She rode a broken saddle

The ride out of Yosemite was a fun one, the first 40km were downhill and lovely! When I stopped at the bottom of the big climb of the day to use the loo I noticed my Brooks Cambium saddle was broken, hmmmm this sucks. It cracked across the nose of it but thankfully I was still able to ride it but I fear for how long it would last. I spent two days in the town of Mariposa dealing with warranty issues and hiding from the heavy wind and rain, along with the potential of a flash flood. I found a bike shop in Madera that was a Brooks dealer and spoke with an employee who said they would take care of me and would order the replacement and it would be there in two to three days.  When I arrived in Madera I spoke with the owner of that bike shop who not very kindly explained to me why his employee would never say such things. He was very patronizing and I wanted nothing else to do with him or his shop.

I then had to look for another bike shop , this time in Fresno, to help me get a warrantied saddle. I was so fortunate to call The Bike Shop @ Woodward and speak with the owner Josh who not only said he would get that saddle there by 2pm the next day but also talked me out of my seething anger that I was feeling from my call with the original shop. Thanks Josh! I rolled up the next day and ended up hanging out in thew shop and talking with the employees and a few customers for a couple hours before finally having to leave to find a place to camp before sunset. I cannot overstate the helpfulness and kindness of everyone at The Bike Shop @ Woodward, if you are ever in Fresno do yourself a favour and go there.

My ride out of Fresno and south to LA was flat, like really flat. I thought Illinois was a flat place but there’s nothing like the valley to change your opinion on that. But sensing that I was getting too comfortable with my lack of hills, my route took me over some big mountains again to leave the valley. After leaving Bakersfield my map was more or less useless for the rest of the day, there were roads in Google, which sort of matched real life but this area on the paper map was blank. I got lost and backtracked a few times before finding the winding mountain road that would take me up to Stallion Springs. Halfway up I met three cyclists on the descent, which looked way more fun if I might add, we chatted for a bit, they gave me snacks and water that I didn’t know I needed and we parted ways.  Thanks Alejandro, Will, and Ken for the extra energy to finish the climb!

The long downhill off of the mountain was lovely the following day, something I could really get used to. I eventually made it to Hollywood where I stayed in a hostel for a few nights, hung out with my friends Isley and Cetine.

Isley made this amazing video of me and my travels which you should totally check out. After a few days in Hollywood I headed to Santa Ana to see my friend Tad who was kind enough to house me for a week while I waited on new tent pole parts to come in from MSR. I also got to meet in person some friends I’ve known online for years now, Natali and Stephanie.