Hello there! This is Rachel writing my first blog post! Today was our second day of cycling- (I was a bit sore from the first day but not enough to defeat the excitement from beginning the trip. We had a similar day to yesterday: a 50-ish mile ride with not too bad elevation, from Sacramento to Dixon (where we got to stay with Brad’s family!)
We woke up around 8AM to the “Circle of Life” through our portable speakers (just the way you always wish you would be). Then we had some oatmeal and peanut butter for breakfast (an ongoing classic meal of Stanford Spokes. We got to stay the night in an airbnb that our host on on Warmshowers had let us stay at for free! There were 5 rooms to split between us, and the view of the ocean from the balcony was awesome. Thankful for our humble abode for the first night, we headed out after cleaning up and packing out.
We had our first case of flat tire today (@me)! Thankfully Brad realized that my front tire was out while going up a hill. We moved to the side and Brian taught us how to repair a flat. I was a little dazed that our first flat happened so early on, but was at least glad for the learning experience. Seventeen minutes later, we were back on the road!
About 20 minutes later, I heard an audible flapping coming from my bike. At first I though I had popped my back wheel (RIP), but then realized the front patch had probably come off. We pulled off to the side and saw the patch had teared at the sides, so we placed a new one off. A bit frustrated and sorry for having our team stop, I hopped back on and we proceeded to bike.
After about 10 more minutes, I heard that all-too-familiar, at least at this point, flapping noise again. It was the 3rd (and thankfully final) flat of the day! Unconfident in our patching skills at this point, we decided to change out the tube entirely. Though the process was slightly cumbersome, it was a good learning experience to have early on. I think the team has experience now with flats and knows how to handle these situations in the future.
On the way to Brad’s house, we stopped by our first fruit stand! Although the blackberries were 3 dollars, and we only had 2 dollars on hand, the fruit stand man sold them to us. We finished them in record breaking time, and biked the last few miles to Brad’s house.
Arriving at Brad’s house was incredible! His parents were amazing and had lunch prepared for us when we arrived around 2 PM. We also hopped into the pool (literally one of the most refreshing dips of my life). Brian, Olivia, Alex, and Brad ran a few more errands at Costco and the car mechanic, while Alyssa, I, and Brad’s mom worked on housing along the route. Then Brad’s family friends, Christine and Kraig Katzenmeyer, stopped by with some chocolate covered strawberries and INCREDIBLE brownies (if you guys are reading this, hello and thank you so much!). Brad’s mom was amazing and made some curry for dinner– some much needed fuel for the biking adventure.
I finished the night with some light reading and working, and then we headed to bed early!