Wednesday, November 3, 2010

One Foot in Mexico!

Dude! We made it! All the way from Vancouver, Canada, to Tijuana, Mexico!

Sorry for the delay regarding this post, but as soon as the ride was over, we had to drive to downtown San Diego so I could pack up my bike (thanks a lot to Mo at San Diego Bike Shop for the box!) and then get on over to the airport to catch my flight to San Francisco.

One thing I noticed today was how tired my body is, now that the ride is over. In other words, I didn't notice that at all during the ride. I mean, at least one part of my body (mostly my palms, toes, neck, shoulders, and legs) was sore just about every night, and yes, there were certainly nights when I was exhausted, but in all honesty I can say that each and every morning, I was up for riding, as crazy as that sounds.

Now that the ride is over, however, my body definitely knows that it isn't going to be asked to perform on a bike for 7-10 hours, so it's telling me, "Yo, I'm beat. Take a seat, but not on a bike saddle." In a way, I feel like I have jet-lag all over again. I'll be fine, though, especially since the weather is awesome and I'm hanging out in the city that I grew up in.

As for the final day of riding, well, I guess you could say it was a lot like the final day of the Tour de France, when, in order to finish, the riders just have to make it to Paris without falling off of their bikes.

We got a pretty early start (we pulled out at about 8:30) and knew we were just hours from finishing, since we had ridden all the way into La Jolla (La Holla!) the night before. I was trying to soak up the atmosphere, especially the ridiculously warm weather (Boy did the heat feel good!), so I was really taking it easy on the bike. Jody and Joe, however, got off to their usual fast start, but I didn't care.

After a while, we met a guy on a recumbent bike who helped us find our way. He also confirmed that, yessiree, those antennas and mountains over there were indeed in Tijuana! Yes!

We got closer and closer and finally saw an arch next to a huge Mexican flag. At that point, I knew we had this in the bag.

The night before, we were congratulating each other on the ride, but being the baseball guy that I am, well, I refused to think I had finished my job. I certainly didn't hear any fat lady singing, for instance. Also, as little riding as we had left, you just never know what might happen. One of us could still get hit by a car, our bikes could fall apart, or we could fall off our bikes and get injured, for example. Sure, the chances of any of those things happening were slim, but bicycle riding isn't a cake walk, especially when there are lots of cars around.

Throughout the course of the ride, we rode in rather dangerous conditions, especially when we were riding on the shoulder of the 101 with cars flying by at over 70 mph. We also battled wind and rain, as well as fatigue, both physical and mental. So yeah, I wasn't going to celebrate until I could see the border. Heck, at that point, even if I had to walk the last kilometer or so, I knew I'd get there.

We actually got a bit mixed up trying to find the border crossing. We started heading down the road for cars. Then we jumped on a bicycle path, but that path ended abruptly. After turning around, we finally made our way to the border crossing for pedestrians.

And there it was, in big letters: M E X I C O.

After (exactly!) 2704.0 kilometers (1680.2 miles!), we really did make it! Whoop! Whoop!

From the very start, Jody said that he didn't really care what route we took, as long as he had one foot in Canada in the beginning and one foot in Mexico at the end. I also wanted to cross into Mexico, but there was a slight problem: There was a long line of people crossing back into the U.S.A. and we had no idea how long we would have to wait.

After a bit of inquiring, we figured the most we'd have to wait was two hours. At that point, it was 11:00, which gave us plenty of time, and, even though no one likes standing in lines, we decided to cross!

Well, Jody and I decided to cross, that is. Joe didn't feel the need, so he stayed back.

I was actually the first to go through the "revolving door" (you know, that type of "door" you pass through when you exit some places like a zoo that doesn't let you back in), so as I was passing through with my bike, I said to Jody, "You better come through, too!" Wouldn't that have been funny, if Jody had suckered me and let me go in by myself? Yeah, but he's not the type.

We crossed over to Mexico, took a bunch of pictures at the "actual" border (but didn't get any super-pimp ones because the light conditions weren't that great), and then made our way to the line of folks waiting to cross over to the US.



Because of our little "New York-style" maneuver, we must have saved at least 30 minutes and were back across the border by 11:45. Too bad Joe didn't join us. As you can imagine (I guess that depends on how well do you know me and/or Jody), we both joked that, "Four of us started the trip, but only two of us finished."

Of course, that's not true. Joe finished the ride all right; he just didn't have one foot in Mexico...

FYI: This won't be the final posting for this blog. When I get some time, I plan to post more pictures (with captions) to fill in some of the gaps. I know that pictures tell a thousand words and I wish I had been able to post more of them each night, but under the circumstances, I think we did OK in that regard. I'll probably also go back and add some details to some of the individual stories and/or add one or two stories. If so, I'll make a note of that. So please check back regularly, at least for the next week or so, and hopefully in the meantime there'll be something new for you to read about and look at. Thanks for following and for the comments. It's been a blast!

4 comments:

  1. So glad to see you guys made it! I am honored to have met you along the way. While I petal the stationary bike at the gym I will think of you crazy dudes and your amazing ride!

    Cheers!
    Jeanette in Eureka

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  2. CONGRATULATIONS!!! It was awesome reading the stories and being kept up to date all the time!!
    Next time, next ride, I´d love to join! (But I´d need a notice in advance, big time, so I can prepare myself). :-)
    Thanks Jeremy for your blogs, I think you defenitely brought us readers closer to the adventure.
    Take care and get some massages!
    Greetings from Austria,
    Mariet

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  3. My hero... :D
    Good stuff, I don't envy you the ride, but I envy you the nice feeling when you crossed over to Tijuana (I know that crossing, except I crossed on foot).

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  4. I wanted to thank you for this great read!! I definitely enjoying every little bit of it I have you bookmarked to check out new stuff you post. inmobiliarias en tijuana

    ReplyDelete