Tuesday, October 18, 2011

"Cruising in to Santa Cruz ... "

Monday morning and it was time to ride to Santa Cruz from Daly City.  Actually it was past time.  For the first time on the trip, somehow I messed up setting my alarm.  We planned on rolling out from the motel at about 8AM and at about 8AM I heard this voice outside our door, “Marvin, are you awake?” Crap! I was not awake, I was not dressed for a ride, I had not eaten breakfast, made my sandwiches, filled my water bottles and checked my tires.  I had not done any of these things because I was still asleep. Crap! I opened the door and let Jim know that I was going to still be a “few” minutes, and then I started moving fast.  I usually give myself 2 hours for my morning routine which also includes packing a few things in the van to assist Dennie.  This time Dennie assisted me and we found out we could get me out the door in 40 minutes.  That was good to know because that meant I was going to sleep 30 more minutes each day and cut my two hour preparation to an hour and thirty minutes.  At 8:40AM, we were cycling down the road.  Our route avoided Highway 1 through Daly City and took a lot of back streets instead, up and down hills.  Daly City, like San Francisco, is a hilly little city.  On one of the hills, I was trailing Jim and I was overtaken by a guy on a touring bike with panniers and bar end shifters, he was wearing water shoes and pedaling on platform pedals.  His shorts and T-shirt were billowing and he had a camera over his shoulder.   Rather than pass me, he came up alongside and asked me in an English accent, ”Where are you going?”  I decided to play it cute and said, “San Diego.” He replied, “Brilliant, so am I!”  It seems Jamie, age 31, was a school teacher from Reading, England that was on sabbatical.  He wanted to do three things on sabbatical: ride the Trans-Siberian Railway, take a cycling trip and go to South America.  He decided that cycling the Pacific coast was in between Russia and South America, so that made the most sense logistically.  From Russia, he flew in to Portland, bought his bike and some gear and he was heading south to San Diego where he planned on selling the bike and then continuing on to South America.  Isn’t it fantastic when a plan comes together? To stay within his budget he uses an internet service at CouchSurfing.com.  Apparently you just check your destination and see who is participating and someone makes their couch/room available for you.  After the stay, your host rates you on the site and you rate your host.  He said he is meeting a lot of great people this way and keeping costs down.  Jamie is also blogging his trip for his students and anyone can check it out at hellomrb.tumblr.com. 
The ride was pretty uneventful, about 72 miles and 3700 feet of climbing.  There was alternating times of sunshine and then fog, regular California coast weather.  At one of our rest stops where we stopped for a meal and a break.  I ordered the seaside special: two eggs, hash browns, toast and a slab of salmon.
We met two couples from Switzerland.  They flew into San Francisco, rented two Harleys and they were also biking the California coast, although their bikes were a bit bigger than ours. They wanted to know how far we were riding and we replied, “Today or altogether?  Today we are riding 70 miles to Santa Cruz and our plan is to ride to San Diego.”  They were amazed because they said they found it difficult to ride their Harley’s for 70 miles, and could not conceive of bicycling to San Diego.  After our break, we continued on into Santa Cruz and Jamie left us with a comment, “You guys really motor along! I have been riding from Portland and of all the riders I have ridden with, only one other could keep up with me, and he was nineteen years old.” I said, "I'll tell you a secret.  See that guy pulling us up the hill.  That's the famous Jim McGeezer.  He's 69 years old!"

Pacifica, California



2 comments: