Are We Having Fun - Again?

Let's start this episode with a couple of product reviews.

KoKi Panniers: Do not buy these! The bags themselves aren't so bad, in fact they are good, and I still love the rubber boot. The problem with these bags is the connectors. The design is good, but they chose to use plastic for the hardware, and the plastic that they chose is crap! So far 2 of the brackets have been broken. The first time I had to go totally McGyver on the problem, by cutting a piece of wire off a fence... We did stop at the home despot and I bought some #8-32 eyelets. So today, when the second bracket got broken, I was sort of prepared, but boy oh boy, was I mad! Riley barely bumped one of my bags with his front wheel - a real, life and non-abusive occurence all day long - and poof! a broken pannier bracket. If they will listen to my complaint and suggestion to switch to metal hooks, they may indeed be the best product on the market, but as it stands right now, the predictable delicate brackets make this among the very poorest selection for a pannier that you must rely on.

HTC Inspire Smartphone: Hey, this baby is proving to be an invaluable asset. I just say to it, "Hardware store; or grocery store; or starbucks." and a few seconds later, I'm looking at a map that shows the nearest one to wherever we are, and our location at the moment.

So the idea of Starbucks came up, which also plays into the technology piece of the trip/equipment. In order to type out the blog, I settled on an iPad. I also got Zagg protective case which has a built-in bluetooth keyboard. Hey, it's seems to be a great system and solution, but it also has its own significant drawbacks. The iPad has wifi connectivity, but I refuse to pay for another network connection to turn this thing into a smartphone on its own. Last night, during the brief, yes we ae having fun period, I typed up a blog entry, but I knew that I couldn't submit it directly from the iPad where we were at at that time. "Hey", I said to myself, "I know that this smartphone can be used as a wifi hotspot." This, of course is after determining that the ipad and smartphone will not communicate via bluetooth, even though they are both bluetooth equipped. Well, I attempt to turn on the wifi hotspot, and I get a message to contact ATT. I talked with a seemingly clueless customer service representative, and finally was told that in order to 'tether' another device using the hotspot, I would have to upgrade my service to a 5 Gb data plan. Absolutely ridiculous! Enough about technology already! They are not developing any of this stuff to really help people, the only consideration is, "how can we make the greatest amount of money."

The Soma Saga is currently over 100 lbs. She doesn't handle very well under 6 miles an hour, but get her up about 12 mph or more and she just cruises. It seems odd but true, I put about 600 miles on her before leaving for the trip, and I could barely maintain an average over 13 mph. Now, fully loaded, it seems that it is no harder to keep her at the save average speed as when she was empty.

Back to are we having fun. Well, we did enjoy a few hours between 6:03 and about midnight last evening, then we had a passing encounter with a troll. Now everyone knows that every bridge has a troll living beneath it. If this were not true, then why tell the story of the Three Billy Goats Gruff? That is a great learning opportunity that needs to be remembered. Unfortunately, Riley didn't quite remember the story and lesson. By now, you are surely asking, "what is this about a troll?" As I mentioned, we did some stealth camping, and as it turns out we selected a location that was pretty close to a bridge that carries cars over the American River. At about midnight, we began hearing a voice comming from under the bride (at least that is where I supposed it to be). The voice was that of a man (or troll) shouting profanities and threatening to murder someone, however there apparently was no other person there on the receiving end of the threats. Riley became pretty fearful for our safety, and I must say that I was not completely unconcerned, but more about whether we would be able to get any sleep. Being out for our first night on the ground, we were doing a lot of tossing and turning to begin with. After hearing the troll, I'm not sure that Riley got any more sleep. The troll did keep up his ranting for quite some time throughout the night, so he kept me awake as well, but because of all the racket. I knew that all trolls follow the rules, and that as long as we weren't trying to cross his bridge, his threats would not be aimed at us.

The long and the short of it was that neither of us got much rest last night. We did set our to get an early start, but I found yet another flat just before we hit the road. At least this was on the front tire. Then just prior to arriving in Folsom, the pannier broke and boy was I furious! I'm sorry mom, but I used some potty language that I learned from the troll.

A stop at a bike shop got me a new front tire and slime-tube, then a big juicy burger for lunch, and what had started out as a decent start, turned in to another day where we're looking at 2:00 with only 20 miles under our belts. Bummer! Top that off with the fact that after leaving Folsom, the actual climbing begins. It was sort of hot, we were cranky, and Riley has zero previous experience climbing anything longer than a mile. So, it was a long, arduous afternoon. We did make it to Placerville today. So, in reality, the real climbing hasn't really begun, but will be there for us tomorrow. That's enough for now. I'll try to start adding some pictures soon. Dale