Bicycle bags have a broken axel

Friday, June 17th
Ripon, CA (where the heck is that?) between Manteca, CA and Modesto, CA
south of Sacramento, CA

Beautiful skies over Manteca, CA.

Took a spill on the road tonight. I'm okay, nothing hurt. Hardly a scratch.

I was pulling off the freeway and stopped in the off-ramp shoulder to check directions. Started up on gear 1-6 and not a few spins later, I rolled onto a storm drain grate. Apparently the bars on the grate ran parallel with the direction of traffic, creating a bicycle hazard.

The bicycle wheel must've caught between a large gap in the grating, because suddenly my bicycle was not moving and I was sailing forward. Not sure how I ended up over my handlebars, but I released my grip and my arms instinctively shot straight out to meet the ground.

Wearing biking gloves kept the skin on my palms. Not looking at directions while biking and holding my phone kept my phone intact. My long sleeve hoodie scraped the road instead of my arm. My jeans grazed the road without a scuff.

I stumbled forward and rolled to a stop across the right side of my body, away from the road toward the grass. The shoulder on the off-ramp was wide and there weren't cars passing when I fell. No real danger of getting run over. My bike was also on the far side of the shoulder, not a posing a hazard.

Bike is fine, far as I can tell. Laptop in my backpack no problems. Nothing damaged or broken except... saddle bags. The rear hooks on both bags snapped off at impact when the bicycle wheel jammed on the drain grate. The bags hung on to the bike's rear rack by single front hooks like broken limbs.

I can get a free replacement at the next REI store I come across. Either backtrack to Stockton, CA about 20 miles away, or ride on for about three days to Fresno, CA which would be 130 miles. Checked with online chat support to make sure those stores had stock.

Highway patrolman came by to say hello. Some concerned motorist called me in. I told the officer (are they actually police?) I would like to get to an REI because I couldn't travel with busted saddle bags. He was kinda useless, but very friendly. Ah well, a ride to Stockton would've been nice.

In the meantime, I moved the front hook to a center position so the bags can balance on one hook. Seems to hold up well enough to last a few days. I might make it to Fresno instead of turning around to Stockton. Stockton is a city full of litter and homeless people of the 'tweaker' variety.

I know I've been using my saddle bags hard, but they're supposed to take a beating. It's only been a month and they're getting holes from leaning against tree bark. At this pace, I will need five more bags. I hope I come across REI stores at opportune times.

If it weren't for the waterproof feature of the bags being so nice against nighttime sprinklers, I'd consider using milk cartons as saddle bags or something else that wouldn't get stolen. It'd be nice to leave my dirty clothes on my bike instead of lugging them into restaurants and libraries.

I'm pretty sure a set of $180 panniers will get stolen if I leave them unattended. Even if I leave nothing valuable in them, a thief would take the mystery bag just in case goodies were inside.

Someone took my $10 seat cushion last night in front of a university library before 10 pm. I hope they get rashes from my ass sweat. I understand the thieves taking my bike, but them taking my seat cushion bothers me. It's not even something good to steal; it's just annoying.

Around universities, everything gets stolen. I doubt it's the students. Passerby tweakers know students are careless about leaving things around, and think they have nice things that cost money. So when on campus, cover the bike seats with plastic bags, put blankets over the crap on the rear rack, put anything that might even suggest dollars signs to an ignant fool out of sight.

What have I been doing these coupla days? Same stuff, different cities. Simple modus operandi: Internet + laptop at university libraries, buffets.

University of the Pacific
Stockton, CA

If I get university internet, I gotta be downloading at 5 mb/s constantly or I'll feel I'm missing out. And when I run out of stuff I want, I look for stuff I don't even need. I've filled up my hard drive this week, downloading 300 GB (!) worth of games, videos, and pictures. LOL. I'm thinking of getting an external hard drive, JUST so I can keep downloading with ultra high speed.

This is clearly a psychological problem stemming from an upraising that dictated penny pinching to absurd extremes. One winter, Dad scotch taped all the house electrical outlets save on heating and got upset that I plugged my laptop in because I left holes that would let in a minuscule draft.

Part of my non-stop downloading is defying his draconian conservation by using Internet to excess. The other part is adhering to the same principles his penny pinching taught me, by squeezing every iota of value out of the Internet I get my hands on. It's fucked up. But it's a psychological need of mine.

