Orick, United States - Polarsteps

53 mi / 85km today. More than 1300m of elevation in total. It’s off to a good start with the downhill of the mountain Misti and Thomas live on. Part paved part gravel. 16–17% grade. So steep that eelke thinks it’s necessary to give detailed advice on how to brake and where to stop and let the brakes cool down. Well, whatever, I think our brakes are fine and made to withstand a little downhill of about 1,5km without overheating. After crescent city we hit our first tough hill for the day. 5mi of constant 6-7% up. On a highway with mostly no shoulder at all. So you’re sweating your ass off while semi trucks are passing you and the never ending stream of mobile homes and trailers. What is good though is the constant traffic view of giant redwoods left and right. For about 4mi our route is littered with road works. Pity it’s in our downhill so all that hard work crawling up is constantly being smashed by a “flagger” with a stop sign. Some cars think that we are holding them up and honk impatiently even though we reach speeds of up to 25mi/h (40km/h) when let through. That’s a pretty decent “slow” speed to pass road work if you ask me. At Klamath I see another remnant from the past: a giant statue of a lumberjack. When visiting the states in ‘96 we took a picture of me standing on one foot of this statue. We decide it’s time for a remake. Pretty accurate I would say. Funny how I’m traveling past stuff I’ve seen 22 years ago. We are cycling through Elk territory here, so as we turn into our campsite we see a field full of them. Dunno if you can actually see them very well. I’ll try to get a better picture tomorrow. As our initial campsite is deemed too soon in the day, we decide to move on. At the private campsite we stay tonight there are quite some rules to follow. We feel that the owners are a bit bitter and try to catch every nuisance into a rule, instead of trusting the process. Oh, well. We make light fun of it all and don’t take the rules too seriously. I take a shower after 10pm, the designated end time for showers at the camping. Nothing seems to happen.m, except the world keeps on turning. By the way, pretty pleased to share that due to tips from Hannah to use my core muscles more while cycling I’ve reduced my neck and shoulder pains after a tough day of cycling like this by at least 50%. I’m going to train myself more to let my stomach and back muscles carry most of the weight. It’s a habit that needs to develop. If I manage to do that without straining something else, I might end up having no significant aches or problems during a cycling day at all. 👍