Bike Tour: Day Two (Gualala to Point Reyes Station)

Stats of the Day
Distance: 76.2
Moving Time: 5:33
Elevation: 6,778 ft
(all stats and maps here)

Woke up a bit earlier than I expected this morning and ended up hitting the road by 6:40AM (would have been even earlier but I had to wait for Chris to call and wish me good luck on my last leg.)

From Bike Touring: Westport to Point Reyes

Pre-ride breakfast = a banana
(knowing that I only had to go but 9 short miles until I’d come upon [drum roll please] Two Fish Bakery in Sea Ranch!)

I dream of the day when I know longer hear the siren call of bakeries, candy stores, and the like but, alas, that day is not today.

And so, I pedaled onwards to the bakery and, unlike yesterday, I did so without going through the thick pot-smoke-air that is the area directly above Fort Bragg. (Seriously, the air was so dense with the smell of pot I almost couldn’t breathe for a minute there!)

About 9 miles in I saw a sign for the left turnoff to the bakery. Bad part: the left was up a very VERY steep little hill (especially steep given my tired legs.) I think you climb like 300 feet in a very short space (like maybe half a mile). Not good for the legs!

From Bike Touring: Westport to Point Reyes

After having my heart pump out of my chest I made it to Two Fish! And what a fantastic little stop. I was pretty much the only person in that tiny place that they didn’t know on a first name basis, but they were super friendly. In fact, when I was in line this guy just walked out and, upon seeing my bike, walked over to me and said “awesome bike.” At that I smiled and said “thanks” … and then after I got my snack (two pieces of banana bread [one for now, one for later] and a granola yogurt parfait thing), I realized he was still drooling over it. So, we ended up talking for 15 minutes. Best line from him, “you know, the word ‘beautiful’ is tossed around a lot where bikes are concerend, but I think it should really be reserved for titanium bikes like this. This is beautiful.”
Awesome.

From Bike Touring: Westport to Point Reyes

Turns out he used to sell Moots and other bikes before he quit (no money in it unless you own the place) a few years back.

So after I got a little lesson in what makes my bike so great, I was told “happy riding” and “good luck” by a few more people leaving the bakery before I got back on my (much merrier) way.

The roads out of Gualala down the coast are definitely busier at times - more big trucks, not much shoulder at parts, and because of all the trees and turns, there’s an increased risk that people won’t see you. Thankfully, the only issue I ran into was a crazy pickup truck that was trying to pass a slower car in front of it (this is in oncoming traffic). He ended up going over the double yellow lines and was headed straight at me until he cut back in around the guy. I’m fairly sure he didn’t see me (and I’m fairly sure I peed a little), but it was ok. I ended up going way into the right side dirt and just waited for him to pass.

From Bike Touring: Westport to Point Reyes

Other than that, the most memorable part of the ride was a climbing section filled with bugs and cattle guards about 30(ish) miles in. The climbing was long (at least it felt long with my backpack on), exposed, and hot. And, because I failed to look at any sort of elevation profile, I just didn’t know what to expect (and I’m not one of those people who likes not knowing what to expect on a ride.) But, putting all that aside, the views were absolutely unreal. The Northern California coast is just absolutely gorgeous - to the point where you are saying in your head, “is this really real?”

From Bike Touring: Westport to Point Reyes

After that little trial, I hit Jenner and tried calling Chris. No dice. Continued on until I (thanks be to the gods) hit Bodega Bay. In Bodega I was hitting a bit of a low point (30 miles left and I just was feeling soooo slow), but luckily had cell phone reception. I got Chris and my mom on the phone and decided that my mom would continue up the one past Point Reyes station and instead get me before the rollers (which would save me about 9 miles).

From Bike Touring: Westport to Point Reyes

With that new motivation I felt a bit better, that is, until the few miles going into Tomales Bay. So hot! All that climbing! No shade!
(ok it probably wasn’t that bad but I’m not in good shape right now! And my backpack is heavy!)

And as a side note, you can tell there’s a harder part of a ride when there are mysteriously no pictures for an hour or two.

After all that, I dropped down into little ole’ Tomales. And, per Chris’ recommendation, dropped by their bakery, too. I got some stuff to give to my mom as a thank you but took a quality assurance bite of each — very tasty!

From Bike Touring: Westport to Point Reyes

Out of Tomales there were some massive headwinds getting into Point Reyes, but I survived! I also passed a couple who was biking down from Canada!

