Oh the people we meet...

Take this middle-aged German couple for example. We ran into them going North to Vancoover, just as we got over the huge hill past Leggett, CA a couple of days ago. The guy greeted us with a heavy Germanic accent and we started the typical conversation.

"Where are you from?" we asked him. "Germany," he answered. "Where did you start your trip?" "Germany," he he said again. At this point, we though perhaps the language is turning out to be a bit of a barrier. "Where are you going?" we asked another question. "Germany," he said smiling.

We asked again, "This trip, where you finish?" we asked again.

"Germany!"

- Pause of confusion and tension -

"We are biking around the world." he noted.

The couple were cycling around the world, and had already done over 16,000 miles, living on the road for the past 10 months, and covering plenty of exotic places on several continents.


Then consider these two American guys. We met them in the evening at about 6pm in Fort Bragg, which was about 180 miles North of San Francisco (Daumantai, correct me if I'm wrong). They had started at 6am at the Golden Gate Bridge.

That's 180 miles in under 12 hours and, here's the punchline, they were just checking in before turning around to go all the way back on that same day. Or, more specifically, by the next morning. Apparently, they were the first two of another 40 ultra-endurance nutcases that were doing a 300 or 400-miles ride that would qualify them to do a 600 miles ride later, and 1,200 miles after that... They ride practically non-stop, day and night.