Thermal Crossover

Words by Ben Smith, photos by Paul Kalifatidi

“Paul, shut the door!” Two floors up, the door shuts, forcing the raccoon back down the steps, past his garbage can buffet and out the back of the apartment building lot. I give a half-hearted chase, and he breaks into a gallop. Though our bags aren’t even packed, we have our first wildlife encounter of the day.

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Designed by Emily Bei Cheng, the Bay Area Triple Crossover is a bikepacking route that traverses the north half of San Francisco’s Bay, adhering to the ridges when practical and dropping into the lowland cities when not.

“Bring layers and be prepared for a wide temperature range. The North Bay is often foggy and on the colder spectrum,” the BIKEPACKING.com route guide says.

I know this to be true, for I’ve shivered in June and sweated in January. One look at the forecast, and we remove all spare clothing from our kit. The weather would indeed vary, but with the entire bay cloaked in a rare heat advisory, the lows would be well above sweatshirt temperatures. We could’ve done most of the ride with no clothes at all, but the requisite sunscreen, aloe, and Tegaderm would’ve weighed far more. Departing from our beloved lowland city and crossing the Golden Gate Bridge, we said goodbye to tolerable climes. In both temperature and elevation, it would only go up from there.

On long multi-person rides, one rider always works through the list of excuses to stop pedaling. Raise seat, drop tire pressure, butter chamois, eat energy gel, stretch calves, investigate a squeak, lower seat back, check map. I know this because I am that rider. On this day, however, our break-time algorithm is much simpler. No breaks are planned. We pedal until our brains begin to shut down, our internal temperature gauges pegged at max. Our radiators, swamp coolers at best, can’t keep up with our heat output on this sunny, windless day.

Trails in the Marin Headlands north of the Golden Gate are wide, dusty, and as red as Utah. Most of the riders who passed us rode quintessential gravel bikes, except for the handful of all-too-serious road bikers eager to pass us on the all-too-short sections of tarmac. “They always look like they just smelled something foul,” Paul remarks. It provides a good laugh to our otherwise grim task.

On flat ground, our speed is high enough to cool us. But flat ground isn’t on the itinerary in the Marin Headlands. In its place are walking-pace climbs and over-too-quick descents. When the descents show up too late and we overheat, we cower in the shade, re-mounting when our bodies return to “body temperature,” which today is equivalent to ambient.

Halfway through our day’s miles, we agree to sit out the afternoon’s heat by the water and in the shade. I know there’s only one place on our route that fits that bill: the north end of Muir Beach. The nude end.

Not that Paul and I mind. He’s part Russian, and I’ve graduated from exposure therapy. All the Russians I’ve known have no qualms about undressing in public. “It’s just not a big deal,” one bare Russian woman told me.

The beach is populated with all the usual tropes. Withered grandpas, over-tanned from eyebrows to epididymis. Twenty-something couples, one partner excited to undress and the other, fully clothed, excited to be with a naked partner. A few old hippy women. No fucks left to give, they move confidently and seem cheerful.

But we save our scorn for that ever-present group, the Wandering Penises. Their uniform, a lone hat, easily identifies them. Guarding the Tomb of the Unknowing Beachgoer, they pace steadily along the sand, making a pass when a new party arrives. Found on beaches from Sausilito to St. John, they are diverse in age and build but adhere to strict uniform standards. Hat on. Everything else hanging out.

Paul and I undress and careen into the surf, staying in until we shiver. Then we sun ourselves until we sweat. We waste hours this way until the worst of the heat has passed. As we re-pack our bikes, I wonder how others have labeled us. Unaffectionate gay couple, perhaps. Fine by me. We made sure, whatever we did, not to wander.

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Our route climbs up and over Mt. Tamalpais, the jewel of the Marin Headlands and hallowed (if hollowly supported) birthplace of mountain biking. Traversing the peak’s north ridge, we pedal asphalt up, up, up. Silly as it might be to build a road high on a ridge, we are thankful. Others have paid significant taxes so that we could save a bit of effort getting to our dirt descent. Thanks, fellow Californians.

The afternoon’s riding proceeded without note. On one climb, a jackrabbit crosses our path, signaling temperatures had returned to a tolerable level. The descent from the ridge of Mt. Tam proves to be some of the trip’s best riding. A dirt road through towering redwoods gives way to narrow paths through amber fields. A mature buck, no doubt spooked by our speed, bolts within 15 feet of us. I flash back to a viral video of a brief meeting between an antelope and a mountain biker. A harbinger, perhaps, but we pay no heed.

We pause here and there to open gates, adjust tire pressures, and shoot photos. The scenery is of the wide-open American variety popular with desktop backgrounds. The light is dramatic as the sun nears the horizon. I hold open a gate. “Apres vous, mon frère.”

