Big Sur – Morro Bay – San Luis Obispo – SF – Vancouver
Surviving a gaze of racoons (a gaze is a group of racoons), a grey morning greeted us in Kirk Creek. We took our time getting moving but with water running low – it really is in the middle of a long stretch of nothing – we got going before things heated up. A little while later we were able to fill bottles at a National Forest campsite down the road.
The morning was full of climbing as the temperature dipped and fog capped the cliff tops. It was soon after this things went quite wrong.
TL;DR: I crashed my bike in Big Sur and we went home. We didn’t reach San Diego.
As we began to descend after the entire morning spent going upwards I lost focus, momentarily, and crashed. As the way these things tend to go, it happened both very quickly and very slowly, all at once. What I think happened was my front wheel came off the surfaced part of the road and into the narrow gutter of gravel at the side, at speed this was not good. I wobbled, lost control, slowed a little, but with significant velocity crashed into grass and gravel at the side of the road.
Lee was behind me and saw it happen, after passing me he chucked his bike down and ran back up the road. I was mostly fine. I checked important things like my legs and head (my helmet was cracked all the way through), I was shaken but things seemed functional.
But then I noticed how breathing hurt a little and there was a pain in my back. That wasn’t so good. The bike was mostly ok too, one of the brake hoods had taken a lot of the impact, but it was certainly rideable.
The site of the crash close to the Los Padres National Forest
We straightened things out and given where we were we really had no choice but to keep on going. At least it was more or less all downhill so I coasted slowly, the pain in my back growing, but tolerable. Maybe ten miles later we reached some services. I think Lee bought burgers but I don’t think I could eat anything. By this point the adrenaline was wearing off and I knew I had to get myself checked out just for my own sanity.
We continued to push on. I replayed it all in my mind and wondered what went wrong. But the reality is that the line between things being fine and things being fucked is very narrow – especially on a highway like highway 1.
I was just lucky I crashed where there was something to actually crash into, I remember laughing, with Lee, a couple of days before as we passed a vertical drop inches from the road side. Had this crash taken place elsewhere the only thing breaking my fall would have been the ocean surface, several hundred feet below.
Sooner or later I knew something like this would probably happen to me on one of these bike trips. So if this was that thing, then really, despite all the implications it had, I felt ok accepting this as somewhat inevitable.
I decided our best bet was to hitch to the nearest trace of civilisation – Morro Bay, a small seaside town another 30 or so miles away – by this point we’d already ridden 15 or 20 since I crashed, and there was no way i’d make it there that day. From what I could tell on the map there was some kind of medical clinic there.
At a parking lot at the Elephant Seal Vista Point – one of the few spots where interacting with other people was possible – we pulled in and started asking if someone could take us. Most people seemed to be heading North, not South. Few could carry a bike, let alone two.
Eventually we found a guy – Mike, from Arizona – who had a van with room for me and my bike, he was heading the other way too, but when he learned of my situation he did everything he could to help. After a few calls he decided the best course of action was to drive me himself. Lee would continue riding and camp where we had both planned to tonight at San Simeon State Park. I would get in the van and get to the clinic, and stay overnight in Morro Bay where we could meet tomorrow.
This is Mike and his sticker collection and van – a converted Mercedes Sprinter which had seen it’s fair share of America.
The rest of the day was a bit of a blur, but we made it to the clinic maybe 30 minutes before it closed. I was x-rayed, diagnosed with two fractured ribs, charged $250, and sent on my way with some documents for insurance and a copy of the scans on a CD.
Very slowly, I made my way into town, booked a cheap motel on my phone, went and bought pizza and drank a beer whilst I waited for it. The pain was intense. Any movement involving my upper body was very difficult – everything took at least 70% longer than normal me.
Back in the room I lay on the bed and as I struggled to find a sweet spot I remember thinking how different things were just 24 hours ago, when we were watching that sunset on the cliffs edge at Kirk Creek, an endless fuchsia vista of clouds, waves and mountain. My view now was somewhat more restricted. And San Diego was almost certainly out of sight.