Eventually I made it to where Hog Island is (and where my mom and I were planning on meeting), but she wasn’t there yet so I just started my way down the rollers. I eventually decided to wait on top of one of the hills so I could easily see all the cars coming (so my mom wouldn’t unknowingly pass me!)

I saw her and, in her own words, “never had she seen me so happy to see her car.” I jumped up and down and my two-day tour was over! We went into Point Reyes for some delicious sandwiches at Cow Girl (where I highly recommend you stop on your own biking adventure) and another treat at the Bovine bakery (a must stop for cyclists.)

From Bike Touring: Westport to Point Reyes

Overall the ride was beautiful, relatively safe, and a great experience. For all your wannabe cycling tourists, this would be a great two-day test run.

My only recommendation: get someone to go with you! It makes the hills less steep and the roads less lonely.

Happy riding!

Bike Tour: Day One (Westport to Gualala..lalala)

Stats of the Day
Distance: 78.3 miles
Moving Time: 5:20:27
Elevation: 6,410 feet
(all stats and maps here)

7:05AM and I was on my bike. The day before I got a nectarine and banana to eat for breakfast, knowing that about 20 miles in I could stop by the Fort Bragg Bakery for breakfast numero dos. Thankfully the weather was super cooperative - warm enough that my ear-covering headband, knee warmers, and hideous neon yellow jacket were enough.

From Bike Touring: Westport to Point Reyes

20 miles in and I was in Fort Bragg. I rode up to the bakery and at first walked in and left my Moots right out the door. But, after realizing that I was having a mini panic attack as I stared at it from the other side of the glass, decided to just accept that I was freaked out that someone was going to steal it, so I went out and brought it in with me. The woman behind the counter smiled and asked me “so did you bring that in because you think someone is going to steal it?”
me: “Yeah, I just can’t handle it”
her: “Umm… nobody is going to steal your bike here”
me: “really?”
her: “Yeah”
[enter a guy who ended up being her husband]
her: “He and I are both big riders… [looks at him] she’s not going to get her bike stolen here, is she?!”
him: “Yeeaahhhh, no. But what if she did”
me: “Exactly! But what if I did! I’d die!!”
her: [laugh] “Yeah, true”

From there we talked a bit more about biking and my bike specifically. They were both super friendly and as I left with my bagel for now and a “savory pocket” (pastry thing filled with sun-dried tomatoes and feta) for later, some other random woman sitting in the corner yelled out “have a great ride!” How cool is that?

From Bike Touring: Westport to Point Reyes

I rode down to eat my bagel on a bench when this homeless guy passed me and asked what day it was. And what did I say? “Thursday” … I said “Thursday.” It wasn’t until about an hour later that I realized it was actually Wednesday…

After finishing my bagel I pedaled over to the bike shop I saw on the main drag. Unfortunately, it was closed so I couldn’t actually buy a patch kit and extra tube. I just had to pray that my one tube would be enough. Ended up being ok but that’s not so smart!

From Bike Touring: Westport to Point Reyes

The cool part about the stop was running into two other cyclists who were waiting for the shop to open. They were actually biking South to North, which is a much harder ride — in part because of the strong headwinds they’d no doubt been battling.

From Bike Touring: Westport to Point Reyes

From there I just kept pedaling along…and along…and along. At one point there was some construction that required them to stop traffic and let one side go and then the other, which meant waiting for our turn for like 10 minutes. In the meantime a bunch of cyclists ended up chit-chatting. I was the only woman doing touring solo and the only other woman in the pack period (of like 8 riders) was doing it with her husband. I was a bit jealous… biking it great but it’s made so much better when you are with someone else - even if you aren’t talking that much at all! Just having someone to say “wow look at that” or talk with for a short break — those are nice. On the AIDS ride I did last year I was basically riding alone, but the diference was that I’d see people at all the rest stops and just randomly see people on the road from time to time. On this ride I barely saw anyone. At. All. …Ever

From Bike Touring: Westport to Point Reyes

Anyway, I kept on riding and eventually made my way to Gualala. At first I was nervous I was going to miss it but, like the girl from the motel said on the phone, that’d be very difficult to do. And, in fact, she was right. Most of the “cities” down the 1 are, like, lierally on the 1. “Main street” is the section of the 1 that goes through their town. And that’d be the whole town. So, when I saw the signs for Gualala I realized pretty quickly that I’d better start looking for the motel because in about 30 seconds I’d have biked through city limits!

Pulled up, showered, went to the grocery store next door to get a deli sandwich and chocolate bar for dinner, bumped into some cyclist dudes I saw earlier in the day (they were at that shop still in bike clothes getting lots of beer for their campsite down the road), and then called Chris from a pay phone.