As I pedal to catch Paul, I hear his yell. He’s still on his bike, still rolling but distracted and squawking. As I reach him, I ride through that unmistakable cloud. The rustling in the grass signals the skunk’s exit. Paul’s been hit, a glancing blow across the leg, as evidenced by a vile yellow splatter. A shower from our remaining water makes little difference, so we elect for the convective cleaning strategy and pedal on.

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Warning: Avoid contact with skin. Known to cause irritation with co-habitants. Known in the state of California to cause loneliness. Stay back 50 feet. Not responsible for broken friendships.

“You lead,” Paul requests. Wise man. Not five minutes later, we stir a second skunk. We spot this one before crossing its event horizon. It trots on our path, tail aloft in warning. We pass at the next turnoff and mind our speed. The skunking hour is upon us.

A short ride into the campground and Paul heads straight to the stream for a bath. Our site is a small corral shared with two other cycling parties. I exchange pleasantries. Where you coming from? Where are you headed? Pretty hot, wasn’t it? I expect someone to ask, “Is that pot or a skunk I smell?” It’s a fair question in a California campground. But they don’t because they know what weed smells like. They’re more direct. “Where’s the skunk?” I point to Paul. We’ll recount the story a dozen times before the week is out, and we’ll giggle aloud each time.

Our morning starts with a survey of the damage from the prior day’s efforts. A walk to the john confirms my legs are tired and stiff. A dark piss confirms I’m dehydrated. Beyond that, we’re in good repair. Most importantly, spirits are high. We cook breakfast over hushed laughter at the previous day’s shenanigans, trying not to rouse our new friends. Coffee downed and bikes packed, we pedal off to our first hill of many in the day.

The hills of the greater Fairfax area are different from their more coastal neighbors. The hills of day one were smooth, compact, and consistent in grade. Pedaling up them was mostly a matter of rider torque and gear ratio. Big legs (that’s Paul’s strategy) or low gearing (that’s mine) are both effective. These hills are a different story. Much chunkier and looser, we ascended not with big legs and low gearing but with a more subtle mixture of traction, momentum, and hope. One of these ingredients seemed to be missing because we mainly ascended on foot.

Descents weren’t markedly better, as the thought of crashing on the embedded rock daggers kept us on the brakes. In time, we picked our way through the strata, from daggers to flowing singletrack to pavement. We greeted the Gestalt Haus at opening time for a lunch of sausage and sauerkraut, fuel for supreme cardiovascular activity.

Over lunch, we reviewed the paper maps. As a conservative rider, I knew that a 70-mile day to Campsite Option A would be too much, so I’d booked the closer Option B at Sibley Volcanic Regional Park. “We’ve only got 25 miles to go today, and half of those are road miles.” And so begins our extended stay in the town of Fairfax, featuring ice cream and three trips to the bike shop. In engineering school, we used to say, “Engineers can’t math.” Today, that was true. We had 40 miles to go, but we just didn’t know it yet.

My favorite part about Paul is his emphasis on fun and play. At 23, he has not lost the bright enthusiasm that separates joyous children from jaded office workers. But then Paul will do something that makes you scratch your head. “What were you thinking?” In this way, Paul embodies both sides of the archetypal teenager.

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Standing outside the bike shop, Paul dumps the full tube of electrolyte tablets (intended dilution volume: 12 liters) into his water bottle (total volume: 500 mL). The geyser begins immediately as we take turns gulping to stave off the worst of the overflow. Like drinking the ocean, we’re dehydrating ourselves in an effortful way. Once the at-home chemistry experiment is contained, we screw on the cap, leaving room for gas expansion, and we dilute the broth into our other bottles and leave town.

Climbing up and over Grizzly Peak, we are greeted by a panoramic view of the North Bay. We retrace by eye nearly all of our route. A last few miles bring us to camp, a patch of gravel where, for a fee, we won’t get harassed for sleeping. The two oversized picnic tables also serve as our beds because we decide they’re just as soft as the gravel and far more level. After a quick dinner, washed down with electrolyte water (all we’ve got), we call it a night.

Awakened by the sun’s warmth, Paul and I have a wordless exchange that confirms we’re done. Beat. Headed down. In short time, we’ve fabricated the excuse we need to forgive ourselves. A friend is driving into Oakland for donuts, and we can’t pass up this opportunity to say hello. Down we coast, one pedal stroke for every mile. Finally, after yesterday’s toil, we earn the reward for our climbing.

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After three donuts, a few miles of flatland riding, and a ferry, we’re back on San Francisco’s Market Street, where we started. The temperatures are back to the default, pleasant and cool. Paul and I, self-described men of the wild, breathe a sigh of relief for the pavement, the bike lanes, and the on-demand food and drink. We dodge pedestrians rather than skunks at the intersections, and we’re thankful for it.

We heft our gear back up to the second-floor apartment and enjoy a shower followed by a street taco. Our conversation is sparse, both of us enveloped in two days’ worth of fatigue and the satisfaction of being done. Walking back in the door of the apartment, however, there’s no mistaking it. The skunk has followed us all the way home.

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