JUNKRAFT

May 18th, Chico CA. Temperature: HOT!

After 6 weeks of wearing every single item of Patagonia gear donated to JUNKride, we’re quickly shedding layers. Goodbye temperate coastal rainforest, hello inland California – mid May, and its already upwards of 100 degrees!

Since our last talk at Humboldt State, we’ve been in travel mode, crossing the Trinities to get to our next round of events in Chico, Sacramento, and San Francisco. We’re in for a busy few weeks, so this period of riding, climbing, hydrating, and climbing some more has been a great time to reflect. Especially on all of the amazing supporters/friends that have allowed us to get here.

The first 6-mile climb had us silently thanking Ecousable, one of our key supporters. Ecousable founder Joey

Ecousable bottles w/ filter

Mendelsohn kept Marcus and Joel hydrated with 150 stainless steel bottles on JUNKraft, provided generous financial support, and didn’t hesitate to offer the same for JUNKride. We’re both carrying his latest product on our bikes – a stainless steel bottle with built in filter, allowing us to fill up at any gas station or roadside fountain, and instantly sip filtered water. Note: this photo was weeks ago, thus the warm weather gear.

“Thank god we at least took some spin classes in LA!” panted Marcus during climb number 2. Though we were too crazed to train as we should have, we were able to get in decent shape thanks to Revolution Fitness in Santa Monica. Revolution sponsored us with as many spin classes as we could squeeze in  highly appreciated during these monster ascents.

The next 2800 climb turned our thoughts to food. “Kashi granola and peanut butter sounds pretty good about now”, mused Marcus. During JUNKraft’s 3-month epic journey, Marcus and Joel lived for a few weeks on Kashi cereal, before running into Roz Savage. Kashi continued their support by sponsoring JUNKride. Sadly, we couldn’t fit 10 pounds of granola on our bikes….

Instead, we stopped for a typical picnic of tomatoes, avocados, peppers and cheese wrapped in a few whole-wheat tortillas, and reflected on our JUNKride to date. We’ve had a chance by now to speak with thousands of people, give gyre samples to two Mayors, speak with a dozen reporters, and share our message with hundreds of school children. And we’ve come to a few conclusions about what we think needs to change to truly tackle this throwaway plastics issue, a symptom of  some basic flaws in our consumer culture. Stand by for a detailed account: in a nutshell: education, legislation, industry cooperation, smarter consumer choices, and cradle to cradle design. No one said it would be easy…..

We finished the day with a glorious 7-mile descent into Willow Creek, the Bigfoot Capitol of America. We stayed at the Bigfoot Motel, shared a bottle of Bigfoot Red, and took a few pix with Sasquatch himself before

Made it to the top!

logging in at least another 7,000 feet or so of climbing. Some of the most spectacular riding of the entire journey, through terrain that made us want to disappear into a small town, pan for gold, play music at the local pub, and revel in the scenery.

Our next talk however beckons, so we continue to Chico, where we’re hosted by the GRUB collective on an amazing 40-acre farm. We begin our talk in less than an hour, and then hop right on our bikes to make 20 miles of night riding towards Sacramento, so details will wait until the next post!