Pacific Crest Hike & Bike

Hiker Tina reached mile 558 on the PCT this afternoon where I was able to pick her up with the bike about 12 miles west of Mojave, CA, home of Edwards  Air Force Base, Scaled Composites, the National Test Pilot School, the Mojave Spaceport, and a number of aerospace companies.  Mojave, the town, is considered pretty blah and ugly by the hiker crowd and perhaps most elect to hitch the other way and go to Tehachapi, but we're finding it to be quite satisfactory.   The fact that we have a bike helps, tho, since the town is strung out along the major rail lines for almost 2 miles.

The big thing about Mojave/Tehachapi is that they are generally considered the last serious resupply before hitting Kennedy Meadows, the gateway to the Sierras.   While Kennedy Meadows is 8 hiking days away, there's just one traditional resupply possibility between here and KM and that one involves a 35 mile hitch.   So for most, everything needed for the Sierras that has not already been shipped to the Kennedy Meadows must get moving that direction ASAP.   Luckily we are not "most" and I have hatched a suitably diabolical resupply plan that should give Tina solid support into KM and through to Lone Pine (~50 miles into the Sierras but perhaps 5 days travel due to the snow).    The rest we'll figure out later.

In any case, Kacee is mailing off Tina's boots, ice axe, etc to us right away.

Meanwhile, Tina's two day hike into here from HikerTown went well.   The first day out she had the hated "aquaduct walk" across the desert floor but was lucky to have temps in the 80s instead of the 100s.   She spent the night in a nice camp in Tylerhorse Canyon with about 9 other hikers who had also come from HikerTown.   Today (Friday) involved a lot of extremely windy ridge walking overlooking the huge wind farms between Mojave and Tehachapi -- these are much more impressive than the ones around Palm Springs.

My 46 mile bike ride to Mojave from Hikertown was easy since it was mostly downhill and downwind.   I did hit one snag in that the front brake rotor started rubbing again.   This had just started up south of Rosamond on the mostly desolate Sierra Highway when suddenly I spotted a sign saying Best Bike Shop Ever on a parallel road.   Screeech.... !!!    I headed right over and found the shop to be my favorite kind -- small and directly operated by a very experienced owner.   Dusty was busy working on another bike but nevertheless jumped right on my problem.  In less than 20 minutes he had performed some significant adjustments on the thing.   At the end of the day I think the conclusion is that the intrinsic spacing of these particular components is just too close, but now perhaps a whole gnat can fit between the rotor and the fork -- especially if it hunkers down.  ;-)    Thanks, Dusty!

Tomorrow (Saturday) is a full zero as we work on resupply and Sierra planning.

All the best, (Biker) Dave