Our transition to living out of a van was a little abrupt. Life got complicated our last week in New Zealand, and I probably shouldn’t get into the details on the internet, but to make a long story really, really short, we ended up packing, unpacking and repacking all our worldly possessions about three times in the space of a week. Then came 30 hours on a plane, a 12 hour layover in Seattle, three busses, two trains and one car drive with our bike boxes tied to the top. Someone mentioned recently that I should write a blog post about how to travel with bikes, but I’m not sure I’m up to it. Judging by this most recent trip, my advice would go something like “make good use of tears when threatened with extra baggage fees, have a strong boyfriend who can run up two flights of stairs with a 70lb box on his head, and always go everywhere with ratchet straps in case you can’t fit your bikes in the car.”

Then we spent three days in Taos, loaded everything into Great White (our 1998 Ford e-250 that hadn’t been driven since December) and drove to California for the Sea Otter Classic. What could possibly go wrong?

We made it to the California-Arizona border when Great White started skipping gears and lurching down the highway. We stopped in Barstow and a grouchy car mechanic told us that our transmission was going. This, I think, is what despair tastes like — that feeling that you are confronting a problem that you simply don’t have the money to fix, coupled with a layer of embarrassment because remember how everyone told you that this van was going to fail on you at a really inopportune time?!? We knew when we paid $1400 for a 17 year old van that this could happen, but damn, until she started shuddering and decelerating up the interstate, I hadn’t realized how badly I had wanted this little piece of shit van to succeed, or at least, you know, last us one whole trip. I was rooting for the underdog. I wanted Great White to prove ’em all wrong. It was a really bad moment. We made the only decision we could, to drive her until she died, which hopefully would be after we got to Monterey. And so we set off down the highway — at this point she wouldn’t shift out of 2nd gear so were spinning about 10 gagillion rpms and trying to cajole her up all the hills. Good times.

When we couldn’t take it anymore we stopped at a transmission place in Bakersfield. The game plan was to get a second opinion and then, because we were pretty convinced the transmission was done, go hunting in the local salvage yards. Not exactly how we planned to spend our Tuesday, but we’re pretty good at rolling with the punches. We sat in the lobby for almost an hour, which gave the manager time to tell us about every mountain bike he had ever owned. When he found out we were heading to Sea Otter, he rescheduled all his repairs for the day and had someone look at our van immediately. Who said being a pro mountain biker doesn’t have its perks?

A few minutes later the mechanic came out looking confused.

“You didn’t unplug the throttle position sensor, did you?”
“Unplug the whatsit?”

Seeing as we didn’t know what a throttle position sensor was, it was a pretty safe bet that we hadn’t unplugged it. They plugged it back in and suddenly Great White was running better than she ever had. And here we had almost given up on her. Don’t judge a car by its rust. We piled back in and finished our drive to Monterey where we put on our nicest t-shirts and met our tire sponsor, Vittoria, for a sushi dinner. So, now you understand the ups and downs of life as a freelance professional athlete — from the transmission shop to the sushi restaurant in less than four hours. Such is life. Then, since Vittoria had an extra hotel room, we got to sleep in a real bed and take a shower. Sushi AND a shower. Wow, our day had really turned around.

Since then, things have, for the most part, been on an upward trajectory. We had a blast at Sea Otter, met some awesome people and hung out with some old friends. We did some sweet riding in Santa Cruz and now, Phoenix, and we’ve started to really enjoy living in the van, camping on the side of the road, and making coffee in our Jetboil in the middle of the desert when the sun blasts us awake at 6 AM. Van life is good. Life is good.

As always in my life, balance is somewhat difficult to achieve — what’s the point of worrying about “life-work balance” if your life is your work is your fun is your everything? You can see the problem. However, the inconvenience, stress and general disorganization of the past three weeks seems a small price to pay for freedom to explore, ride new trails and meet awesome people. Things are settling down a little bit now (I won’t say routine, because I don’t think I even know what that is anymore), so hopefully there will be more posts on this blog. I’ve been riding some totally killer trails recently and I want to start featuring some of them on this blog, so stay tuned for that. Plus, van life is unpredictable and never boring, so there will probably be some good stories coming.