Day 474
Yosemite
So today was the day, we would be entering Yosemite National Park. Home to cliffs such as El Capitan and Half Dome. The birthplace of the climbing boom during the 1950s to 1970s. Our campsite is named for these pioneers, Camp 4. First though we had the small matter of 50 miles to ride, the majority uphill, and yes the temperature was approaching 40 degrees, what could possibly go wrong? Tom optimistically said he hoped we would be there mid-afternoon as we had a short day. God, he knows how to tell ‘um!
So off we went, uphill. We soon stopped for second breakfast and met Brenda, a very proud mum to @jamiecrouse. Jamie grew up around here, a serious cyclist, a veteran who cycle raced professionally and holds the record time of 7 minutes for descent of the Old Priest Road we saw yesterday, phew!
The heat rose, the roads just went up and up until we reached our last climb of the day, just 11.1 miles of uphill to go! Tom was back practicing his special skill of picking up stuff with his tyre. Puncture number one, then another one, seriously Tom, I get it! What talent, to ride along and manage to pick up tiny pieces of wire or thorns, awesome but I’m so over it! Finally we topped the hill and Yosemite valley lay below us. It was already well past 4pm and we still had 15 miles to go, but 10 of them downhill with stunning views, awesome! Well nearly, the road was rough and narrow but it beat riding uphill!
When we reached the valley floor it was apparent it would be nearly dark before we reached the campsite. We flew along until we had just half a mile to go. Then hiss! Yep another puncture, by the light of our head torches we fixed it, only it wouldn’t inflate. We got out our last patched tube but again it simply would not inflate. By now it was full on darkness. Tom sent me ahead to dump my bags at our campsite pitch and then pop back to carry his bags. Sounds simply but take it from me, it wasn’t. Firstly I was on an unlit cycle path, then had to cross 2 roads, find the campsite, then our pitch number, which was stuck on a list on a unlit hut, and obviously our pitch was at the end of the new site, and just where the hell was that? I’m still not certain how I found it, or how I found my way back to Tom but we finally made it. The hundreds of climbers staying at the site knew to keep well away from that mad cycling woman!
In the morning we discovered that we had bought poor quality rim tapes, too narrow tubes, useless glue. We made a rim tape from Gorilla tape, then made another narrower one as the first was too wide and caused another puncture and though Tom sat and patched again and again we knew it was time to rethink our plans. After 6 hours of repairs we had Tom’s bike working but with a dodgy rim tape and no spare tube. Tioga Pass and the remote Death Valley was out. It was nearly 40 miles to the nearest bike shop but they didn’t have the tubes we needed. We didn’t feel it was safe to ride or fair to expect a rescue if we punctured again, though Robert had offered to come to our rescue! So it would be a 81 mile bus ride to a small town somewhere in very hot central California to get the spares from Kevin’s Bike shop. We’re not where we planned to be, but as Jan, one of our Warmshowers hosts says, we’re good at adapting!
