1 // Arriving in ‘The Land of the Free'
They say you shouldn’t work with children or animals, but I think something should also be said about travelling with two bikes. I landed in San Francisco on Thursday, the 13th of April, made it through customs security without a hitch, and was relieved to finally have myself & my 82kg of luggage in the US of A. I really had to channel my *strong independent woman* mantra as I weaved and dragged my boxes between doorways, bollards and lifts that were conveniently all slightly narrower than my bike boxes. Forget accessibility regulations for wheelchair users; what about the fools travelling with multiple bikes?!
I spent a few days in San Francisco with an old Sydney friend, Claire. For a city, the riding in San Francisco is amazing. Just across the (incredibly windy) Golden Gate Bridge, it’s a labyrinth of road, gravel & single trail. The main goal for my few days in San Francisco was to find my feet and buy a crappy, but hopefully reliable car—an integral part of my entire trip. My plan for racing the Life Time Grand Prix is to road trip between the events, and add other adventures in along the way. The car search became quickly deflating. I won’t drag on about the hours spent looking, contacting & trudging around the city in search of a car… but on my last day in SF, I bought a Jeep!
I packed my things into the newly named ‘Jenny the Jeep’ - C/O my boss, Jenny Edwards and began the journey to Monterey, a few hours south of San Fran. The car has certainly ticked the ‘crappy’ box, but I’ll hold off on the ‘reliable’ status until later. It’s currently sitting at a mechanic’s here in Monterey, getting far more work than anticipated done to it.
The second ‘lemon’ of the trip was also my first homestay in Monterey. The world is filled with people that will inspire you, challenge you, make you laugh, and some that will make you fear for your life. Unfortunately, this place made me feel the latter. After a few highly questionable moments in this dark, dingy, basically a ‘sex pen’ of a home, I packed up in the night & snuck out in the early morning hours—my next internal mantra, whilst sitting ‘homeless’ in a Starbucks car park on Wednesday morning, when in doubt, GTFO.
The highest highs bring the lowest lows, and I knew this year would be full of moments that would make me question why I packed up my very comfortable life and left all my friends and family behind. Despite the rocky start, I’ve had more moments where I can’t help but smile, especially whilst I’m out on my bike here. I’ve landed back on my feet a few days out from the Sea Otter Classic, I have somewhere safe & comfortable to stay, and hopefully Jenny will be back on the road later today. I’ll be lining up to race the Sea Otter Fuego XL tomorrow, which is the opening round of the series. The course is physical, the legs are feeling good and it’s honestly just been a buzz to see the atmosphere building up around Monterey and the continued generosity and friendliness of the cycling community in the US. It’s been a long and logistic-filled build-up, but I’m so ready to just race my bike! Thanks to everyone who has gotten me this far.
