Day 24 (Klamath - Arcata 105km)

Today I entered into Redwood country after climbing the second giant hill I missed the day before. It wasn't too bad and I wasn't full of food so that helped immensely. Morning riding was good, but eventually the road returned to the coast and it started to rain. As I understand it, when the weather is nice I will get a tailwind, and when the weather is stormy, I will get a headwind (obviously the reverse for northbound travellers), so I had to deal with the rain and a headwind and a broken spoke grinding along at 15km/h or so. It was mostly soulless freeway so I put my head down and rode as far as I could all the while trying to keep excess weight off my rear wheel and swerving away from bumps. I got lunch in the tiny town of Orick, which consisted of (the lunch; not the town) a huge chimichanga and torilla chips. I had to force it all down and was worries I might get some chimichange dizzy spells!

Evetually I rolled into the city of Arcata at close to 6pm and found a bike shop called Revolution cycles. I was a sorry state as I went through the door, but the guys were amazing and replaced the spoke on the spot and cut me 3 extras in case I break any more of them. They asked me where I was going to stay, which was the KOA campsite about 10 miles down the road and they immediately went on about how crappy and expensive it was and told me I could camp in the back yard of the bike shop. Awesome!

I pitched my tent and went into town for a super great Japanese dinner (don't ask how much I spent... I didn't have to pay for a campsite after all), and then read some more of my novel sitting under the bike shop security lights with a beer.