Day 2! 107 miles. Left Santa Cruz in foggy mist at 6;45 and ended up in King City around 5. Lots of pedaling over painfully rough roads, through large fields of strawberries, artichokes, and many other plants I couldn’t identify (once again reminding me of my fundamental ignorance in areas such as food and nature).
We got out relatively early (6:45) and warmed up along the San Lorenzo river path. I pointed out places where I lived and Scott pointed out his. Amazing how little we knew about each other, and how a friendship can grow over the years with very little actual proximity (thank you SMS technology).
The big news of the day is that I/we made it up Rio Del Mar in Aptos, a short motherfucker of a hill that I’ve given up on every single year and walked. We just ground down and did it and I believe the fact I couldn’t actually see how bad it was helped immensely. (Like fixating on the road ahead can freak you out so badly that you can’t just focus on the moment at hand? Hmmm.) In any event we made it up and I was happy about that.
The day went on. Lots of pedaling. Got warm after salinas and we started taking it easier. Again, our little tandem beast totally rocked. Stable. Fast. Solid. Tandems can eat up hills like cheerios for breakfast. Not to say we’re fast on the up, but the momentum of two bodies plus a 50+ lb bike helps immensely on rolling hills, and it was exhilarating to bomb those babies.
Back contunued to kill me off the bike but I made it through. Developed a sore knee from buffering the constant jackhammering of the rough roads.
But today I woke up and am still ambulatory. Kinda surprised about that! Today is relatively short (65) and getting up to 100 degrees so the plan is get up and out early and try to beat the heat. We’re going though a nasty hot seating section my friend Traci and I have dubbed The Devil’s Taint (because we couldn’t decide whether it was more like the Devil’s Crotch or the Devil’s, er, Rectum).
Off to camp. I’m really looking forward to sleeping past 3:30 one of these days.
