Bike to Monterey Weekend (I’m alive!)

April 5, 2010

I should really re-title this post “Galactic Justice” because that’s pretty much what happened. If you remember from my last post (about our double century), it was me who was going along without a care in the world while Chris wanted to scream out and curse the gods. Well, apparently I wasn’t humble enough about it because the gods condemned me to the slowest most painful 111 miles of my natural life. And while it wasn’t a cake walk for Chris either, he certainly wasn’t dying.

And I was dying.

Thankfully in the end Chris and I puled ourselves together and made it all the way without the need for rescue. And after that, the rest of the weekend was spent with Eric, Kevin, and Adrienne in Monterey and Carmel — hanging out, eating yummy things, and taking loads of pictures.

From Monterey Bike Weekend

So why was this ride so painful? I blame the hardcore leg, back, and ab workout we did the night before. Chris, being smarter than me, took it wwaaaayyy easy during the workout. But did I? No. And did I pay for it? Yes.

Going up Old La Honda (which is the major climb to get up to Skyline) was just painful. My heartrate at the start was 160! At the start! And pretty much the rest of the climb up consisted of me trying desperately (and in vain) to keep my heartrate out of the mid-high 160s. I was a bunny heart trapped inside a giant concrete body. You know how back in the day the power ranger would sit inside that giant mondo machine-dude to battle sometimes? It was like that. Except, instead of a (dare I say) kung-fu fighting warrior inside the machine it was a weak bunny trying to pull an impossibly heavy block of concrete up a mountain… with itsy bitsy levers.

In other words, pain!

Finally, after a freezing descent and moderately painful second climb, we made our way to Pescadero and had some much needed food. My stomach was actually growling by the time we got there, which doesn’t usually happen to me on rides (which tells me part of the pain probably came because I was so tired I wasn’t forcing myself to eat properly.) In Pescadero I ate a good 1/2 a loaf of garlic bread and 1/2 a coke and started feeling significantly better. Not 100% by any means but better to the point where I could at least imagine making it into Santa Cruz.

From there we went down Cloverdale, suffered, suffered, and then oh! A sign about chocolate dipped strawberries and coffee! At that point I took the lead, picked up the pace, and lead us into Swanton farms.

Oh.My.Gosh!! We parked our bikes next to the door and were delighted to find all sorts of sugary delights waiting for us inside! Baskets of strawberries, truffles of all sorts, chocolate dipped strawberries, jams, etc. and in the frige they had these awesome looking strawberry shortcakes and little crumble tart thingies. And last but not least coffee and strawberry hot apple cider!

After my little excited “new foods!” dance, we settled on coffee (for the caffeine), a chocolate dipped strawberry, and strawberry shortcake.

They were all perfect! I’d especially like to point out that the whipped cream on the shortcake was most definitely hand whipped and perfect. One of my favorite parts about biking is the freedom it gives you to explore and find awesome little places like this! Total score!

From Monterey Bike Weekend

After our most wonderful break we made our way (slowly but surely) into Santa Cruz. And, after calling Eric and realizing he wasn’t going to even be leaving his house for quite a while, we decided we’d suck it up and keep making our way to Monterey.

And so we did! I think the only other highlight of the ride was the bike path going into Monterey where these dumb cute little bunnies kept running in front of me wheel to cross the path. Solution? I started making a (loud) high pitched tone as I biked, hoping it would scare them off. And by-diggily — it worked!

If you want to see the nitty-gritty details of our ride (or copy our route in the future) you can see it here.

Once we arrived at our Days Inn (I can now say I prefer Motel 6), showered, and talked with the gang a bit, we headed out to Bubba Gump’s for dinner! We tried a few other places first but they were either busy or no longer the restaurants we thought they were.

I got steamed crab legs (which must be a new addition to the menu, since they did not use to have those at all!) and was quite satisfied. Especially because I ate a big bag of candy beforehand!

From Monterey Bike Weekend

Sunday consisted of a lazy breakfast with huge pancakes, doing 17-mile drive (you should really stop and check out the tide pools!), looking at adorable houses, walking around Carmel, and taking the long way back.