Day 5 – Frazier Park to Victorville

A Bicycle Tour Across The West:
Day 5 – Frazier Park to Victorville

Mad Dogs in the Desert

“Inside of me there are two dogs. One of the dogs is mean and evil. The other dog is good. The mean dog fights the good dog all the time. “Which dog wins? The one I feed the most.”
– Comanche Elder speaking of the inner struggle of good and evil

 

The motel I stay at in Frazier Park (technically the town in Lebec I think) is clearly a trucker’s motel. I’m in the common breakfast area at 5:00 AM, and at that hour, it’s full of truckers already. I don’t exactly fit in seamlessly in my spandex and bright yellow windbreaker, but after a few odd looks, the truckers seem to accept me in their space.
I realize we’re not that far from LA here, and many of these guys probably have deliveries to make in the LA area, and are getting an early start to try and beat traffic. Clearly this hotel isn’t a “holiday and recreation destination”…

It’s quite cold this morning – around 35 again – and I really don’t have gear for that temperature. I’m confident this is a short inconvenience at this altitude and hour. The elevation is something around 4500′, which is “in the mountains” in this part of the country. My first half-mile or so is a little climb, which I’m grateful for to warm up a little, but after cresting the pass, it’s a bitter descent for a few miles in the icy air. Yesterday morning, the temperature was about the same, but I was working steadily. This morning, descending through the icy pre-dawn air, my fingers ache and I’m shivering pretty significantly.

I’m noticing the movement of the daylight hours as I move east. I didn’t expect to notice such a difference in the couple hundred miles I’ve moved east on the trip (most of my movement has actually been south so far). But, my start this morning is later than I expected it to be relative to the sunrise.

As I’m losing elevation, a ferocious headwind is quartering across me. Soon I’ll turn due east, so it will be a cross-wind, but I’m hoping that this wind is connected with the pass I’ve just crossed, and that it will change as I get further from the pass.

Coming to highway 138, I turn east. Everything I read about this highway said it was very busy and dangerous, so I actually have mapped an alternative, and that alternative turns off very shortly after I get on 138. However, the highway doesn’t seem that busy, and there is a reasonable shoulder. I have another “bailout” identified several miles up the road, so I decide to go ahead and risk staying on this highway.

While I’m sure there are times when this highway is busy and dangerous, this morning doesn’t seem to be one of them – or perhaps it’s just that this section over to Palmdale isn’t that bad. The shoulder remains generally reasonable, and the traffic not too busy. Of course, it is 6:00 or so in the morning, so it might be that during other commuting hours it’s worse than it is now.

The wind has now moved to behind me, so I’m cruising along a very gentle descent with a tailwind.

I’m smiling. Life is good indeed…

After a few miles I come to an accident in the process of cleaning up. There’s a short line of cars waiting to get by, but it looks like they’re going to be there a while. I glide up to the front, and the patrolman waves me through, allowing me to proceed down the highway. Now, life is getting really good! Until he opens that lane up, I’ve got zero traffic coming behind me. I grab a bigger gear and fly down the road.

The scenery is nice along this road, transforming rapidly from the moderately wooded mountain pass area around Frazier Park into an increasingly arid landscape. By the time I cross highway 14 and make my way into Lancaster, there’s not doubt that I’ve arrived in the desert.

It’s right at 9:00 as I find a little Mexican cantina in Lancaster, and eat a breakfast of fish and beans. Judging from the bars on the windows, and the run-down condition of most of the buildings, this is not a great part of town. That’s one of the downsides of cycling on backroads – sometimes you end up in places you wouldn’t have ended up in otherwise. Of course, that can be an upside too…

I’ve covered about 50 miles so far, with about 60 or 70 left in the day. If the tailwind persists, I’ll be in Victorville and taking a shower by 2:00 in the afternoon.

I talk with the fella who runs the little cantina. His English isn’t very good, and my Spanish is worst, but somehow we communicate well enough for him to give me good advice on making my way through town and heading myself over toward Victorville. It turns out that this Palmdale/Lancaster area is a giant sprawl, and I wonder if many of the people who live here don’t commute into the LA area. While there’s very little “business area” in town, it’s 20 or 30 miles across the area from west to east.

From here to Victorville the most common route is highway 18, which takes you right to the motel I’ll be staying at. It’s also a busy road, and based on research I did before the trip, it’s not bicycle friendly. Instead, I have a route mapped that keeps me north of highway 18, on back-roads.

As I ride, two things crowd out everything else in my mind. The first is the worsening condition of the roads I’m riding on, and the second is the wind in my face. Seems the wind is always blowing in this part of the country – sometimes it’s your friend and sometimes your enemy. This morning it was my friend, this afternoon it seems it will be harassing me a bit…

But the road condition is worth talking about. I suspect they never get freezing temperatures here, and they clearly get very little rain. Back in the Plains or in the Midwest, roads could never survive in this condition. The pavement is cracked in all directions across it’s entire surface. If they got snow, ice, and freezing and thawing, these cracks would have developed into crater-sized potholes long ago. But in this climate, I suppose it’s possible to neglect a road and let it fall into this condition of cracked brokenness, and people can still drive on it. But it’s certainly not very friendly to the road cyclist…

I’m thinking about this, cruising along the road, when I notice a broken down home ahead and on my left. It’s the barking dogs that catch my attention first – every cyclist is aware of dogs and trying to make sure one doesn’t try and turn your ankles and calves into hamburger. As I approach, I’m relieved to see a nice chain link fence running along the road, keeping the dogs in. As I pass the front of the home, and the dogs are pouring toward the fence, I notice that they’re headed toward the gate, where there’s a big gap in the fence.

