July 12, 2010

The book we’re using lied to us, it was a 42 mile ride instead of a 39 mile ride. First thing in the morning we reached Highway 1 and finished off Leggett Hill. Taka beat me to the top and when I got to the peak I found him in a smoking circle with some guys on Harleys. Two of them were from Canada and another guy was from San Diego. The guy from San Diego had a military issue bag on his bike and looked like he could crush both me and Taka without exerting much energy; real nice guy though.

We had a fantastic descent down the 2000 ft hill before we started the climb up Rockport Hill. Although Rockport was only a 690 ft climb, I think it was the harder of the two. The grade on that hill was 7% and just beat me down. By the time we made it past Rockport (about 25 miles into the day) I was pretty tired. From then on it was small peak after small peak. After about 15 of those small peaks your energy starts draining pretty quick. The scenery was actually really nice after the Rockport hill though, lots of jagged sea stacks and a real rough looking coast. Highway 1 seems to be lacking in the shoulder area, we had basically no shoulder all day today. The last 10 miles of the day actually got pretty hairy, had some trucks and cars come way to close to me and I just ran my bike into some bushes to get the heck out of the way. Problem is that some of the corners turn so sharply and some of the hill tops roll so steeply that cars can’t tell if there is oncoming traffic coming in the other lane, so they just stick to their lane and push the boundary of my cycling space. Also, the road next to us tended to drop off pretty steeply today, so I was extra careful around those edges.

Either way, the coastline really was beautiful today and the ride is done now. The highest hill of the trip is done and we’re only 3 days of riding from San Francisco. When we got to camp, the older guy from last night was the only other person here (still is). Turns out his name is Neil, he lives in Redlands, and has endless numbers of stories ranging from his work to his travels. He must be in his 60s but the guy is an impressive cyclist. It looked like he drank a 6 pack last night before he went to sleep, but he was out of the camp by 7am and probably arrived at this campsite by 1pm. I’ve been talking to the guy for several hours now and he’s probably the most interesting person I’ve met the whole trip (and he’s pretty hilarious).

Tomorrow is supposed to be a 43 mile continuation of the peaks and lows we experienced at the end of today. According to Neil (who’s ridden it before), it may be the hardest day of the trip other than the ride into Half Moon Bay and Big Sur. However, we’ll be taking a rest day after tomorrow, so I’m looking forward to it.

-Chris

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