The rest of the night was filled with talking on the phone, walking down to the beach, and watching junk TV.

From Bike Touring: Westport to Point Reyes

Day One complete!

From Bike Touring: Westport to Point Reyes

Bike Tour: Day Zero (Getting up to Westport)

After deciding that my summer was wasting away without me doing anything exciting, I decided to take some vacation time and give bike touring a very short trial run. At first I was going to do a ride from mi casa to Big Sur or San Simeon, but, upon reflection, realized that I’ve already biked from here to Monterey… so it wouldn’t be very “new.” Plus, the ride from Santa Cruz to Monterey is long and pretty much totally boring. So, given all that and the fact that Chris offered to drive me to my starting point, I decided I’d bike from Westport (about 20 miles North of Fort Bragg) down to Point Reyes in two days.
Day one: Westport to Gualala
Day two: Gualala to Point Reyes

From Bike Touring: Westport to Point Reyes

Tuesday afternoon Chris and I left for the long drive up to Westport, and after about four and a half hours we arrived at the Howard Creek Ranch Hotel. Now I know some of you are already judging me — “you stayed at hotels and motels during your trip? Why not camp out and become one with nature and oatmeal?!”
Well, a few reasons
1) I don’t even have a proper rack with panniers, which would just logistically make carrying a tent, sleeping bag, etc. pretty much impossible. I ended up carrying everything for this ride in a backpack (more on the wisdom of that later.)
2) I’m doing this ride alone and while I am confident tons of women have biked solo up and down the coast with no problems, I just feel a little less freaked out by myself in the land-of-no-cellphone-reception when I can lock a motel room behind me!
3) I like sleeping in a bed after biking all day. (This is the “princess” reason)
4) I don’t like oatmeal

From Bike Touring: Westport to Point Reyes

So anyway, we arrived! The hotel is a bit, in Chris’ words, “kooky,” It’s seriously in the middle of nowhere and basically consists of two big buildings that are across a swinging bridge from each other. The room we stayed in was a tiny little thing in a converted barn. In the living area on the second floor was an indoor jacuzzi (wish I would have realized that before arriving!), a zillion plants pushed up against the windows, and just a hodgepodge of antique(ish) Victorian furniture with trinkets on every empty space. In sum, I loved it. It’s the sort of place you’d go, stay a few days, and basically just get away from everything.

From Bike Touring: Westport to Point Reyes

That night Chris and I went into Fort Bragg for dinner and, thanks to Yelp, had some truly fantastic pizza (and I’m told beer) at Piaci Pub and Pizza. Not Delfina good, but really good. In fact, you know it’s good because outside in downtown Fort Bragg everything was super quiet… but then you open the door of this pizza place and it was totally packed.

From Bike Touring: Westport to Point Reyes

After that we got dessert at Cowlick’s Ice Cream. I totally recommend it! I actually sampled the mushroom flavor - totally delicious! More like maple syrup taste than mushroom, but the coolest part is they don’t add any extra sugar outside what’s already in the milk and cream. But it’s super sweet!

From Bike Touring: Westport to Point Reyes

So after eating all that, bemoaning my lack of self control, and heading back to the hotel, I was ready for the ride to begin!

From Bike Touring: Westport to Point Reyes

23andMe Sends People The Wrong DNA Results [and what is (and is not) interesting about it]

As reported Monday (TechCrunch article here), 23andMe recently sent the wrong DNA results to up to 96 customers. Long story short, it appears the lab they farm the sequencing out to (LabCorp) mixed up the labeling on one of their 96-well trays (a standard sized plate) and, well, that meant that when some people logged on to see their results, they ended up seeing the results of someone else.

Beyond the obvious privacy and data security questions this raises, I think it’s the response from 23andMe customers that’s most interesting and illuminating. I will paste their feedback in below since, unless you have an account, you won’t be able to see it (if you do have one, see it here.)

Title: Results in, my son is not my son?

