It happens fast. First, a deep rumbling, I feel more than hear. It’s ahead, approaching from beyond the crest of the hill, out of view. Then, from behind, the adrenaline-stimulating roar of a big engine grinding uphill, no doubt, pulling some massive truck. I hear the familiar rattle and bang of heavy metal parts, the distinctive sound of a trailer, which the truck will have in tow. The road curves uphill sharply to the right. A blind turn. Which is why I’m riding the left side of the lane, to maximize the sight line to me for anyone behind. I check my mirror continually. Look ahead, look behind, look ahead, look behind. No time to think about what’s happening, just observe, process, react, with my heart, no doubt, beating hard, but I’m not paying attention to it. Once the vehicle behind comes into view and, I hope, notices me, I can scoot to the right margin of the lane, press my bike into the crumbling pavement edge, no shoulder, and calculate my escape plan should I need it. The truck behind comes into view. A large pickup with massive tires that make it sound bigger than it is. But it’s big enough, with a stack belching black smoke, and, yes, pulling a large, empty boat trailer that bounces and clatters as it hits the pavement’s heaves and divits wrought from decades of deferred maintenance. A trailer is often wider than the vehicle pulling it, and when the truck and trailer combo hits a curve in the road, the trailer will track deeper into the curve than the truck. Which means if the driver gives just enough room for the truck to clear me, the trailer could still snag me from behind. With the truck and trailer now in view, I wait a beat, then slide right, to the edge of the lane, hoping they’ve seen me. Just then, ahead, the source of that deep rumbling reveals itself. A semi pops up from behind the hilltop, coming my way. A full-on 18 wheeler showing no sign of caution for this ancient two lane state road, likely under pressure for an on-time delivery and cursing the crummy road conditions. There hasn’t been any vehicle, either direction, for the last three minutes, and, all of a sudden bicycle, pickup, and semi are lining up to span the two lanes at a single point at the same moment, on a blind turn no less. The semi quickly slides right. He sees me. He gives-over two feet of spare road surface, inviting the pickup and trailer to give me a good berth. The pickup swings wide. He clearly gets it about a trailer tracking deeper into a turn. I ride the right margin of the lane like it’s a tight rope. Where the pavement ends there’s a two inch drop to a mix of sand and grass three feet wide. After that, it’s a rock face, chiseled decades ago to make way for the road-cut into the mountain side. At least I’m riding the inside of this turn and not the outside, where it’s a guardrail and then a drop-off, not quite a cliff, but a very steep slope with not much to slow you down. Back on my side, If I need to, I can drop off the pavement onto the sand. I can’t tell if the sand has hard dirt under it, meaning it’s ride-able, or if it’s more like a beach, soft and unsupported, in which case my tires will catch, throw me off balance and I’ll flop over. I might whack my helmet against the rock wall on my way down but, worst case, I’d get a scrape or two. The pickup is nearly on me. I glance back at the trailer with my mirror. Looks like it’s going to miss me. I glance down at the sand/dirt to my right, take one last look back at the trailer and choose to stay my course on the very edge of the pavement. There’s always a moment in a close-call situation like this where I mentally brace myself for getting hit. It would be swift, and then, I would come to my senses in the dirt or on the pavement or up against rock, or not. The trailer rushes toward me, bouncing. It bangs and clatters against the pavement inches to my left. In an instant it is just ahead, and then further ahead, and I’m still here, riding my bike. Quickly the truck and trailer become a non-threat, a noisy nuisance as the semi rumbles downhill below me, and out of sight. In their wake I feel a thrill, that sense of being more alive after a close call.
West of Paso Robles, where California’s Central Valley starts giving way to the Santa Lucia Coastal Mountain Range separating it from the Pacific Ocean, only a few roads cross the hilly, arid landscape connecting a handful of small towns and a single, sprawling RV resort at Lake Nacimiento. By California standards, there is little traffic on these two lane backroads and likely not much advocacy for their upkeep. Traffic is mostly pickups from the ranches running errands, delivery trucks, tourists in rental cars seeking remote California, an assortment of SUVs pulling boats or travel trailers, and RVs ranging in size from large to super-scary. To ride these roads on my bicycle without incident I must summon all my experience from many years and miles. I don’t think of myself as an expert at much, but this… Well, I’ve put in my ten thousand hours. I know what I’m doing, and I just hope it’s enough.
