Day Three, King City to Paso Robles

Day 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

The alarm didn't go off, so I woke up on my own a half hour late, at 5:30 am. There are many things wrong with that sentence.

Today's focus is a hill called Quadbuster. It's a long steady climb with a big rise at the end. Fortunately, it's within the first 30 miles of a 76 mile day. The morning started with heavy fog, which was a nice change from the heat that ended the day before (as was the prospect of a shorter route). As I was getting through the first part of Quadbuster, the sun came out in full, so I followed this other guy's lead and pulled over to take off my windbreaker, arm & leg warmers. A few people pulled over as well, and turned it into the official Quadbuster Stripper Stop. Someone is looking into licensing and trademarks for that.

Anyway, Quadbuster was challenging but doable, followed by a couple of fun rest stops. After having my story told at dinner the other night, people are coming up and asking about the solar backpack and the GPS (which is powering the maps here). The software is rather fragile, so I pretty much check on it at every rest stop, which leads to all kinds of interesting tech talk. (As an aside, cell coverage was poor all day, so the map is probably pretty messed up. I will fix that when I get a chance, but first I need to sleep.)

Things got a little harder for me in the afternoon. I had been riding faster than usual, and the heat got pretty intense. My tent mate Charlie has begun a new tradition of taking naps at lunch, and I joined in today. Unfortunately, I had a dream that I woke up when everyone was gone and my bike was being put on the SAG truck. After wasking up with a start, I was ready to get up and go.

The afternoon continued to be a challenge through rest stop 4. If there was a theme today, it was rough road. This day probably had the largest quantity of bumpy, badly-in-need-of-resurfacing pavement. Not to mention part of this pavement was on a stretch of 101. Not fun.

Last year we did another stint on 101 to get from rest stop 4 to camp, but this year they chose a more scenic route, which was used two years ago. Word on the street was that there were going to be some nasty headwinds, but it actually turned out to be completely beautiful, and not too windy. We rode past a few wineries and a (currently barren) pumkpin patch.

We were jamming along, when we came across a rider with a flat who didn't know how to change a tire. Charlie and I stopped and helped him out. More specifically, I pulled out my tools and Charlie used them to give him a course on changing a tire. Unlike that marathon tire change yesterday, this one was incredibly smooth and quick. From there we had a nice rally into camp. 76 miles, avg speed 14.7, 10 hours from camp to camp, 5.25 hours in motion. Tomorrow is 96 miles with some substantial hills, so the ride-to-sit/sleep/eat ratio will have to improve, or we are going to get swept. ttfn