It’s rare that I worry much about dogs. I get along great with them for the most part, and it’s usually clear they’re just letting me know that I’m passing their territory. But right now, there’s no doubt in my mind that this is different.

There are 6 or 8 of these guys, and they’re making it clear they want a piece or me if they can get it. Before I’ve even thought about it, I’m out of the saddle, and the adrenaline has cranked my output up into the red zone. I’m pouring as much coal as I can to the pedals, and the 25 mph or so I’m able to get to keeps me just ahead of the fastest of the dogs.
As I leave them behind, I back off the speed a bit. In nearly all cases, once the dog has chased you out of his territory, he’s fine if you slow down. He’s done his duty, and moved you along the road. He’s not in this for blood – just to keep the peace in his territory.

These guys are in it for blood. Even though I’m now 50 yards ahead of them, and they had backed way off realizing they couldn’t catch me, when they see me slowing down their vigor renews. Immediately they begin sprinting up the road toward me again, hopeful that their prey might be faltering, and they can bring me down.

Of course, I crank the effort up again – this time leaving them far behind before slowing.
This is a new experience for me. There’s no doubt in my mind that once these dogs zeroed in on me as a target, they were hunting me – not just chasing me. I’ve never carried any sort of dog repellant as I’ve ridden, but this little incident has changed my mind!

The further I ride, the more the wind builds in my face. By the time I’m 20 or 30 miles from the end of my day, it’s a brutal headwind I’m fighting, along with a road so rough it’s literally jarring my teeth. It’s so rough in spots it feels like I’m riding on a poorly graded gravel road. At one point, I look down at my GPS and see that I’m going 7 or 8 mph across ground that’s broken and extremely rough though perfectly flat – and I’m working to do that 7 or 8 mph.

I’m within 10 miles or so of the end of the day when I pull off the road at an elementary school and hunker down behind a big concrete sign out by the street. It’s the only wind break I can find, and I just want to sit down, eat a snack, drink some water, and spend just a few minutes without wind pummeling me.

It’s close to 5:00 before I finally arrive at my hotel in Victorville. My last 3 or 4 miles is on a narrow frontage road beside a loud freeway, into a brutal headwind, with extremely heavy traffic trying to push me off the road. While there have been aspects of today that have been really nice and enjoyable, I’m really happy to be done with vicious dogs, brutal headwinds, and roads in worse conditions then I would expect in a third world country.
Still, all in all, I’m amazed at just how good I do feel. I have every reason to feel beat-down and dejected right now, but I don’t. I’m hopeful for a good wind tomorrow, and hopeful for improved roads. I decide to keep my can of mace more accessible in case I run into more dog problems. But I feel pretty good.

My body is really tired, and wants a rest day. Tomorrow I have a short 80 miles over to Twentynine Palms, where I’ll take my first rest day. I’m guessing that having this in my near future has a lot to do with why I’m feeling mentally good right now, despite a day that’s been less than ideal in many ways. Right now I’m remembering with fondness the first 50 miles of the day much more than I’m thinking about that last 60 or 70.

Hope is a pretty cool thing in the human mind. My life is pretty simple right now, and the hope and anticipation of a rest day washes the dirt and grime of mean dogs, bad roads, and nasty winds right off my emotional canvas. This brings two things brightly into focus for me as I lay on my bed and rest.

First is the immense value of hope within the human. I live such a privileged life, with so few hardships. I’ve often considered the utter misery of other human lives – in these times and in times past – and have wondered what keeps people going. I’ve wondered how people can get past some of the horrible tragedy and hardship that life dishes out to them.

Hope, it seems, is that bridge that spans the gap between what might seem unbearable, and our ability to move forward into the next day. So long as we have that bridge of hope to stand on, the misery of the past drifts off into the fog behind us. Looking back, we tend not to see what’s shrouded in the fog, and instead see the peaks and high points that we’ve come through.

Second, I’m learning to appreciate the beauty of the simplicity I’m finding on this ride. I expected to find simplicity, but I had no idea how much beauty and enjoyment I’d find in it. I get on my bike in the morning, and I ride. I find food and drink, and I ride. I’m alone with my thoughts in the saddle all day long, and I find I like the company I’m keeping.

Looking forward to a day off, when I can do laundry, eat, read, and rest, has me almost giddy with anticipation. I almost don’t even care what I read – just a little external mental stimulation that isn’t connected with staying alive on the road is all I’m looking for – preferably relaxing in a prone position in a cool room…