Death defying moments are not why I ride. There are plenty of good reasons I take to the road—natural beauty, solitude, exercise, etc. I would prefer to not be riding on crummy roads with no shoulder. And for this California ride—San Francisco to Los Angeles—from which this scary bit is recalled, the riding was mostly very safe and pleasant. California has abundant bike lanes and drivers tend to be more bike-aware than back east. Unfortunately, there’s the occasional stretch of bad road where there is no alternative. If you wish to continue your trip, you must ride it. I estimate 90 percent of the California ride was good roads, two percent truly bad, and the rest in between. That two percent is the risk and danger I accept in order to experience all the rewards of a roadbike tour. And, since readers like a good scare, I’m happy to oblige by sharing tales from the two percent, noting, I’ll add, a lurking ethical dilemma there that indicts both reader and writer. But that is material for another episode, as is all the beauty, interesting people, and reflective moments I encountered on a five hundred mile solo ride down the California coast, including an inland detour through the Central Valley.
Besides entertainment that rests on morally shaky ground, I have some other reasons for an episode featuring scary bits. I want readers who don’t ride a bike to experience a little of what cyclists face on bad roads in the hope that it might linger in your brain cells next time you see a cyclist on the road ahead and are wondering how much room to give way, whether to slow down and wait until you can see what’s coming at you from around the turn, etc. I also want readers who are cyclists to feel affirmed in the challenges they sometimes face.
An hour later, I’m making a descent. Same road. Similar conditions—two lanes, bad pavement. Only now the road is following a ridge, open on both sides to the fierce north to south wind that shows up most afternoons. It comes in gusts from different points on the north end of the compass, depending on the surrounding terrain. One moment I’m riding a straightaway, no wind at all, then I get hit from the side with a blast of air due to a nearby canyon acting like a funnel that concentrates and redirects the air into a high speed stream. Because of my panniers, handlebar bag and other gear, the wind slams into the side of the bike instead of passing through as it might if the bike were stripped down, a bunch of rolling spokes and skinny aluminum frame. When it hits, it throws me off balance, requiring a quick adjustment. I read the terrain as I descend, watching the contours of the land, looking for canyons, noting stands of trees that serve as wind blocks. It’s like walking a trail with a known predator, trying to predict where it might strike. Meanwhile, the road surface presents its own set of challenges. Most imperfections are ride-able, cracks and heaves that are merely annoying. But now and then there’s a hole, deep and wide enough that if I hit it at speed, my front tire will drop into the hole, and when it tries to climb back up the other side a split second later, will hit the edge with more force than the 85 pounds of pressure inside it can manage, the tire and tube will ever so briefly become fully compressed and the force of the strike will hit the steel wheel rim, bending it, making the tire go flat and the bike unrideable. Chances are, my rear tire will hit the hole too. I also need to keep an eye out for long, deep cracks running in the direction I’m riding. If a tire slips into one of those, it’s an almost certain crash. Watching the road surface is made harder due to the ways light and shadow play on it. That disturbance up ahead, is that a pothole or a bit of shade thrown by a tree branch at the roadside? And what is the condition of the road under those heat waves that obscure the surface? And is that a fist-size rock in the road ahead or a glint from some shiny spot in the pavement. Which relates to another concern. Road debris. Rocks, glass, bits of shattered plastic car parts, bolts, hoses, thrown truck tire treads, rope, bungie cords, wire, roadkill. It all tends to gather at the edge of the lane, pushed there by cars and trucks all roaring along at 50+ miles an hour. As I descend, I pump the brakes continually to keep my speed slow enough to manage all the uncertainties of road conditions, wind gusts, and traffic. I watch the road surface like a hawk. Except when I’m watching the terrain like a hawk. Or the traffic. Or the driveways, mailboxes, parked cars and other lurking roadside hazards—also like a hawk. But actually, not like a hawk. I recently read that hawks are great at finding a single target from a great distance, but they are not able to track multiple objects at the same time. That special skill is reserved for humans. So, to any bicycle riding hawks out there, I say, watch the road like a cyclist.
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Like this portrait Jim