USA - Day 13 - Big Bear City - Black Rock Canyon Campground

This is the route we biked today

During the night I had the feeling it was colder then yesterday and when we got up at 06:30 there was ice in my drinking bottle.

It was thus really cold but luckily the sun was shining on our camp spot pretty quickly, helping us warm up. The first couple of kilometers were really cold but as soon as we started climbing our bodies heated up, weird uh 🙄

Before our big descent from 2 100m to 1 000m we had some offroad climbing to do. It wasn’t too bad.

During that offroad section my rear tire started losing pressure again, probably due to the heavy bouncing around on the stones. This time I decided to plug it so let’s hope it holds up.

As we went down we started seeing joshua trees and the road become sandier. Those sandy roads are probably going to pester us the next days.

We got lunch during the long way down. Our bikes were taking a beating with all the bumps and the sand. We lubed up our chains as well because they were getting squeaky.

Today we had something special for lunch. Whoever can guess what we’re eating will get an honorary bikepacker roadie badge 🤣

And after lunch we got some more sandy roads. Bart is convinced that you have to get enough momentum to ensure you don’t get bogged down. But I believe his 2.8 inch tires give him an advantage versus my 2.4 inch tires and that’s why I can’t follow 😇

After all that sand we were happy to hit asphalt. It was also getting quite a bit warmer so we removed our leg warmers and jacket and put on short fingered gloves. So nice to feel some warmth!

On the way down we also passed through Pioneertown. This was originally built as a movieset but it’s now a tourist attraction. It was kinda busy so we took some pictures and cycled on.

After Pioneertown we cruised down to Yucca Valley but on the way down Bart noticed that his bike was making weird sounds whenever he was braking. We inspected all bolts but nothing was loose. We decided to take the time to thoroughly inspect his rear brake when we were at the supermarket in Yucca Valley.

Bart removed the breakpads and resetted the pistons and this seems to have solved the issue. We think one of the pads was touching the brake disc inducing excessive heat.

After this we went to get some pizza and cycled the last kilometres (uphill 😒) to our campground.

And now we’re enjoying some downtime and although it’s nice being able to stay outside your tent after sundown this campground is a lot busier. Headlights from cars driving around and generators making constant noise do ruin the experience a bit.

Tomorrow we’ll be riding through Joshua Tree state park and camping there so looking forward to that.

See you tomorrow!