Elke and I are staying at The Pearl, a cool, 60’s modern styled hotel in Point Loma - good food too. Jeff’s friend Kurt set it up, and the owner is footing the bill. I haven’t met him yet, but I hear his name is Greg, so a big thank you to Greg, and to Kurt. After the difficulty getting through LA, it’s incredibly nice to have a good place to stay.
I’m less than a week away from the Mexican border, which is a really odd feeling, since I have spent most of the ride thinking of San Diego as being way off in the future. Now it’s easily within four or five day’s ride. I couldn’t have made it this far without help from a great many of you, and I’m profoundly grateful. Thanks to all of you, the Pacific Coast Route is within reach.
Thanks to everyone who is helping keep this ride going. Elke and I are staying an extra night in Monterey to get the blog caught up, and to rest up before a big crossing around Big Sur. Some of the parks are closed due to the fire damage, and tomorrow will be a long ride to get to the next good camp. New blog posts on the way.
Well, I made a classic mistake. I counted my chickens before they hatched.
I have a client who has decided not to pay for some 470 hours worth of work. My contact at this company is someone I have worked with many times over the last 15 years, and has always been reliable. I never imagined that it would turn out this way. In fact, I couldn’t have been more shocked when I found out that they weren’t intending to pay. My plan for this ride was to use that money to pay for food, lodging, and any repairs that came up. That’s clearly not going to happen now.
The situation is that I have come almost 1000 miles, from Olympia, WA to the Bay Area. The ride has been successful in terms of raising funds and awareness for the JDRF. Every day, I meet people who have been affected by diabetes, either directly, or through family and loved ones. Even without the numbers to back it up, diabetes is clearly a massively growing problem. Many of those people become readers of this blog, and a good many even become donors to the JDRF. In other words, the project is working in the ways that really matter.
Unfortunately, without the money I relied upon, I have run out of personal resources to continue, and have even leaned on some good friends to help me get this far. As much as I appreciate their help, I can’t continue without more support, and that’s where you can make a real difference. Please help the Big Dummy Project continue.
I have set up a Paypal donation link on the right hand side of the page to make it simple to get involved directly. If you are interested in helping the project, but do not want to use Paypal, or need to make other arrangements, then please contact me at jim@bigdummyproject.com.
My heartfelt thanks to everyone who has offered support, encouragement, and advice, and to all the people who are working hard behind the scenes to keep this ride going. My hope is that we can all find a way to keep the Big Dummy Project riding for the cure.
Thanks,
Jim
I’ve known quite a few bike shop owners in the last 20 years, and without exception, they are in it for a true love of bicycles. That love comes in many shapes and forms, from a desire to spend time with other bike people to wanting to help folks get the most out of their bicycle experience. Some loved bikes for the speed, the health benefits, the social connections, the sheer art of the most efficient machine ever invented, and some just for sharing the transcendent moments that bikes can provide.
Hey, I got my first donation through the JDRF website. Thanks Roger and Deb!
Hi All,
I’ve been doing several things, none of which involve keeping my blog up to date, and I apologize for that.
The first is that I needed some recovery time in two ways. It turns out that it’s pretty hard to transition from the mental state that lets me get up and pedal all day to the one that involves real life, and taking care of all the things that happen in real life. Along the way, people frequently said something along the lines of, “You’re so lucky to have the time for this.” In a way, riding a bicycle over long distances is a a good thing simply because it reduces your life to: ride, eat, sleep. All the myriad responsibilities fall away to reveal the core. The second is that I got a checkup in Ventura. It was aimed at my heart, which thankfully was doing fine, but we ended up talking more about my hands, which had gone numb before San Francisco and had never really recovered. The doctor made a big point about taking time off the bike to give my hands some relief before the numbness became permanent. Here I am, three weeks off the bike and while my right hand has just about come back, the left is still quite numb in three digits, so I guess I pushed it about as far as I should have.
The second piece is that I have been pursuing a number of options to set up the rest of the ride, and it turns out that it’s a big job. If I were a smart man, I would have done all this before I ever set out in the first place. The thing is, until I actually had a serious ride under my belt, there is not a potential sponsor in the world who would believe that I could do a cross country ride with a 400-plus pound load. In all honesty, I couldn’t blame them. I had my own questions. Part of me believed without question that I could do it, but other parts, quite noisy parts, were telling me that I wouldn’t make three days. That annoying voice popped up quite often along the way, telling me that I couldn’t do it, and I spent a good amount of time stuffing that crazy devil back into his cage.
So, I need to finish the story of the Pacific Coast, and in many ways, it was the toughest part. I also spent time with some great new friends, and they need their piece in the story. Very soon, that story will appear. My heartfelt thanks to everyone who made this ride work and to those who will make it work again. Let’s all take a little time to remember what it all about. We’re all, in one way or another, riding for the cure.
