(Written from my man Toad's house in Carmel)
Miles biked: 32.5 (1,375.1 overall)
Time on bike: 3 hours, 12 minutes, 3 seconds
Maximum speed: 30.0 mph
Roads taken: Pigeon Point Road, SR 1, Santa Cruz: bike path, Mission Street, Laurel Street, Broadway, Ocean Street, San Lorenzo, Riverside Street, 3rd Street, Main Street.
Places stopped: Side of road (for quick break), Santa Cruz hostel (for the nigh).
The biking on Thursday was nothing to write home about. I rode on mostly flat terrain to Santa Cruz, reaching the city of about 50,000 a little after noon.
The blog material happened while I was in town and, ironically enough, has to do with blogging.
After I reached the Santa Cruz hostel, the man in charge was nice enough to let me store all my stuff there even though check-in wasn't for more than 4 hours. I thought about leaving the 520 there, as well, but Peter said that it'd be a long walk to the library.
So I decided to take the bike, with no panniers or anything, to the library to do some serious blogging -- I was a full week behind. But when I arrived at the library and locked my bike up -- using a metal lock and a cable lock, I secured the frame and both wheels -- the librarian told me that it cost $2 just to use the Internet.
I'd never heard of that at a library, but she did recommend going to a place just a few blocks away called "Bad Ass Coffee," where you can use a computer if you make a purchase of $2 or more. That sounded like a deal, so I walked out of the library and headed to the main drag -- Pacific Avenue.
I thought about taking the bike with me, but I figured it'd be fine and secure, all locked up, in front of the library -- where plenty of people were milling around.
Well, I spent the next 5-plus hours blogging, and blogging and blogging a little more. I probably wrote close to 5,000 words as I recapped a full week of life on (and off) the bike.
When I finally walked out of Bad Ass Coffee a little before 7, I was feeling good and accomplished. I'd gotten a lot done and the night was still ahead of me. I could do all sorts of fun things in the cozy college town.
And then I neared the bike...
As I did, I wondered if maybe some dirt bag had decided to grab one or both of my lights, which are really easy to unattach. And then I laughed when I saw that, indeed, the front light was missing. It was more amusing, really, than irritating.
But then I saw something (or, rather, a lack of something) that made the blood boil. My bike seat, the same seat on which I'd sat for over 1,300 miles, was missing. So was the seat post. There was just a hole in the frame.
I'd been robbed.
A couple notes on this...
1. I blame myself. People who would do such things tend to loiter outside of libraries, and seeing a fairly new and expensive bike like mine had to make for an easy target. I should have taken it to the coffee shop, which was on the city's most busy street.
Lesson learned. Especially as I get into Southern California, I'll have to be very careful with the bike. It's unfortunate, but it'll be harder for me to stop places along the way.
2. What about the onlookers? It's astonishing to me that people simply watch others do things like this and don't say a word. I can't guarantee, of course, that there was somebody watching the thief, but it's not as if the library was on an empty street. People were milling around, entering and leaving the premesis.
A day later, when I took the bike to a downtown shop to get a new post and seat, the guy there told me that just recently they'd needed to use cable cutters to snap a lock on a bike because the owner had lost his lock key. So a couple random guys had taken several minutes to cut through a lock on a downtown street.
And nobody in the area said a word.
That, to me, doesn't make sense. Maybe in New York minding your own business is the best course of action.
But in a place like Santa Cruz, locals should try to foster a crime-less downtown area.
Judging from all the bikes I saw locked up that were missing wheels, that's not the case.
And, no, I didn't treat myself to a night on the town after the incident.
Thankfully, the hostel's "Free Food" supply was large.
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