Blog

23 Aug – 19 Sep

We left Burlington Campground on 23rd Aug 2021. Riding along the northern portion of the Avenue of the Giants the road is just as beautiful and riding the route by bike is a good way to do it. Slowly, taking in the scenery, the trees growing in clusters right up next to the road. There are signs for the different groves which have been donated by different people and organisations. Many are memorial groves, donated in the memory of loved ones who have passed away but they will always be remembered in the trees that stand tall there.

Those trees, they sway in the wind. These almost impossibly tall and straight trees sway at times when the wind is blowing. On the ground the air is still, the wind stifled by the thick forest and giant trees. A place of calm and peace deep among the trees.

Leaving the trees we turned off the main road and take a quiet scenic route suggested by Rick. We are heading to Ferndale but there are no camp grounds that we will be able to reach. There was an RV ground that we rode to but because of the pandemic they had closed the restrooms and showers and were not taking any camping guests. We were looking for a place to wild camp. Riding slowly along the road searching for a place off the road where we could safely and discreetly set up camp. We found a small road called Howe Creek Rd and along this we came to a small grassy area, up above the quiet road where we could be out of sight and hopefully undisturbed.

The next day we woke and broke camp early. We didn’t have any breakfast. Our camp spot is not so far from Ferndale. The town of Ferndale is a very old town with some very beautiful Victorian buildings. We had a great breakfast at Poppa Joe’s in Ferndale. A rather old place, that the locals go to for food, a chat and play card games with their friends. We had a great big breakfast that is just what we need as hungry cyclists!

Listening to some of the locals we discovered that the fair was in town at the local fairground. They had the cattle auction as well as other regular fairground fun so we decided it was definitely worth a visit. It was quite busy but we were still able to ride our bike around the different attractions and I was very happy to pick up a very nice homemade marion berry pie at one of the stalls. After our big breakfast I couldn’t have the pie yet, it was perfect for a roadside, afternoon, mid-ride snack. Delicious.

We set ourselves up well for the day with Poppa Joe’s breakfast food and the pie and continued our ride to a campsite just past Eureka. It’s a private RV campground just off the 101 highway. In the afternoon we noticed that something was not right with the bike. It was noisy now in some of the gears. Not so bad that we couldn’t ride but it was certain that something was not right.

The following morning we rode around the campground testing the gears and we made a recording of the noise as we went through the full range of 14 gears. We had a grinding, graunching noise in gears 2,3,4,5,6 & 7.

Gears 1,8,9,10,11,12,13,& 14 were near silent just as normal. Before we left the campground I sent an email to Rohloff as well as Cycle Monkey, the US service centre in Berkeley to see what they thought of the noise.

Through the day the noise would get louder and louder to the point where we would try to avoid using the affected gears just because the noise was annoying and disturbing.

Our route took us through Arcata where we stopped at the local Co-op grocery store. This was a great find as the store has a lot of natural and organic brands as well as a large section of bulk buy products without packaging. Just measure out how much you want to buy and put it in your own container or a bag at the store. This for me was a happy find as they had a lot of different breakfast cereals and granolas, something I have been craving for for quite some time! So around lunchtime we bought a pound of granola, a pint of milk and sat outside the Arcata Co-op happily eating breakfast cereal. Happy happy!

Our plan for the day was to ride to the State campground at Big Lagoon. Once there I would go through some of the things that Cycle Monkey had suggested about possible causes for the gear noise. But the noise was getting bad and avoiding using so many gears just was not workable with a loaded tandem bike. It was stressful for me and worrying. These Rohloffs are very well built and are not supposed to have any problems, especially after only so few miles. I didn’t know what we would do and trying to get the problem fixed at a campground was not going to be easy.

My mood was lifted once we met Elaine. This lovely lady who so kindly offered her much needed assistance and the help of her partner, Danny. Being found on the road by her and the amazing kindness and generosity that we experienced from them will be for sure a highlight of our trip and one of the very precious and happy memories of the journey. We will always have a feeling of peace, joy and blessing when we think of Trinidad and the angels that helped us there.