Friday, Oct 30th - I've been back from our ride down the coast for over a week now. It's about time to update this blog.
What an experience! I'm not sure I can justify with my piddly use of the English language what this whole ordeal was like. 7 days on the road with like minded people with huge smiles plastered across their faces is hard to explain. Each sunrise brought with it a new city and different perspective of the California coast. Here, let me try and provide you my view of it.
The first 3 days started out damp as we drove our bikes into thick fog usually subsiding around 10 AM. Fog horns where blowing as we left San Francisco our first day. I just put my sunglasses on my helmet after 5 minutes for the first 3 hours in the saddle on days like that. I just couldn't make out the road well enough with rain drops on the lenses and with 1 inch of rubber between me and slippery roads...I need to see whats coming.
The rest of the mornings were usually a nice ride into cool weather. Each day seemed to raise the temperature 2 or 3 degrees. By the end, we didn't need any arm or knee warms at all. It was a good thing I packed those mittens.
I connected with several challenged athletes, Chris Self and Josh Sharpe, but to
Each night we stayed at a fantastic hotel except in Big Sur. There we were in a really nice lodge. T
The added responsibilities of a Ride Leader made me a pretty worn out puppy by the end of each day. I tried to hit the bed as soon as possible which normally was 8:30 or 9:00 PM. Each morning I was up at 5:30 AM to attend to luggage. Part of our Ride Leader responsibilities was to load up the luggage trucks. That's about 300 pieces to lift and stack. Before I turned a pedal I had already burned a half a days worth of calories.
Almost every day I had an opportunity to assist someone with a flat and then draft them back to their group or regrouping point. Nothing like pushing the wind. Don't get me wrong, I was glad to do it and actually liked being able to help others.
There were a lot of great stories and far too many to even try and mention here. But it was 20 weeks of pure joy and 1 week of fun down the coast. Will I do it again...possibly, most likely, yep. First I need to check with my better half and see what our plans are for next year.
Thanks for your support.