This was an unrealistic proposition for several reasons. We were somewhere in the middle of California’s Central Valley, a 22,000 square mile swath of mostly farmland that runs nearly the entire length of the state. We knew we were getting close to our destination, Mercey Hot Springs, but we had no idea how close. Our GPS tracker wasn’t working this far out into the country, and neither were our phones. So there was no calling anyone. There was no waiting to be picked up. There was only one thing to do: get back on our bikes and keep following the weak beams of our headlights Westward, further into the meandering hills that surrounded us on all sides. It was nearly midnight.
By this point, I had already been feeling like I had to vomit for an hour or so. I hadn’t said anything about it to anyone, I guess because I hoped the feeling would just go away if I ignored it. And truthfully, I was also embarrassed. After all, I was the one who had convinced Sam, Lacey, and Denise to tack those extra 30 miles onto our ride. I couldn’t admit to myself, let alone to my friends, that maybe I really wasn’t as strong as I thought I was.
But when Sam fell, I managed to steel my resolve and convince her to keep going. Funny how that works, when someone else feels weak and needs you to be strong, you’re somehow able to find that strength, even though you thought you were the weak one.
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The bicycle trip to Mercey Hot Springs was Lacey’s idea. She had found an article online about remote yet accessible bike camping destinations in the greater San Francisco Bay Area. The article suggested that campers take the Amtrak East to Merced, then a bus south to Dos Palos, and ride an easy 30 miles into the hills that delineate the Western edge of the Central Valley.
As we started planning our trip, I felt confident that we didn’t need to bother with the bus, and that we should instead just ride the entire 60 miles from the train station to the hot springs. It’s mostly flat out there in the Central Valley, so I was sure the miles would slip away beneath us, and that we’d arrive at our destination earlier than expected. “We can do it!” I assured the group.
It’s almost funny now. Almost.
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We met at the Amtrak Station in Berkeley at 7am, our bikes loaded up with camping gear. Around 10, we arrived in Merced, and stopped at the grocery store for food and the bike shop for maps. By noon, we were on the road, and the sun was high in the sky. The high temperature that day was about 100 degrees, and the air was dry. But hey, it was flat! This was gonna be easy! This was gonna be fun!
If you’ve ever spent any time in a flat, hot, relatively unpopulated place, you know how that type of environment can start to mess with your psyche. There’s just….nothing. The land stretches out in front of you, providing no clues for estimating distances, throwing your depth perception completely out of whack. It seems as though this might be all there is. Just the sun, the dry earth, and you. We rode past miles of farmland; most of California’s agricultural output comes from the Central Valley region. All around us were patches of vegetables, green from irrigation, sucking up Sierra spring water while we shriveled in the heat.
This is not the type of environment in which you want to get a flat tire on your bicycle. I got the first one, and as I sat on the side of the road, shadeless, trying to complete what is normally a manageable and routine task, I began to see stars. Without saying a word, Lacey took the pump from my hands and finished up while I lay on the ground and sipped water from my Camelbak.
Every time we got back on the road after fixing a flat, it felt as if we were moving in slow motion. The miles were, in fact, not slipping away as I’d imagined. As Lacey changed her second flat tire—the fourth for the group—I started to get restless. This was taking too long. It was 3 in the afternoon and we’d only ridden about 15 miles.
Joe dropped us off at the Giant Burger in Firebaugh, about 30 miles from our final destination. We took up two tables in the nearly empty restaurant, throwing our dust-covered gear at one and spreading our maps out at the other. After a quick meal of ice cream and french fries, we got back on the road.
Thankfully, it had started to cool off, and the next 20 miles were some of the most pleasant of the day. We saw the sun set over the hills to the west, and soon we were riding in pure darkness, aside from the narrow beams of our bike lights. Not only was it dark… it was quiet. So quiet, we could hear the electricity running through power lines above our heads.
Like great distances, silence and darkness can mess with your mind. Every sound, every shape becomes threatening. We heard cows in the distance and worried that they would charge us at any moment. We stopped 15 feet from a piece of rebar that was poking out of the ground, completely convinced it was a snake ready to strike. I felt like I was going mad, but I kept it to myself. “We can do it,” I silently chanted. But this time, I was trying to convince myself.
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I once watched this documentary called Touching the Void. It’s about two mountaineers, Joe Simpson and Simon Yates, who climb the north face of Siula Grande in the Peruvian Andes, a feat no one else had ever successfully completed. It was the first time I’d seen people climb with crampons, which are like frames that slip over your boots, and have metal spikes on the bottom to help you grip the snow and ice. Of course, I had already known that people climbed mountains; I guess I had just never realized what that entailed. And here were these two guys, clinging to a vertical ice sheet, miles above sea level, in 40 mile an hour winds and freezing cold temperatures. I was awestruck.
They reached the summit of the mountain, but on the descent, Joe fell and broke his leg. The expedition had already taken longer than expected, and the pair had run out of fuel. They had no food, no drinking water, and no chance of rescue. Their only option was to continue descending. So Simon lowered Joe down the mountain, three hundred feet at a time. But when he unknowingly lowered Joe off an ice cliff, Joe was unable to give Simon the “tug-tug” signal that meant he could continue down the mountain. So Simon sat on the steep, snowy mountainside, while Joe hung off the rope three hundred feet below, helpless. After hours of waiting, the snow holding Simon in place on the slope was starting to give out. If that happened, they would both fall to their deaths. So Simon decided to cut the rope.
Joe fell deep into a crevasse, and Simon headed back to base camp, knowing that he had left his friend and climbing partner to die. But amazingly, Joe managed to get himself out of the crevasse and descend the rest of the mountain with a broken leg. After over three days with no food and water, Joe made it back to base camp, just hours before Simon was to return home.
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This story got me thinking a lot about what humans are capable of. Here in the United States, we live a pampered lifestyle. Many of us go from house to car to office and back again, barely interacting with the natural environment. But bicycling is a wholly different way to get around, and those who don’t do it regularly are often astounded at the physical torture that we put ourselves through, and the danger we put ourselves in. I still remember the way my mom recoiled when I told her was about to bike 50 miles on Highway 1 in California. "You can't do that!" she said. "It's too dangerous!"
I wouldn’t say that bicycling is easy, but I do think that almost anyone can do it. It’s less a matter of physical ability, and more about a willingness to put yourself in the situation where you have to do it. For example, I don’t have a car, so driving somewhere is not an option for me, and bicycling is usually more convenient, faster, and cheaper than taking public transportation. Once you have integrated 15 miles of bicycling into your daily routine—to go to work, pick up groceries, meet friends—50 miles up and down the coastline seems entirely do-able.
Which is why I initially felt so confident about our proposed 60 miles in the Central Valley. While it turned out to be much more difficult than I thought it would be, we still did it, simply because we had to. We had put ourselves in that situation, and there was no turning back. Realizing this, Sam got back on her bike and the four of us continued into the darkness, our pupils bursting wide, anxiously awaiting any glimpse of light that might signify human activity.
And then, it happened. A faint flicker in the distance. We stepped up our pace. The light became brighter, and more lights appeared. Then, voices: hoots and hollers echoing off the hillsides. Our fellow campers could see our bike lights bobbing in the darkness and were cheering us on. As we approached the entrance to the campsites, I looked at Lacey. She was laughing and crying at the same time. I started to cry too. It was truly one of the most triumphant moments of my life.
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