Yesterday I received a message that my son and my daughter’s results were in. I rushed to carrier status and checked, she was negative for all the diseases. I checked my son’s it stated that he was a carrier for hemochromatosis, I was upset. How could he be a carrier and we weren’t. Well my husband’s result’s weren’t in yet so I would wait and see. Still upset I checked family inheritance and noticed my daughter shared with me, and then I checked my son’s. He was not a match for any of us. I checked his haplogroup’s and they were different from ours. I started screaming. A month before my son was born two local hospitals had baby switches. I panicked and I checked over and over. My kid’s were sitting at the computer because we all wanted to see the results. My son laughed but he looked upset. I called my sister in tears. She being the pragmatic one instantly told me to stop crying. She reminded me we took a thousand pictures of his birth and every breath he took the first few months. She told me to check the traits. When I checked for eye color I noticed he was GG (blue eyes) we are AG. My son does not have blue eyes. I compared genes and I noticed he did not compare with any African Americans. His closest results were European. Then I read a post from another person who had wrong results. I realized these results were wrong. I sent an e-mail to 23andme. I received the standard 3-5 days response.Upset, I sent Shirley Wu an e-mail, she said she would forward it to customer service. That’s it. So far I haven’t heard a word from 23andme.
Later I found my son in my bed asleep and hugging my pillow. He did not go to school today, he said he was sick. I told him it’s a mistake.
Someone out there has new results maternal L2c2, paternal E1b1b1a, and those are my son’s results. I looked at relative finder my son has 56 relatives. My son’s Ancestry painting came up today, it says 99% European. I share with 3 of the relatives. I hope they don’t send an invite. Thank god the results were totally off or I would have been in linbo for days. I hesitated before I sent this post, I wanted to give 23andme time to get back to me with some explanation. I am still waiting. I am still screaming inside………

In the comments section another user wrote,

23andme has just sent my son’s girlfriend a notice about a mistake in her processing and took down her results. She was just about to write in and ask how they determined she was Asian. She has spent the day in shock.
I don’t know if she yet called her mother, but I know she was wondering what to ask. She came back 100% Asian. We talked about all possibilities..and some of them were odd and disturbing.
We have spent the entire day discussing her 100% Asian ancestry painting and taking a new look at her pics. Even the high risk breast cancer results were less disturbing to her than what the ancestry meant.
23andme…time for some mea culpas here…

So why does this matter?

Well, before that, I think there’s an important point to be made: the root problem here is not a direct-to-consumer (DTC) specific one - any lab using 96-well plates could have confused labels (or whatever exactly happened here.)

So what’s this “96-well plate” business, you ask? Basically, when a lab is running the same test on a lot of samples, it’s much easier to have one big plate with a lot of wells than it is to have a bunch of individual test tubes. Think about it — would you rather carry around 96 individual test tubes or one plate with 96 wells in it? Since it’s easier and faster, this plate method also contributes to scalability, which then helps bring down costs. So, not only would a lab sequencing for 23andMe use this, but any lab working with a lot of samples that require the same procedures.
Non-DTC examples:
- BRCA1 and BRCA2 genetic testing (which is ordered through a doctor)
- Hepatitis B immunity (checking to see if you have it, that is)

Point being: this mistake didn’t happen because these tests were offered DTC.

Now, what I do think important here is the responses from 23andMe users. DTC companies have long stressed that they aren’t providing medical testing but genetic information (and thus shouldn’t be regulated in certain ways)– but what does all that mean? The first user’s experience (above) shows that the first thing she does when she gets her son’s results is check for carrier status. It’s true that whether or not I’m a carrier for, say, a SNP associated with hemochromatosis, is genetic information — but is getting that information also the result of a medical test? Given the intensity and speed with which she checked for those things, it sounds a lot more like she viewed it as a test than as just “genetic information.” [Maybe I feel this way because “information” sounds so neutral, but “medical test” more closely captures the way we respond to our testing “results.”

To be honest though, I don’t have enough experience with how regulations view the difference to say, but I think the distinction is not so obvious — and the non-obviousness isn’t just a function of how our policies and regulations view the difference. How do people truly view the information they’re given through these tests? An interesting study would be to take people who are told they are a carrier for something and see if they act differently — see if, upon telling their family, if their family treats them differently. How do we process that sort of information?

Why is HIV testing a medical test but the results of a DTC genetic test not? Because an HIV test tells you whether or not you will actually develop certain ailments? The BRCA tests don’t tell you definitely that you will or will not get breast and/or ovarian cancer, but they’re considered medical. Difficult…

Other food for thought:

-The community feedback and advice given to users who wrote about confusing or upsetting results was strong and helpful — I think it shows that, if you’re willing to engage with a community of active and interested participants, you can get constructive information without a doctor middleman. On the flip side, it sounds like users didn’t hear back from 23andMe for days — and thinking you were adopted for a few days doesn’t sound so great.

