21514 km San Fransisco / Rotterdam. Full circle!

Well there it is, the last blogpost for this journey through South, Central and a little bit of North-America. I was really looking forward to the nice and scenic ride along the coast of California to gradually make my way to the final destination of this trip, San Fransisco. As an observant reader might have already noticed from the kilometercount in the title, it did not turn out that way... 

In between San Diego and LA I got hit by a car with about 80/90 km/h from the back. I was cycling on the bikelane on a straight road in broad daylight, but somehow some moron managed to not see me and hit me with full force. According to a bystander she never even started breaking until after I was hit. I never saw it coming. I was unconsious for a while and an ambulance took me to a nearby hospital. Here they did a catscan to check me and luckily there was no damage to the brain. I got a few staples in the back of my head. As it is customary here I needed to give a creditcard and sign a dozen of forms before they helped me. The fact that it took me a good ten minutes to answer the simple question “how old are you” was apperantly no reason to keep these papers away from me while still shaky and hurt. Of course I could not read anything I was signing with the headache and condition I was in. Welcome in the US of A. It’s mindboggling to me that a firstworld country treats people and patients in this manner. Guess it’s all about the money here..... I have to say the police and medical personell responded very quickly and they have taken very good care of me. So it’s not all bad. The about usd 15k in costs will luckily be paid by the insurance company. I will have to try and claim all other costs like the hotelstay, the fixing of the bicycle and the trainticket at a later stage, but I will do that from the comfort of my own home. While still in the USA I wanted to try and enjoy my last weeks there... 

I was very lucky considering the speed and impact that I got off so well. Obviously I was covered with lots of scratches, a bit of a nasty wound on my back and a severe concousion, but this sure could have ended a lot worse. So glad I had the helmet on (broken in 3 places) and that my bike is basicly a small tank. The important part is that there is no permanent damage and I survived the crash

I needed to take rest for about 7-10 days and was not allowed to do anything from the doctor. Not that I was going places anyway, my bike had severe damage as well. A friendly local firefigher had taken it to a bikeshop for me. Here they ordered the components they needed to build a new backwheel around the Rohloff. It took them six days, but they did a good job getting the bike fixed. The bags had broken off as well, but I managed to make an emergency solution and fix the bag permanently to the bike with tiewraps. Tiewraps and ductape can fix almost everything is my experience....

After a week in Dana Point, the place where I got stranded, it was time to get moving again. I decided to take a train to LA. I still did not have the rest I was told to take and also did not fancy getting on the road again after a hit like that. In LA I had to cycle about 15km, before I reached Hollywood where I found a hostel. I have to say it was a bit scary to cycle in LA. Traffic is a little crazy there and it did not help I was still a bit shaky and scared after the accident. I spend a few days in Holywood and was a little dissapointed with it all. The Holywood sign is really not all that special and Holywood boulevard felt more like an open urinal than a place to celebrate the famous. I was actually happy I got to smell weed there, because it masked the urine smell a bit. 

From LA I took another train to San Jose. Not all the way to San Fransisco. I really wanted to finish this journey on a positive note and cycle into San Fransisco instead of arriving there by train. It was about 100 km from San Jose to San Fransisco, where I stayed for about 10 days. Contrary to most of California I quite like it here. I found a nice hostel, the food in Chinatown is great and authentic and the scenery and town have a nice vibe to it. Nevertheless I was quite happy to go home. Overall the US has disappointed me a little bit as a travel destination. 

So here I am after almost 13 months I am back home again. I’ve achieved what I set out to do. Project full circle has been a success. The equator measures 40075km in length. Rotterdam to Singapore was 21.292 km. This trip was 21.514 km, making it a total of 42.806 kilometers cycled.  

The bike has held up remarkably well. I cycled over 20k km through 18 countries and all I got was 8 flat tires. I replaced the breakpads once in Costa Rica and the Rohloff and beltdrive have been maintenance free. If some biatch did not hit me in the US, the bike would have easily made it back home without any major damage... But I guess, no matter how good your bicycle is, it’s not gonna ‘win’ in a crash with a large car.

I’d like to thank you all for reading my blog, despite not being the best of writers. I hope you enjoyed following me on this trip. Thanks for all the support everyone

See you all again soon in Nederland!!!

Erik