August 2 Carmel to Cambria

Carmel to Cambria 107 miles 7 hours 44 minutes.

Early morning in order to hit the road before too much traffic joins us on the road.  Today's ride will mostly be on CA-1, which means I'll be riding along the coast line and crossing Big Sur.  The ride started at dawn in 50ish degree weather.  I thought about wearing my tights along with my long sleeve shirt.  I took the tights off, but stuck with the long sleeve shirt for two reasons: one it was cool and two the hyper sensitivity to UV rays caused by the antibiotic I'm on.

We had four scheduled rest stops on today's ride: 25 miles, 45 miles, 65 miles, and 85 miles.  My goal was to make it to the first rest stop and see how I was feeling at that point. I did not ride particularly fast during the first segment.  There were lots of ups and downs on CA-1 with glimpses of the ocean through the thick fog.  I knew the ocean was beneath me because of the steep drops and the sound of the surf from time-to-time.  I stopped to take a photo of a "valley" where the fog was beneath me and looked more like a ceiling than fog covering the ocean and valley below. 

The area around Big Sur was covered in fog as well. In fact, most of the 95 miles on CA-1 were fogged in, which made the ride cooler, temp wise, but somewhat less interesting from a visual standpoint.

I was ready to stop at mile 25, but I kept going to the next rest stop at mile 45 again, I was ready to stop.  By mile 45, I had climbed a very long hill that had a short downhill and lots and lots of smaller hills.  The ride had the feel of an uphill ride from the start to nearly the finish.  I pushed on to the next rest stop at mile 65.  I was feeling better by this time and riding with more easy.  I kept my long sleeve shirt on and kept applying sunscreen to my exposed areas.

There was one more big climb and a number of rollers betweenn mile 65 and 85.  The 20 miles or so were pretty flat, and I still had enough energy to ride at 20 plus miles an hour on the flats. I stopped to take photos of the Elephant Seals at Elephtant Seal Beach.  In the town of Cambria there is a bakery/restaurant that makes wonderful pies.  I had learned this from Turbo Tom's son who lives in LA county and buys pies from this bakery whenever he has the opportunity.  Turbo Tom, Jenn, Erik and I made a bee-line for Linn's once we reached Cambria.  The pies were better than imagined. Of course, after 105 miles on a bicycle almost anything tastes good.  Two more miles to the church and my first Century plus ride was under my belt.