ALC8 Day Two: My first (official) century (and I love bears!)
June 1, 2009
Route: Santa Cruz to King City
Distance (according to my Garmin): 106.5
Calories burned: 6520
Avg. Speed: 16mph
Total Elevation (no laughing): 3014ft
Today was seriously awesome. And why? Well to start it was my first official century, let alone first over 100 mile day! So let’s go through the highlights of today:
Preface: not all “highlights” are good
- Getting out of Santa Cruz was, for lack of a better term, a clusterfuck. Michael and I got up at 4:45 with the goal of being on our bikes ready to go at 6:30. However… seems folding up a tent in a way that fits in a little bag thing is a skill you have to earn… earn with about five failed attempts. So we ended up getting out at 7 instead and oohhhh good god getting out of Santa Cruz was madness!! Imagine about, god I don’t know, hundreds upon hundreds of bikers all lined up single friggin file in the bike lane in downtown Santa Cruz. During rush hour. And, since about 95% of us were on our best behavior, nobody ran lights or even took up a lane (which I still think we should have done). It took us about an hour to get out of Santa Cruz. An hour!! So that was definitely the low point of the day… because normally I’m all about getting through traffic asap!
- While biking on our way into a town called “Marina” we came across some serious headwinds. Now, friends of mine have always said “Heather, if you ever get a chance, draft a tandem. It’ll be the easiest riding of your life. Just push hard to hold on because those things can fly!” Well the biking gods favored me today because right when the headwinds picked up what happened? A lovely (almost seafoam colored!) tandem flew by me. So, what did I do? Well I picked it up, caught up, and held on for dear life! The next few miles were quite lovely until the evil call of the demon flat god sounded. The tandem got a flat!! Tragedy! So I asked them if everything was ok (it was) and I continued on my way.
- At lunch I called Chris to let him know how things were going and that so far, so good! This gave me something to do so I did’n’t have to sit all alone
- The rest of the day was really pretty flat and oh boy I flew on some parts. For a long time I was riding right behind a girl who I believe rides for Berkeley. We were going a solid 21ish for something like 10-15 miles. But, I left the rest stop before her and continued out on my own. I actually really enjoyed some of the riding by myself. I’ve never spent any time in that area of California and it’s really beautiful. Though I have to say… I felt a little weird/bad/guilty biking by the people who were picking all the strawberries.
- My very favorite stop of the day was at the mission. The theme? Dancing Bears!! Now, we aren’t talking about bears like the animal, we’re talking about “bears” – big burly gay guys. So I pull in to the rest stop in the middle of nowhere to find dance music and a bunch of bears wearing pretty much nothing but pink tutus with giant flagpoles with glittery flags, dancing together. So I got of my bike, got my yummy otter pop, took a video of them, and then my picture… because how could I not?! It was awesome!!
- After getting into camp I had dinner with Michael, Ryan PC Gibson (somehow I can’t just think of him as “Ryan”…and he apparently can’t think of me as “Heather” since now I seem to be “Private Whitney”), Topher, and Baris – and then we walked over to Safeway to get some snacks. Oh, we stopped at Carl’s Junior, too since everyone but me wanted a milkshake (I was too burnt out on candy from the ride)
So that was my day!! Tomorrow is about 60 miles more!