Saturday July 11, 2015, 188 miles (303 km) – Total so far: 9,192 miles (14,793 km)
4 days 188 miles
July 8, 2015
Jocelyn and Nicole continued to ride the beautiful northern California coast. With my bike on the truck rack Andee and I searched for a bike shop to fix my cracked hub. None of the shops had spare hubs but even if they did they were all a week and a half out for service due to summer and several upcoming bike races. At NorCal Bikesport in Santa Rosa Jeff really worked the issue and called seven local bike shops looking for a hub or a new wheel. I was told by several that it would be easier and quicker to buy a new wheel and have it sent overnight. I decided to go that route and ordered a new wheel with a Sun Rhyno Ditch Witch rim and a Shimano Deore hub. It arrived yesterday and Jeff quickly installed it. We had already checked into a KOA in Petaluma and met Jocelyn and Nicole there. I am unsure of this rim and hub as my cracked hub was the Shimano Deore XT. I can’t find much on the internet either. My Xterra rim that replaced all four of our Mavic XM719 rims was installed in Istanbul last May.
I did a close visual inspection of this rim and could not find any cracks emanating from the spoke holes like I did on the Mavics. Andee will return to Florida and take this wheel to my bike guy in Cocoa Beach and install a new Shimano XT hub. She will then mail it to my sister’s house in San Diego where I will reinstall the rebuilt wheel before Mexico and South America. We are spending two nights in Petaluma as my son Cary is flying into San Francisco this afternoon.
July 10, 2015
Cary has joined us for a few weeks. We heard about road work on the main roads leading to the Golden Gate Bridge that would close part of it and the bridge starting at 10 pm so we loaded up the bikes and drove closer in order to not interrupt our travel. Unfortunately I have suffered from an intestinal bug the last few days and wasn’t well enough to cross the bridge. I was really looking forward to biking across the Golden Gate but it didn’t happen. Jocelyn and Nicole were able to ride across and then continued to Half Moon Bay State Campground at Francis Beach where we had another fine campsite. As they crossed the bridge a group of 150 cyclists were headed the other way! I had another rough night sleeping but still got on my bike for the day as we rode to Aptos a few miles south of Santa Cruz. We did enjoy watching the surfers at Steamer Lane before arriving at our host’s home for the night. Andee’s high school friend Teri lives here with her husband Brad. We had another great stay with friends. It is always a pleasure to stay in a house after a week of camping.
