“Mountains have a way of dealing with overconfidence.”
~Â Hermann Buhl
Reaching the detour route, I take a left onto Nacimiento Road, a forest service road that’s been paved. Crossing a cattle grate as I leave the highway, I begin a seven mile climb that combines heavenly views with hellacious climbing.
As the climbing begins, I drop into my lowest possible gear, and I’ll rarely leave that gear for the next hour and 20 minutes. The steep climb is about 3000 feet in about seven miles – about 400 feet a mile, an average of 7 to 8 percent. Maybe only 4 to 5 percent in some places, balanced by many places at 11 to 12 percent, a couple places at 16 to 18 percent. The U.S. interstate highway system allows a maximum grade of 6 percent. A 7 to 8 percent grade on a highway is considered dangerous; 9 percent is rarely encountered anywhere.
Pedaling up an 11 to 12 percent grade is gut-wrenching, even without the extra touring weight on the bike. At 16 percent, it’s all I can do to keep moving. The climb slaps some of the swagger right out of me, and has me giving serious consideration to those “nice to have†items in my pack. Tomorrow I have a VERY long day of riding, with climbing at the end of the day. Just how “nice†are those extra ounces and pounds I have in my pack?
While pouring my focus into the work of climbing, I also need to keep a little attention aimed at the road ahead and behind. For most of the climb, it would be impossible for two cars to pass each other at speed. The road’s just too narrow. When two cars pass, one needs to pull over as far as they can, while the other passes slowly. The constant tight turns and switchbacks limit the opportunity for even that sort of passing.
Notwithstanding the steep grade and narrow road, the beauty of the ride up the west slope of the Coastal Range is hard to express. The views back down onto the coast as I climb are stunning. Time after time, the road makes a sharp switch out on a ledge that gives me a view either north or south along the rugged coastline that takes my breath away. At one point, I’m stopped and admiring the view, eating a banana, when a convertible sports car steams past me headed up the hill. The driver is one of the blonde Beautiful People, sitting so low in the seat she can barely see over the hood. She waves at me as she passes, exclaiming, “Isn’t this just so beautiful?!â€
Well, yes it is. From the top of this bicycle, with an unlimited view and the time to take it all in safely, it’s beautiful indeed.
In those spots where the road tucks back into the mountainside, the landscape changes suddenly to a deeply forested thicket with towering redwoods. The transition from the openness of the mountainside to the depth of the thickets is usually marked by a zone of smaller trees covered in hanging lichens.
The grade gets much easier toward the top, but the temperature has dropped dramatically. I stop several times to enjoy wide vistas with views that seem to go forever back down the mountains and across the Pacific, but the stops are short as the moist air cools me rapidly. At the top of the climb, the road is deep into a forest, the air itself is quite cool, and I’m chilling down even faster. I stop, put on my jacket, and take in some fluid and calories.
Descending is downright cold, and I’m shivering hard. After a few miles of descending through forest, the landscape changes quickly and the temperature climbs. In less than five miles, I’m in a dry, grassy savannah much like my home on the eastern slope of the Rocky Mountains in Colorado.
Nacimiento Road transitions into Fort Hunter-Liggett as the descent flattens out. The traffic is still extremely light, and I can only imagine how light the traffic would be without the road closure back on the coast. A warm tailwind follows me out of the mountains, painting a big smile across on my face.
Winding my way through broad oak savannah, I marvel at the massive old valley oaks spread thinly across the plain. Giant spreading trees, some of them 600 years old, they have massive trunks and beautifully shaped crowns. I stop to enjoy the silence and beauty of the place, leaning my bike against the side of one of these old Ents, and my back against the other side.
This old tree has called this grassy plain home for hundreds of years. Basking in the bright sun, soaking up nutrients from the ground, it’s grown to this nobility at a pace I can’t comprehend. It welcomes me under its shade, and I wonder what other folks looked like and sounded like who might have shared this shade in the past, over the hundreds of years that this old graybeard has been growing in this spot, quietly waiting for me.
I’m in Steinbeck country now, broad grassy pastures with scattered ancient trees. I imagine Samuel Hamilton jostling down the road toward me in a wagon, Lee sitting beside me in the shade. A small breeze whispers through the grass close to me as I lay against the old oak tree, a touch of sun making its way through the branches now and then to warm me, the sea of short prairie grass stretching out for several hundred yards between this tree and the next. Relaxation saturates my body as my mind brims with contentment. Soft savannah sounds fade into the distance as I doze up to the edge of a nap.
Pilgrim Wheels Excerpts This post is part of a series of posts, representing excerpts from Pilgrim Wheels, a story of a cycling journey across America. Pilgrim Wheels will be released in early March, let me know if you’re interested in doing an advance review.
