When we entered the redwoods we penetrated the sacred domain of the legendary logging trucks of northern California. We had heard a lot of stories about the logging trucks; it seemed that every year or so one ran over a bicycler touring the redwoods. The whole way up the coast I had tried to prepare myself mentally for the day the loggers would join us on the roads, but the first time I heard that deafening, unmistakable roar closing in behind me and turned around to see the road swallowed up by an eight-ton, sixty-foot-long logging truck dwarfed by its sky-high wall of tree trunks, I nearly croaked. I swung my head back around and edged over as close to the shoulder of the road as I could without falling into the dirt. Then I clenched my teeth and stared straight ahead, trying hard to block out the explosion of noise. I prayed to God Almighty to spare me just this once, promising that if He did I would never again bicycle on a road with a logging truck.
The trucks took some getting used to all right, and although I never managed to keep my heartbeat under control when I heard one blasting toward us from the rear, after a day or two I did learn to accept them. The drivers were always careful to pull way around when they passed us, and for that I was supremely grateful.
The day after our first encounter with a logging truck, we met our first fellow bicycler. Eric pedaled up alongside us as we were coasting down a long hill between Leggett and Garberville. His bike was making a loud flapping noise. It sounded as if he had a piece of cardboard in his spokes.
“Hi there!” he shouted.
I looked over to see what was causing the flapping noise. It was his underwear.
“Hi! Where ya from?” Larry asked.
“San Diego. I’m pedaling up to Portland to visit some relatives.”
Eric looked like a typical, handsome, southern California surfer. He had a good tan, sunbleached blond hair, and a muscular build. I guessed him to be about nineteen.
“Where you two off to?” he asked.
“Oh, right now we’re on our way up to Canada,” answered Larry.
“You sure gotta lot of stuff there. Me, I’m travelin’ light. Gotta few tools, a pair of shorts, a T-shirt and a sweater, a bowl and a knife, a fork and a spoon, and a tube tent and a sleeping bag.”
He also had a pair of underwear tied to and hanging from his handlebars and when he saw me eyeing them, he flashed me a wide smile.
“Oh yeah, and this pair o’ real holey underwear. I washed ’em out last night, but they were still wet when I got up this morning so I tied ’em onto my handlebars to let ’em blow dry. That works OK, tying ’em to the handlebars like this, except that they keep snappin’ against my wrist when I go downhill fast, and that makes my wrists sting. Hurts like you wouldn’t believe when they really get to snappin’.”
“Why don’t you tie them to your rear panniers instead,” Larry suggested. “That way they won’t bother your wrists.”
Eric shook his head. “I’d be afraid they’d blow off back there and I wouldn’t see ’em go. And then where’d I be? I mean, I gotta be real careful with what little clothes and gear I got.”
Eric was headed for the Avenue of the Giants, north of Garberville, as were Larry and I, so the three of us rode together. Not more than an hour after we met up, we ran into the Copenhagen Kid. His real name was John Winwood. He was cycling south, and the minute he spotted the three of us coming up the road he slammed on his brakes and shouted for us to stop and talk with him.
John was a strange sight. His tanned skin had worn out long ago, his face spoke of more than its share of fist fights, and an ancient, misshapen, leather cowboy hat, stained by years of sweat and dirt, topped his five-foot, seven-inch frame. He wore a faded flannel shirt, tattered blue jeans, and crusty combat boots. As soon as we were within earshot, John began telling us all about himself.
“Howdy folks! Name’s John Winwood, and I’m forty-seven, and I ain’t got a real tooth in ma mouth. These here are all false. I’m a registered crazy. Was in a mental institution fer over twenty years o’ ma life. I’m one real mean SOB, an’ I beat the livin’ daylights outta people I don’t like. But don’t you worry none. I like you three just fine. I like bicyclers. They’re ma friends.”
John was riding a Schwinn one-speed modified into a ten-speed. There were even toe clips on the pedals.
“Takes some hard jammin’, but if I keep at it real good I kin get these here boots o’ mine inta them there foot holders.
“Anyway, I’m ridin’ fer the Jerry Lewis Muscular Dystrophy Telethon. I started in Eureka a few days back—I sleep in the bushes at night—an’ I’m pedalin’ to San Francisco and back. I got fifteen hundred dollars in pledges if I make it the whole way. An’ I’m gonna be on TV in San Francisco! Say, you folks cycle through there?”
“San Francisco? Yep, Barb and I did,” Larry answered.
“Good. I wanna know what the folks are like down there. I heard they was some real mean bastards.”
“We had a tough time getting through the city,” I said. “The buses kept running us off the streets, and the cars kept honking at us.”
“Well, they damned well better be nice to me,” John grumbled. And to prove his point, he pulled a long sharp knife out of his only pack. But before he had time to explain what he might be planning to do with it, a voice shouted at us from inside his pack.
“The bears are thick in Garberville,” it warned.
Larry, Eric, and I said nothing as we stared nervously at the talking pack. John’s eyes were dancing, and the grin that spread across his face displayed every false tooth in his mouth.
“I read ya loud and clear, Chain Saw,” the pack hollered again. This time it was a different voice. “Ten four!”
John was laughing now. He reached inside his pack and pulled out a citizen’s band (CB) radio half the size of an egg carton.
“This sucker’s got eight batteries in ’er,” he announced with great pride, as he attached his CB to its holder on his belt. “Yep, this here’s a good one. I talk ta all the truckers all day long. Damn! You should see the looks on them big truckers’ faces when they blow by me and see I’m the one they been talkin’ to! Here they been thinkin’ I’m some big mean dude in a big rig, and when they come by and see I’m nothing but a turkey on a pedal bike—I mean they look like they seein’ a ghost!
“But ya know what? They watch out fer me. I kin hear them truckers all tellin’ each other ta watch fer a bicycler on the road up ahead. Yep, everybody’s talkin’ ’bout the bicycler in the redwoods with a forty-channel CB. You bet. That’s me, the Copenhagen Kid. That’s ma handle!”
John stuffed his knife back into his pack, then reached into one of his shirt pockets and pulled out a stack of cards.
“Look, I gotta be gettin’ along. But first I’m givin’ ya’ll one o’ ma cards. Tells right there I’m ridin’ fer muscular dystrophy. Now ya’ll have a good time up in the Avenue. They’s some mighty big trees up there. Real monsters!”
John worked for a few moments at getting his left foot lodged into its toe clip before he rolled back onto the pavement. When we wished him good luck on his ride, he tipped his hat to us, then hollered something into his CB and hurried off down the road.
There was a special camping area for bicyclers along the Eel River in the Avenue of the Giants. It was nestled in a secluded grove of redwood skyscrapers,