I left in a "drizzle" as my weather provider called it. But what it really was was a weird mist, wispy moisture in the air looking almost like tiny snowdrops, more easily seen than felt. Apparently this is San Francisco's usual version of rain. Again, it's a curious city for me. I would find adjusting to it fun and difficult all at the same time I feel.
Frustratingly, right away as I set out I found my brakes hitting the rims after just a few uses, and I remembered why I'd loosened them in the first damn place, that mysterious issue of the calipers not resetting quite right that no bike shop has ever been able to explain or fix for me. So, first thing, next to a little bison range in Golden Gate Park my friend told me about, I found myself loosening my brakes again.
I got a little lost getting out of the city. I got a little more lost afterward. I wanted to get back on 1 at a point that apparently I couldn't as it was illegal for cyclists. I got a little frantic as I detoured far and away from where I wanted to be, fearing I might not be able to return to the coast in my time constraints to make the long haul to Santa Cruz and have to navigate some inland route. But thankfully, I worked my way back, was on a section of freeway just briefly I wondered if I could legally be on, despite no signs saying I couldn't, and then was free and clear on 1 where it stated clearly it was the Pacific Coast bike route again.
The day was largely uneventful from there until I came into a Safeway in Half Moon Bay to use the bathroom and buy a bagel and some donuts. I came out and someone, for reasons I cannot fathom, had thrown my trailer over onto its side, apparently just in act of senseless malice. I was relieved though to find that it seemed undamaged, aside for some splintering in my orange flag for visibility. I gave myself some nasty little splinters in one finger dealing with it, and assumed that the worst of my problems.
It wasn't. Oh, how very much it wasn't. Some ways on, while climbing a big hill, suddenly I heard and felt something terrible. I stopped and looked to see the unthinkable. My trailer connector was broken off, the rubber that held it in place torn. The torque from twisting my trailer over while my bike was still locked to the rack and unable to move had caused it to break. I was devastated, defeated. I called my dad in tears to tell him what had happened. I was out several miles into nowhere, my trailer apparently irreparably broken, no idea what to do.
Thank goodness for my dad. He got me calmed down and back into problem solving mode. I did the only damn thing I could do and I taped the bloody thing together with electrical tape, the only tape I had, feeling grateful I had it at all. Were it not for my tent stakes breaking back in South Dakota, I likely wouldn't have. Some serendipity? Every moment from there on for the next over 40 miles was fraught with concern. Thank goodness it was such a relatively easy stretch of road. It could have been a lot of fun were it not for that nameless, faceless jerk who decided he needed to cause me misery. I wonder if he or she had any idea the full impact of their one small act of cruelty?
Either way, I pushed on, with my trailer connector held together by tape. It soon worked its way out, yet still held suspended largely by no more than the big strand of copious tape I'd used. It swayed worryingly, but somehow, somehow it held, even as I feared at every hill climb and all the bumps in the sometimes very bumpy road. I reached Santa Cruz county with small celebration, then Davenport with greater relief. And somehow, by hell, I reached my goal of the night and came into Santa Cruz, working my way up the far too bumpy street to my host's.
Utterly unsure what to do about my trailer, I was invited in by my host's roommate, showered, decompressed, tried to figure out about a hardware store or something as the hour grew later. My dad had an idea to use some hose and a clamp, but I knew not where to go or how to make it work. My host came home, and I discovered that by sweet lady luck she worked at the local "bike church" and happened to be one handy as hell lady.
She immediately set to work helping me out. We called the bike church, but it was sadly too late to get in tonight, and they wouldn't be open until late tomorrow. My host was willing to let me stay another night, even with conflicts to her schedule, bless her. But it would ruin all my scheduled hosting ahead. I want to reach Monterey tomorrow, I want to make the final leg here, hell or highwater. Thanks to my dad's idea, and some examination of the spring and rubber that was broken, my host came up with something. She decided we could replace it with the thick but flexible rubber of her garden hose. We set to work, plotting. hacksawing hose, drilling holes, me mostly watching her clever ingenuity, her mind turning with constant new ideas. We worked until it got dark and late, and we decided we'd have to table some of the work on the trailer itself until morning. There should be time. It's a short distance tomorrow to my next host, at least relatively speaking. If this works, which goodness I hope it will, then I should be able to get moving again, on schedule. We're even setting me up with backup pieces, should it fail down the road and need replaced.
It's amazing how misfortune and fortune couple at times. Some random stranger caused me so much harm, and then here another stranger is helping me to all her power, showing total willingness to destroy her best garden hose for me with little a thought. If this works, even if it doesn't, I have another big karmic debt to pay. There is no guilt (though I do hope she'll take some money today to pay for the hose), none of that anymore, only gratitude. The road, the goodness of strangers, provides, as surely as the cruelty of others creates obstacles on the path. This will work. I've come too far to fail now, all over one senseless act. If I cave now, it seems like forsaking all the kindness of others in favor of one cruel deed. I refuse.
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