life @ 13
Sunday, March 22, 2009
bang!
from the top...
pictures are up
the ride to Caraz was what i expected more of this trip to be like...lots of mountain roads, getting guards to open gates, safe camping on the side of the road...ramen noodles and gallons of water as fuel. what i hadn't expected before and what i have come to overuse is other biker's journals...not only are the roads and distances between towns described to a T, but for most of my recent rides i even have accurate elevation profiles. this does kill a small amount of the fun of discovery, but i can't imagine what kind of trouble i would get myself into without them.
briefly...left chao not so early (8:30ish) due to a flat in the rear...a hole in the middle of an old patch and nothing in the tire. strange. 15k on the panamerica, then i turned off into the wild on a private road which cuts a good 40k off the trip to Caraz. the road is unsealed but in pretty good shape...i was able to hum along at 16k/h without pushing much at all. there are a few climbs along the way, but from chao to caraz is about 160k at a steady 1.5% grade...as is to be expected when climbing up a river valley. on the private road there were a total of 6 cars in 3 hours. beautiful scenery (look at the pictures, as usual they tell a better story).
after the private road, a few k on the pavement, a little town to stock up on water and food, and then the road gets about as bad as they come for about 70k. or, at least, the worst i've done without a mountain bike. riding a road like this is, in fact, a lot like mountain biking. not only are your legs always spinning at a furious pace, but you have to use a considerable amount of upper body strength and stay completely focused, else you lose your line and thus your balance and thus the bike. when you hit a good line it feels great, when you miss and the bike skids and you have to put a foot down and start over, it's incredibly frusturating...amplified by the 70lb bike and 90 degree sun.
the first day i made it about 15k on the crap before i was completely worn out...found an excellent camping spot by the river and slept pretty well....the river is so loud you can't hear anything around.
next day was uneventful...50k in the crap, lots of heat, only a few cars an hour. found another good campspot on the side of the road just a few k short of huallanca
---
taking a brief aside...it occurred to me earlier in the trip that people with UC probably, typically, don't do these kind of things. it's not really the kind of problem conducive to being out in the middle of nowhere with poor sanitation and spotty medical services. i was well aware from the beginning that this could potentially be a problem but i tend not to heed these kinds of warnings, internal or otherwise
---
woke up the next day feeling ungreat. spent most of the next 3 hours staring off into space and pedaling the last few k into huallanca. i knew that i had a little more rough riding, then 25ish k of smooth road into caraz....so i decided to continue staring off into space until a little after noon, then i bucked up a little, shut my brain off, and finished off the leg, knowing that the end was near. Caraz was a pretty little town, unfortunately i didn't get to see much of it. made friends with the local firefighters, though.
i'll probably give y'all one more post with some thoughts after i get back. right now i'm surprisingly content with the decision to return. i mean, it really wasn't much of a decision...some decisions are just too obvious to be called decisions. would have very much liked to keep going, both for me and for any entertainment i might have been able to provide. but i'm looking forward to feeling better, eating all the things i haven't been able to eat, and hanging out with y'all gringos.
from the top...
pictures are up
the ride to Caraz was what i expected more of this trip to be like...lots of mountain roads, getting guards to open gates, safe camping on the side of the road...ramen noodles and gallons of water as fuel. what i hadn't expected before and what i have come to overuse is other biker's journals...not only are the roads and distances between towns described to a T, but for most of my recent rides i even have accurate elevation profiles. this does kill a small amount of the fun of discovery, but i can't imagine what kind of trouble i would get myself into without them.
briefly...left chao not so early (8:30ish) due to a flat in the rear...a hole in the middle of an old patch and nothing in the tire. strange. 15k on the panamerica, then i turned off into the wild on a private road which cuts a good 40k off the trip to Caraz. the road is unsealed but in pretty good shape...i was able to hum along at 16k/h without pushing much at all. there are a few climbs along the way, but from chao to caraz is about 160k at a steady 1.5% grade...as is to be expected when climbing up a river valley. on the private road there were a total of 6 cars in 3 hours. beautiful scenery (look at the pictures, as usual they tell a better story).
after the private road, a few k on the pavement, a little town to stock up on water and food, and then the road gets about as bad as they come for about 70k. or, at least, the worst i've done without a mountain bike. riding a road like this is, in fact, a lot like mountain biking. not only are your legs always spinning at a furious pace, but you have to use a considerable amount of upper body strength and stay completely focused, else you lose your line and thus your balance and thus the bike. when you hit a good line it feels great, when you miss and the bike skids and you have to put a foot down and start over, it's incredibly frusturating...amplified by the 70lb bike and 90 degree sun.
the first day i made it about 15k on the crap before i was completely worn out...found an excellent camping spot by the river and slept pretty well....the river is so loud you can't hear anything around.
next day was uneventful...50k in the crap, lots of heat, only a few cars an hour. found another good campspot on the side of the road just a few k short of huallanca
---
taking a brief aside...it occurred to me earlier in the trip that people with UC probably, typically, don't do these kind of things. it's not really the kind of problem conducive to being out in the middle of nowhere with poor sanitation and spotty medical services. i was well aware from the beginning that this could potentially be a problem but i tend not to heed these kinds of warnings, internal or otherwise
---
woke up the next day feeling ungreat. spent most of the next 3 hours staring off into space and pedaling the last few k into huallanca. i knew that i had a little more rough riding, then 25ish k of smooth road into caraz....so i decided to continue staring off into space until a little after noon, then i bucked up a little, shut my brain off, and finished off the leg, knowing that the end was near. Caraz was a pretty little town, unfortunately i didn't get to see much of it. made friends with the local firefighters, though.
i'll probably give y'all one more post with some thoughts after i get back. right now i'm surprisingly content with the decision to return. i mean, it really wasn't much of a decision...some decisions are just too obvious to be called decisions. would have very much liked to keep going, both for me and for any entertainment i might have been able to provide. but i'm looking forward to feeling better, eating all the things i haven't been able to eat, and hanging out with y'all gringos.
Archives
Subscribe to Posts [Atom]