Thursday I had round two with the lawnmower to finish my head shave. Now I can take off my hat when I eat lunch and not feel like people are looking at me like the back of my skull is missing. :^)

The Lowes experiment continues. I'm sitting here with WiFi and electricity outside the front of the store, no security. If word gets out, they might hire a homeless guy to keep the other homeless guys away with a wet rag on a stick or something. So let's keep this secret on a 'need to know' basis for us travelin bums, okay?

The Lowes I camped at prior put up this blockade on the third and final night of my stay. It would be the most passive aggressive way to tell me I'm not wanted, if that was their intention. Naw, but they didn't block the electrical outlet, so I had an even better cover to sleep behind.

Buffets with Ulix

Hometown Buffet. Stockton, CA.

Grand Buffet. Stockton, CA.

China King Buffet. Lodi, CA.

A nice lady in Stockton, CA treated me to a meal when I told her about my travels. Here's to you, cheers!

My waitress grabbed Ulix and shook him ferociously, making growling noises. Ulix asked me how I could let her do that to him. I said she acted too quickly for me to stop her. She didn't even ask permission. What kind of person does that? Hehehe.

I changed my rear bicycle tube. It had been going flat for like... two weeks now. Whenever it was that I first punctured it, a glass shard got in and sliced three slits and I patched it up. It was before I reached California. It was... OMG May 23rd.

I've been riding on this saggy rear tire for like three weeks!! I'm an idiot, jeez. No wonder it's been killer on my knees - the bike was carrying no forward momentum and I'd be struggling to keep up speed.

Okay so I have several excuses plus being an idiot. It was freaking hot and I couldn't tell the difference if I was tired or my bike was slow. The tube stayed inflated, so I didn't want to mess with it unless it was completely flat. I'd rather bike to the next town slightly slower than change my tire out in the heat.

I didn't get much sleep in some of the places, and needed to move on to reach the next town for food and somewhere I could rest. Rather put more air into a slightly deflated tube that was working, than risk a new tube that obeyed Murphy's Law and would leave me stranded out in Farmer McDonald's hay ranch.

I didn't have the right size tube at first and I had to figure out which size would work. I wanted to keep using the original tube, especially because already made one change: swapping out the old tire, and I wanted to limit the number of variables - just in case the new tube was wrong size and exploded like the first one I tried.

But after I put in a new Presta tube today. Wow! Riding is FUN again!!! I'm pedaling on gear 3-7 with the same effort I had been putting into 2-4. Just cruising ~~~~ down the street. Couldn't get over how gliding the fully inflated tire feels.

The front tire got a flat a few days back and I patched that up. It was a much smaller prick from a plant thorn. Holding pressure fine, but now I feel compelled to replace that tube too, just in case it is leaking air and slowing me down imperceptibly.

The back wheel is doing a ba-doom-ba-doomp though. I think it's because the tire I replaced is a size smaller than the wheel rims, so there is a lot of side bulging happening where the wheel touches the ground, flattening the tire, making the wheel effectively lopsided. So even when I'm on level road, the tire itself is making these up and downs because of the cyclic bulging.

Or I dunno why. These are the unexpected issues that come up so why I didn't want to change the tube! Anyway, who cares, I'm still going 150% the speed I was before. I repeat, riding is FUN!!!

Morning camp

gravel walkway between a creek and a university campus

Ulix, what da heck are you doin?

Misc cool funny

I. Just. Don't know. Why. But it works. Brayyyyyyy!

Well played. I like how it's a cleaners and the sign has nothing to do with that, LOL.

Desperate ex. Please, I can change! They need to publish a Newer New Testament. One where Jesus v2.0 can Facebook and keep up with the needs of the superficial generation.

I personally prefer the Old Testament God who demolished cities and smote left and right. I am not a fan of this Jesus worship.

I'm sure the historical Jesus was a nice guy, and I have nothing against him personally. It's this scapegoating, sacrificing others glorification that sickens me. I prefer to die myself for my sins.

In the future, it will be the site of future. Or in other words, a future site. Of what though we don't know yet. Or in the future, it will be even more in the future. A vision of the future viewing its future. My brain is overwhelmed. I love the nonsense.

There was this nice elementary school. Empty. Tetherball chains ratting in unison, like service bells calling children. America spread out on the playground.

I felt like walking across that huge open court, starting out real small - but five or six years old, and growing in stature and years as I walked across the country into my thirties and by the time I made it to the far, far basketball hoop I will have become an old, old man.