Day 6, by the numbers:
The next morning Morro Bay looked good in the sun, but the pain had not retreated. With difficulty, I packed my things and took a walk into to town to buy painkillers, collect some paperwork from the clinic, and breathe some sea air.
As check out time had arrive, I tried down towards the water to get a look at Morro Rock and to test how painful cycling would be. The answer was yes it was painful, especially going uphill. Lee and I had been in contact and he would be getting into town around in late morning. I waited things out at The Rock coffee shop.
We weighed up our options. Continuing with the ride was clearly not one of them at this point. Maybe we could ship the bikes back and bus down to LA or San Diego. Or get the train back back northwards.
Once we established the college city of San Luis Obispo, a relatively short bus ride away, had an airport, and shipping bikes would be as expensive as flying with them – and just as annoying – the decision became clear. We’d get the bus to SLO, stay overnight to give us time to pack the bikes up, then fly to SF, and on to Vancouver.
Any other way seemed to be more hassle than it was worth, cutting our loses and admitting defeat – and being back in Canada where I could obtain healthcare without an invoice attached to it – was making a lot of sense.
After a quick lunch we waited for the bus. Lee had to load my stuff on to it. I was feeling very useless. In 45 minutes we were in the city.
The end of the road, outside the Lexington Inn, San Luis Obispo.
The trip ended much as it had started – rushing around in Ubers trying to pick up all the bits we needed for the next part of the journey. As we bounced from hardware store to bike shop to motel, Lee’s persistent optimism and kind heartedness was very much appreciated at this point, as honestly I was starting to feel quite shit about the whole thing.
Back in the our room we booked flights on the phone and packed everything up as fast as we could to give us time to head out for dinner.
Ironically some of the better photos I took on the trip were taken in hours after crashing, once I had no choice but to slow down and notice all the things. This one of the stained motel sink, the tarp and the empty coke bottle sums up so much of that week for me.
Around 8pm another Uber took us into town to a brewery then to Goshi Japanese Restaurant where we sat at the bar and ate sushi and drank cold Asahi. The bar was set low, but without doubt it was the culinary highlight of the trip and a bit of an extravagance but I think we both felt we had earned it, one way or another.
And so the next morning we go to San Luis Obispo’s tiny airport, paid several hundred more dollars to put the bikes on the plane, and flew up to San Francisco where we had a short overlay before continuing on to Vancouver.
It was hard not to look out the plane window and wonder what could have been. Obviously we vowed to return to SLO another time to complete the planned ride to San Diego some day, but in the back of the taxi cab on the ground in grey Vancouver, some day felt very far away.
I spent most of the next month – June – on the sofa in Kitsilano. The thing with rib injuries is there isn’t much you can do to help your situation, other than practicing some deep breathing to keep your lungs clear, you just have to wait it out. This is both reassuring, but incredibly frustrating. In prime Vancouver summertime this was even harder to accept. But I was back on my bike in mid-July and the summer contained at least two or three more camping trips and many short but memorable rides.
I was able to claim most of the costs back on my travel insurance. I wasn’t able to track down Mike from Arizona (I wanted to thank him again for his help). I bought a new helmet.
***
Reflecting on it all now – the best part of a full year later in April 2020 – I have nothing but fond memories of the trip, even though very few parts of it went to plan – the endless grey and rain, the charmless motel rooms, the crash and subsequent scramble and burning of money to get home. Some of it was just pure suffering at the time.
Now, in a time where most of us are all but housebound, it’s only possible to daydream about long coastal highways, two-star motel rooms, the feeling of rain or sun or wind for more than an hour or two in the great outdoors.
Having the opportunity to crash a bike into the mountain roadside of California feels like a true privilege now. Hopefully I’ll get the chance to do it again some day.