Last night, when I planned today’s ride, I planned it as a “rest day.” I try not to stay off my bike for a full day, because I get restless, but I wanted to have an easy day.
This morning, when I looked at my ride on my Garmin computer, my heart sank a little.
Maybe I don’t know how to read the “ClimbPro / Climbs” screen on my Garmin, but it looked like I had two long painful climbs ahead of me.
Garmin tagged the first of the two as a category 2 climb, with an average grade of 8%, and total elevation gain of 1,299 feet.
Garmin tagged the second as a Category 1 climb, with an average grade of 10% and total elevation gain of 1,699 feet.
The only consolation was that these climbs were in the first half of my ride, so I just put my head down and focused on conserving my strength for the climbs.
A couple cyclists passed me as I reached the bottom of the hill, and a little while later, I saw a sign indicating there was a cycling event being held today.
Soon I was seeing cyclists going in both directions, and the ones going up the hill were flying past me on road bikes, but I suppressed the urge to try to keep up with them.
I kept waiting for the hill to get steep, and my Garmin assured me it was going to. The ClimbPro screen was telling me the remaining average grade was as high as 15%! It was also really foggy, so I couldn’t tell what was ahead of me.
Suddenly, however, I was at the top of the first hill, and it never got past 6% grade, but I still had the second hill ahead of me. I was hoping that the climb detection was messed up on this hill too. And it was! Neither hill exceeded 6% grade at any point. It was a complete “nothing burger!”
I stopped at a couple event rest stops just to say hi to the other cyclists, and had a few pleasant conversations. I was surprised that, despite the loaded touring bike setup, until I told them, virtually everyone thought I was on their ride: The Lighthouse Century. A few people asked me questions as they passed, “Where is the turnaround?” “Where is the next rest stop?” My answer: “I have no idea! I am not on your ride!”
But the real highlight of the day was making new friends. After I got to California 1, a woman in orange passed me, and I saw a woman in a colorful jersey in my mirror. She started closing the gap, and when she caught me, she said something like, “You’re so fast!” I didn’t point out that she caught me, so she was faster!
We started talking, and ended up riding together for several miles. The shoulder on highway 1 is nice and wide, so we rode side-by-side. Grace lives in Redlands, but she is on vacation in her van, with three awesome dogs. She went to Canada, and also visited the national parks in Washington. Within minutes of meeting me, she asked me if I was on Strava (yeah I am!).
Eventually, we caught up to her friend, Carol, and rode to the finish line for the event, and chatted in the parking lot behind Carol’s car. Carol’s car had a sticker on it that said: “Tell Your Dog I Said Hi,” so I knew she was my kind of person.
After we said goodbye to Carol, Grace and I rode out to Morro Rock to take pictures. She’s very good at taking pictures and shooting video on her bike, and I feel bad, because I couldn’t return the favor. We ended at her van where I got to meet her delightful dogs.
Chloe is a long-haired chihuahua who has whatever is the opposite of “fear of strangers.” When Grace opened the door, Chloe hopped out and ran over to me. I pet her vigorously, and whenever I stopped, she gently put her paws on my legs and demanded attention. She might be the sweetest dog I’ve ever met!
I didn’t take any pictures of Kyutip. He’s 15, and blind, so I just pet him gently and Grace put him back in the van.
Then Grace let Benji out. He is a special dog. He followed Grace home on a bike ride for MILES. He chose her. Grace, Benji, Chloe and Kyutip travel together all the time.
Meeting Grace (and her dogs) and Carol will be one of the absolute highlights of this tour!
I said goodbye to my new friends, and set out to find a place to eat. Almost every restaurant was a seafood restaurant, but I found a taco shop and had my first burrito in California. It wasn’t quite Roberto’s quality, but it was good!
It was still early, but I went to my motel, an overpriced and seedy Motel 6, and they let me check in early. I replaced the brake pads on my TRP Spyre brakes. Before I started the tour, I put organic pads on them, because they squeak less, but they were wearing away REALLY fast. Fortunately, I thought that might happen and brought some sintered metal pads. The front pads were almost gone after 1,500 miles.
It was another awesome day on the bike, and now I am resting!
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