Get your money's worth
Getting your money's worth...
Not by going to Costco, by riding your bike to Santa Cruz; I run on cheaply on 3 Clif bars.
My training needs to fit around my life, you see. So, when Ally told me about a birthday party I "simply must attend", I decided to combine training with pleasure. It is 80 miles from SF to Santa Cruz. I would've been my longest ride, and I'd be doing it by myself.
Sometime in the middle of the week I saw my downstairs neighbor Dave, a very well-rounded, very smart, atheletic Stanford alum. It was on my way out for a ride and the subject of my inpeding journey came up. To my great relief he offered to go with me.
So Saturday morning we started out around 9am from San Francisco and into uncharted (for us) roadways south. We hit hills immediately south of the city, and the climbs increased in length and grade until, around mile 25, we ascended up a sizable knoll separating the towns of Pacifica and Half Moon Bay. It was hell so early in the ride. The scencery was straight out of the California tourism commercial: winding roads, steap kaki-sided cliffs topped with green velt and a pewter see beyond. The day was full of fog for the first part of the ride, but peaked out and through the fog to let its beams dance on the distance water. I was too hypoxyic to enjoy it then, but it is beautiful to recall now.
The road flattened out after Half Moon Bay, however we never escaped the constant uphill downhill motif of Rte 1. The amplitude of the hills decreased, thankfully, so we could enjoy the sights of coast.
The miles past, 50, 60, 70. I officially passed 500 miles on my bike odometer. I also surpassed my original distance record of 55 miles. The last 10 miles into Santa Cruz presented us with some of the steeper hills. Thankfully, there were introduced by equally impressive down grades. It was actually possible to get enough momentum to make it up 3/4 of most the hills before gearing down and pumping.
I could go on and on about the night that followed. I could tell you that Dave, Ally, company and I drank heroic amounts of booze, and that I fell asleep at 9:30pm. But I'll let some pictures do the talking.
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