May 25, day 22 Standish-Hickey Rec Area to Fort Bragg

May 25, day 22 Standish-Hickey Rec Area to Fort Bragg.

Starting odo 7144

Early in the morning it starts - the patter of rain on my tent.  I am
glad I covered the panniers just in case! Usually, there is some rain
in the morning, but it typically stops by the time I want to get up.
This time it keeps up, with some pauses until around 8 it pauses and I
get up.

Shyam suggests we go to the peg house to get breakfast.  It is a short
walk away.  It rains off and on while we are there as we walk around
the store looking at the items stuffed in every nook and cranny.

I am amazed that I am still finding stuff in the store that I didn't
see in the hour or so I spent in it yesterday. The Lady running the
register says she has been working there for 7 years, and she still
doesn't know all the stuff that's in the store.

We walk back to the camp, and shortly after we get back the sun peeks
out between the clouds.  Its not raining at the moment. We decide to
break camp and make a run for it.

Quickly packing up our wet tents, we notice that the tent bottoms are
not really all that waterproof, as they are wet now, causing the
underside of our sleeping pads to get wet.  It hasn't really been a
pouring rain by any means, so I wonder how it would be if it was!
Maybe the bottom of my tent is worn enough to compromise the
waterproofing.

Today's ride will start out with a climb to 2500 feet, then a descent
and another climb of about 800 feet, or so it seems from the maps.

As we start, the roads are wet and there is some sprinkling, but this
pretty  much stops, although the roads remain wet. It rains on us a
few times throughout the day, so I end up wearing the shoe covers and
waterproof pants and jacket much of the day.  Sometimes I think the
weather changes just to make us take off stuff, then put it back on.

The first climb is not too bad, we go about 4.5-5 mph for about 4
miles, then we go down, and its cold... and we keep going down.
Finally, the next climb starts, and this one is the one that actually
starts to hurt us!

Eventually, we are back on the coast, and the ocean is doing its
typical, beautiful thing.  We head down the coast towards fort bragg.
After only a few miles, I try to shift into second gear, and the chain
slips, like it does when I'm between gears, so I try to get it onto
one or the other cogs, but its still slipping, and it starts slipping
even worse!  Looking down, I see the second gear is just *gone*!  The
cog is simply not there anymore!  I stop and look at it more closely,
and it really, really isn't there! Backtracking for about 30 yards, I
find half of the cog laying on the road.  I take a picture. Never in
all my experience have I seen a cog break in two and fall off a
freewheel, cassette or anything!

I am at once deeply amazed, and very angry at the freewheel.  Its like
a lifetime's worth of bad luck with equipment has been applied to this
one object.

Looking on the adventure cycling map, I see that fort bragg has a bike
shop, so I pull out the phone to try to call them.  The phone has
turned off, the battery is empty.

After another 4-5 miles we get to Westport, pop 238, and there is a
store there.  I plug in the charger, and we order some sandwiches for
a late lunch.  Calling the bike shop, they actually have a freewheel
that is pretty much the same set of ratios as my current one, but I
cannot get there before they close for the day.

We talk a bit to the shopkeeper.  She has had a number of careers.
Motorcycle enduro racing, boat captain, and now shopkeeper.  Her back
was injured and she could not work the boat anymore. She says that
nearly everybody in the area has a 215 exemption.  What this means is
that they can use marijuana for medical purposes.  She says it works
great for her back condition. I quiz her a little about the various
sorts of medical conditions that would allow the 215 classification,
and it seems that nearly anything might be sufficient.

My bike now becomes a three speed as it is very difficult to shift
into the third lowest cog, and I wasn't able to shift into the lowest
cog.  This means that I have to stand up on a lot of the hills into Ft
Bragg.

Arriving, I get a motel room, we clean up and go into town for a beer
sampler at North Coast Brewing, after that, we try to find someplace
to eat, but all the restaurants are closed, except Denny's.