Had a great couple of days planned out this weekend. I was going to ride from Ukiah over to Willits via Tomki Rd and then over to Fort Bragg via Sherwood Rd, spend the night over at the coast and then meet the MCC folks for the Fathers Day ride out to Comptche and then head back to the car via Comptche - Ukiah Rd.
Mary was nice enough to come up on Friday night to get Sasha so I could get an early morning start.
I had the bike packed up on Thursday evening so I was ready to roll out at 3 in the morning so I could get over to Ukiah and then have a nice leisurely ride out to the coast. The beginning leg is about 95 miles and I wanted to just chill and have a nice time.
Rolled out at a little after three to a beautiful full moon over the valley and was half way between Williams and Clearlake when the truck developed a slight miss. I drove for a bit to find a place to pull over and see what the hell was going on. I finally got pulled over and was greeted to a cloud of steam coming from under the hood, not good. I popped the hood and discovered that the radiator cap had blown off somewhere.
God only knows how long I had been driving with no water in the engine.... I'm guessing that the water came out so fast that there wasn't enough water in the motor for the gauges to register a temp since the temp gauge never got above midway. Of course I'm in the middle of nowhere with no cell service. I had a couple of gallons of water with me and was able to limp it for a few miles till I could get cell service, but the damage was done already and the motor was coming apart pretty quickly.
Three hours with a relatively nice tow truck driver put me at Matts shop in Meadow Vista where it sits now awaiting what I figure is a $5000.00 motor next week.
Man, it seems whenever I get excited about something I just get kicked in the stomach and it blows up in my face, costing me not only time, but lately money as well. It's been a bit of a chore to get excited to ride my bike lately, I guess I'm just in a bit of a funk and things like this really don't help. Couple things like this and my AZTR failure this year and I'm having a tough time getting excited about much of anything bike related. Maybe it's time to step a way from this for awhile and see if the love I have for adventure by bike returns.
I'm grateful I have the money to fix it without much thought, but that doesn't take the emotional sting out of the situation. Man it was tough not to just say screw it and go down and buy a new truck. The thought of a car payment again quickly cleared my mind of that, plus I've become accustomed to being relatively debt free with one house paid for and another with a manageable mortgage.
So, another adventure slips away. Time is so short for me lately that I really hate to think that these types of things are getting harder and harder for me to find the time for. I guess I need to find a bit more of a balance in life, whether it be spending less time on the bike or finding something else that I can find some escape in.
I took this week off of the bike, mostly due to a horrendous work schedule and triple digit heat, but also because I have so many projects that need to be finished that I really just have to do it this way. It was nice to get some things done that have been going neglected for months.
I think I came to the conclusion that my life is somewhat out of control and basically just running me into the ground( friends have been telling me this for years) this past weekend. I worked 60 hours during the week and then spent 7 hours on my mountain bike in upper 90 degree temps on Saturday. I got home and spent 4 hours in the shop and decided that painting the back of the house was a good way to put a nightcap on the day. I was totally wrecked the next morning but needed to drive up to Reno to look at a job as I had been putting it off for weeks. I brought my mountain bike and proceeded to crank out 6 hours on the Tahoe Rim Trail in what was probably my slowest and most difficult ride up there in years. Somethings got to give....
I wish I was one of those people who can just block out the rest of the world and find joy in riding their bike at the expense of almost everything else in life. The whole self supported endurance race community is filled with these people, and I suppose at some level you need to be this way to be successful at it, but I just am not wired that way and struggle with the balance on a daily basis.
I look at the two guys I headed out to Arizona this year with. Both really nice guys, and I don't know much of anything about their home life or support structure, but both of them lined up at Tour Divide this week a little over a month after taking two weeks to do the Arizona Trail Race. I'm amazed at the amount of time away from life and family this kind of stuff must take, obviously they feel that this is a balanced life, whether it is or not is open for discussion I suppose.
Man that's a lot of rambling going on right there.....
Time for bed......
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