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Hard-core cyclists don’t allow climate to affect their decision about riding. Bad weather,
good weather, it’s all the same. I used to fall within the serious category, but now
I’m a fair-weather rider.
But in a period that has spanned a little more than two decades, I have seen it all. I cycled
through lightning and hail storms in Boulder, two weeks of solid rain in Idaho and Oregon,
thick fog in the Bay Area, gale winds in Iowa, and probably the most disgusting thing of them
all, a locust plague in the sand hill country of Nebraska—which also provides some of the
most scenic and desolate cycling in the United States (I highly recommend it for touring!).
The plague
My encounter with the locusts was in 1978. Both governors in Colorado and Nebraska declared a
state of emergency as crops were being munched to oblivion by this modern-day Biblical blight.
For several hours one day, I met my match with these fiendish insects. They carpeted the road
like gravel. My tires crunched over their bodies while legions hopped on my legs and arms
for a free ride. With one hand steering the bike, the other hand swatting them, I made
progress. It was the most disgusting experience I have ever had as a cyclist. I felt like I
was in a David Cronenberg movie, should he ever follow in the footsteps of the late Steve
Tesich, who made my all-time favorite cycling movie, Breaking Away.
While the locust plague provided a unique version of a summertime horror show, heat is the
toughest element to battle during the summer. I addressed this topic in a recent column, but
I’d like to share two more tales about riding in the heat.
Welcome to the furnace
There comes a time when it gets too hot to ride, when you are riding inside an oven and the
air is so thick and syrupy that you want to cut it with a knife. During a three-week roundtrip
bike ride in July from Berkeley, California, to the Grand Canyon, I experienced heat in all
its Dante Inferno’s gradations, but two days stand out.
The first occurred on the eastern side of the Sierra, just south of Yosemite. This is
high-desert country, the air redolent with the wonderful scent of sage, mesquite, pine,
chaparral. The temperature was probably about 110-degrees F, and I was riding on a
secondary road that bisected Inyo National Forest. Highway road crews had recently slathered
new asphalt. But the gooey tar couldn’t harden in the withering heat. My bike tires
carved a groove about a half-inch deep into the road surface. Talk about increased rolling
resistance!
The other super-hot day was outside Needles, California, which usually shows up on television
weather maps as having the nation’s hottest weather. Having made it to the Grand Canyon,
I was circling back to Berkeley. By the time I reached Needles, I was in fairly good shape;
I had about 700 miles of desert riding under my belt. But I wasn’t prepared for this
kind of heat. The giant digital thermometers outside banks registered 118 degrees, and this
was only 11 a.m. I had been riding since 6 that morning to take advantage of the
“cooler” temperature, but this was too much heat for my body to handle.
Hitchhiking from the heat
I pondered my fate inside a McDonalds, where its air-conditioned comfort knocked off
about 40 degrees. Stepping outside into the blast furnace was debilitating. There was no
breeze, the air thick, sludgy, torpid. I had trouble breathing. Reluctantly, I threw in the
towel and decided I couldn’t go any further on my bike. The next town was about 40 miles
away. So I decided to hitchhike. It took about 30 minutes before a driver stopped. Even that
length of time, standing motionless by the side of the road, was almost too much to endure.
My savior was a young woman in a sub-compact packed with all her belongings. She was moving
from Phoenix to Los Angeles. There was barely enough room for me and my bike. To my
bafflement she stopped again 15 minutes later to pick up yet another hitchhiker.
“We’ll make room somehow,” she said. She was like some roadside angel
picking up people who through fate, luck, or circumstance, found themselves standing along
the highway in this baked, remote corner of California.
Chalk it up to life experience
I climbed into the back seat with her laundry and plants. The new hitchhiker took over the
passenger’s seat. It turned out that he had just been released from prison. I kept silent
as he boasted about his past crimes and his future law-breaking intentions (he seemed obsessed
about finding someone and giving him a world of hurt). Fortunately, he didn’t need to
travel very far, and he left us after about 50 miles. I was relieved.
When he got out of the car, I waited for several minutes of polite silence to lapse before
I asked my good Samaritan driver a simple question: “Uh, you took a chance picking
him up, didn’t you?”
She replied, “He seemed okay, and he looked like he needed a ride.” I didn’t
say another word as we motored toward Los Angeles. In this heat, who was I to
judge?
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