First of all, I want to thank Rob for advising us to switch track to
Hwy 120/108 and tried to reach Modesto instead of taking Hwy 4 to Stockton.
Otherwise, we would never be able to find a place to stay for the night( there
isn't any town 40 miles between Chinese camp and Stockton). And I am very
sorry about causing all these troubles( I hope nobody really went out looking
for us).
Now about how I got myself into this mess:
We DID carry spare tubes and patches. We brought 4 tubes, 7 patches, and
1 tire in total. However, I got both front and rear tubes punctured on the
first day, all because that I wanted to take a picture of me riding in the
wild wild west. Not known by me, the field by the road is full of those weeds
with thorn, and once I rolled over, I got lots of small holes on my tubes.
So I stopped to replace the two tubes with my new ones. But once again bad
fortune came upon me. While using tire levers to put the tire back on the rim,
I tore two holes on one of the new tubes. I tried to patch the holes, but
they are so close that on the second day the tube leaked again and I had to
dump it.
The third day in Yosemite valley is uneventful.
We started the most challenging fourth day with relatively ease. I thought,
with two new tubes in my tires, one tube in reserve, and 4 patches left, we
can make this 170km trip to Stockton without any problem. However, bad fortune
visited me the third time. When we got to a small town called Groveland on
Hwy 120, which is near the foot of the mountains, my front tire blowed up.
It's not that I didn't react when I sensed there was something wrong with the
front tire. I saw there was a bulge at the side of the front tire and stopped
to release the air. But when my hand reached the valve, the tube exploded
before my eyes!
Fortunately, we still got one last tube and one spare tire. However, while
installing the tighter-more-than-you-can-imagine tire, which is Michelin
Axial Pro, I destroyed our last hope: the last tube! Now Steve and I both got
really worried. We tried to hitch a ride, but after trying for half an hour,
we gave up. I decided to try to patch the tube riddled with holes on the first
day. I used up all four patches but the tube still leaked after riding about
2 miles. With more than 70km ahead of us and the time is already 4pm, we
seriously doubted that we would be able to make it to Stockton. Therefore,
we called for help, and Rob became our savior.
We didn't make it to Modesto that night. Instead we settled down at
Oakdale, which is 26 km away from Modesto. We took the afternoon train from
Modesto to San Francisco on the next day. We originally planned to ride to
Stockton, and then rode back to San Francisco, though.
Besides equipment failure, we also had quite an adventure when catching the
train. On the first day of the trip, we reached the train station right at
the time when the train rolled in! What caused the problem is the inaccuracy
of the map, which made us looking for the station to and fro on the same
route. On the last day of the trip, we left an one hour margin to look for
the station. I decided to rely on asking for direction instead of using the
large-scale map. However, all the locals pointed us to the wrong direction.
They thought the station in down town Modesto is the Amtrak station, but in
reality Amtrek station is at the outskirt of the city! So we spent 40 minutes
getting to the wrong station, only to learn that we have to go on the opposite
direction to get to our destination in 20 minutes! But Steve and I really
didn't want stay any longer, so we gave it whatever we had and got there in
15 minutes! To my surprise and relief, the train was delayed for 30 minutes,
so Steve and I had the time to congratulate each other and took victory
photos before the station.
The lessons I learn from this trip are:
a. Don't use road bike as mountain bike
b. Always check the tires before you go. Do not accept even a slight crack on the tires.
c. Do not trust people entirely for directions. Get a small-scale map!
I want to thank Rob and everyone on the CAL team again for your concern and help. Oh, here are some of our photos:
http://www.csie.ntu.edu.tw/~b89117/Yosemite.htm
Eternally in your debt,
Gordon & Steve
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