- DTC genetic testing results aren’t just “for fun.” There were unquestionably traumatic identity crises going on with some of these people. And why? Because when they first clicked through and got their results they were ready to accept those results as telling them deep truths about themselves. They weren’t rapid-fire clicking to carrier status or ethnic background to take a glance, eat some popcorn, and then go out with friends and forget about it. No, this information meant something to people.

It will be interesting to see what comes of this… I’m willing to bet Walgreens is counting its blessings right now, though.

Bike to Monterey Weekend (I’m alive!)

I should really re-title this post “Galactic Justice” because that’s pretty much what happened. If you remember from my last post (about our double century), it was me who was going along without a care in the world while Chris wanted to scream out and curse the gods. Well, apparently I wasn’t humble enough about it because the gods condemned me to the slowest most painful 111 miles of my natural life. And while it wasn’t a cake walk for Chris either, he certainly wasn’t dying.

And I was dying.

Thankfully in the end Chris and I puled ourselves together and made it all the way without the need for rescue. And after that, the rest of the weekend was spent with Eric, Kevin, and Adrienne in Monterey and Carmel — hanging out, eating yummy things, and taking loads of pictures.

From Monterey Bike Weekend

So why was this ride so painful? I blame the hardcore leg, back, and ab workout we did the night before. Chris, being smarter than me, took it wwaaaayyy easy during the workout. But did I? No. And did I pay for it? Yes.

Going up Old La Honda (which is the major climb to get up to Skyline) was just painful. My heartrate at the start was 160! At the start! And pretty much the rest of the climb up consisted of me trying desperately (and in vain) to keep my heartrate out of the mid-high 160s. I was a bunny heart trapped inside a giant concrete body. You know how back in the day the power ranger would sit inside that giant mondo machine-dude to battle sometimes? It was like that. Except, instead of a (dare I say) kung-fu fighting warrior inside the machine it was a weak bunny trying to pull an impossibly heavy block of concrete up a mountain… with itsy bitsy levers.

In other words, pain!

Finally, after a freezing descent and moderately painful second climb, we made our way to Pescadero and had some much needed food. My stomach was actually growling by the time we got there, which doesn’t usually happen to me on rides (which tells me part of the pain probably came because I was so tired I wasn’t forcing myself to eat properly.) In Pescadero I ate a good 1/2 a loaf of garlic bread and 1/2 a coke and started feeling significantly better. Not 100% by any means but better to the point where I could at least imagine making it into Santa Cruz.

From there we went down Cloverdale, suffered, suffered, and then oh! A sign about chocolate dipped strawberries and coffee! At that point I took the lead, picked up the pace, and lead us into Swanton farms.

Oh.My.Gosh!! We parked our bikes next to the door and were delighted to find all sorts of sugary delights waiting for us inside! Baskets of strawberries, truffles of all sorts, chocolate dipped strawberries, jams, etc. and in the frige they had these awesome looking strawberry shortcakes and little crumble tart thingies. And last but not least coffee and strawberry hot apple cider!

After my little excited “new foods!” dance, we settled on coffee (for the caffeine), a chocolate dipped strawberry, and strawberry shortcake.

They were all perfect! I’d especially like to point out that the whipped cream on the shortcake was most definitely hand whipped and perfect. One of my favorite parts about biking is the freedom it gives you to explore and find awesome little places like this! Total score!

From Monterey Bike Weekend

After our most wonderful break we made our way (slowly but surely) into Santa Cruz. And, after calling Eric and realizing he wasn’t going to even be leaving his house for quite a while, we decided we’d suck it up and keep making our way to Monterey.

And so we did! I think the only other highlight of the ride was the bike path going into Monterey where these dumb cute little bunnies kept running in front of me wheel to cross the path. Solution? I started making a (loud) high pitched tone as I biked, hoping it would scare them off. And by-diggily — it worked!

If you want to see the nitty-gritty details of our ride (or copy our route in the future) you can see it here.

Once we arrived at our Days Inn (I can now say I prefer Motel 6), showered, and talked with the gang a bit, we headed out to Bubba Gump’s for dinner! We tried a few other places first but they were either busy or no longer the restaurants we thought they were.

I got steamed crab legs (which must be a new addition to the menu, since they did not use to have those at all!) and was quite satisfied. Especially because I ate a big bag of candy beforehand!

From Monterey Bike Weekend

Sunday consisted of a lazy breakfast with huge pancakes, doing 17-mile drive (you should really stop and check out the tide pools!), looking at adorable houses, walking around Carmel, and taking the long way back.

From Monterey Bike Weekend

All in all a great weekend!

From Monterey Bike Weekend

From Monterey Bike Weekend

From Monterey Bike Weekend

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