"The Future is Unwritten"

Things never seem carefully planned, but instead just happen. Sometimes it feels like there is a movement that sweeps you up til you don't really know where you are going and your best bet is to steer the general course and get swayed as you can. This is the story of bike touring; some people plan every day to a tee, but that is rare, because there are so many x-factors in cycle touring, from mechanicals to weather to sickness. Things just happen and the direction is the only thing that may be deliberate. And sometimes this is how life happens.

Two weeks from now I'll be living without a roof for another summer. Not necessarily strictly bike touring, but two bike tours will sandwich my summer plans; that being a camp counselor at Camp Mendocino, run by Boys and Girls Club of San Francisco. This will be an interesting summer of outdoor adventuring.

The adventure doesn't end camp, but only continues from there as I'll have Aug 11th - Aug 31st before I can come back to my apartment. That's 20 days on the road. Where to go is the question and that's what makes this tour so nice is that there is no destination but only time. The only destination after camp will be to Auburn CA on August 31st for the California Sierra Trail Race.

Now, I'm not much of a racer, but am very much competitive with myself (as the Nifty Ten Fifty can attest to). The CSTR is an endurance trail race, similar to the Tour Divide (which there is a great documentary about this race encapsulating the loneliness of cycle touring very well) or the Stagecoach 400. These races interest me in there challenge of both the physicality of cycling, the mental struggle of pushing over barriers, the smarts of time/body management, and then of course the cleverness in camping on a race like this. The CSTR is one of the newer of these races (currently in its infancy), this I think is partially what draws me to it, and the fact that most people who have done these trails say they are beautiful and not super tough. This will be my first adventure in lightweight bikepacking and off roading (yes I am taking the X-Check, changes coming).

New gear...changes coming.

So here is the rough tentative schedule:

June 1st - June 11th: Tour to Fort Bragg (stops? Not sure, just exploring the Sonoma County backroads seems fun)

June 11th - August 11th: Camp!

August 11th - August 31st: Tour around (might go North, might stretch out to NV, who knows).

August 31st: California Sierra Trail Race.

So two more weeks and the adventure begins. I'm currently building up my kit to get back on the road. Sometimes you don't have to look for adventure, sometimes it finds you.