tom Waits, which seemed appropriate given the scenery).

I’d returned the helmet camera to Amazon (conflicting stylistic viewpoints, it and me), and was back to shooting with the dSRL.  The camera was stuck to the beast’s bullhorns with a flexible Gorilla Grip Tripod, and every now and then I shot off a couple of random shots as I climbed.  The jury is still out on whether or not the setup is worth the trouble.

The uphill began immediately, and the beast seemed unusually heavy, so much so that I wondered if something was amiss, a malfunctioning brake shoe. Nope. Just gravity. Switchback. More climbing. Bone Machine in my ears, up and up and up some more. Water. Another Granola bar.

I had forgotten how long the uphill switchbacks lasted. On a motorcycle it only seemed like forever. On The Fully Loaded Beast,  it might as well have been.  I stopped to take a picture of a white cross looming over the valley I’d come from, no indication of how much further left to climb there might be.

A sign read “Fruit Stand: ¼ mile,” but the stand was closed. My legs were cramping. There was a glinting on the shoulder of the road, and I saw dimes, dozens of them, weather beaten as all hell.  I used it as an excuse to get off and push, collecting close to four dollars in rough coinage. The dimes jangling in my pocket, I climb further after changing the music: Syd Barrett, reflecting altered consciousness.   Another switch back. And another. 

Then a sign, more weather beaten than the dimes and with a few bullet holes besides: Robert Louis Stevenson State Park. 

I stopped, propping the bike against the faded sign, fading fast, and ate half a bag of dried cranberries mixed with dark chocolate chips, finished half a bottle of water. No cell phone reception. Cold breeze coming from the north, good sign. Mounted the beast for last chunk of uphill, scream out a leg cramp.  Note to self: Stretch copiously  Someday.

The state park is the top, too densely wooded to offer a view of more than trees, but the road began a merciful descent. The only music was wind. I’d forgotten to put my earphones on.

Years ago, too many to recall, I was on a similarly grueling ride, this one over a mountain in Northern Jersey. I’d been riding a Cannondale racing bike, my friend Tim was on his Bianchi. Light bikes, next to no gear, and when we hit the top we kicked it into high gear and were less than cautious. Tim wiped out on gravel, earning a steel plate in his collarbone, and I got my first tattoo that day, chunks of Ramapo Mountain you can still spot in a certain light.  Tim is long gone, and I am older and wiser. I take it slow, kick into high gear, yes, but carefully make my way down.

Twenty minutes later I am pumped, at a supermarket in Middletown. The clock reads three PM – the ride from almost-Calistoga took three hours, not bad considering a few picture breaks. In need of calories, I wolfed down deli counter beef, baked garlic, juice, potato chips before mounting the beast again for the last five mile ride to Harbin Hot Springs, from where I now write.

I leave tomorrow morning, anticipating an easier ride.  If the road is merciful, I will upload this from Calistoga, which I regret not having visited on the way up.

*Post Script: Uploading from Calistoga. Ride back was way easier. More observations to come