Sunday, October 9, 2011

Catching up: Day 5...

Camp on the final night had a sunny finish but we heard of the threat of rain overnight. That didn't happen.

It waited til 5:30am. Of course.

So, a cold, early,wet start on our last day got a lot of us motivated to get the hell to San Francisco.

And then the sun came out juuuuust in time for some uber climbs up and over Mt Tam and the Marin headlands to the bridge.












San Francisco from Sausilito





Crossing the bridge












SF side







Finish line at city hall!

More thoughts on the ride in the next post...

Catching up: Day 4...

I'm sitting on a park bench in Golden Gate Park not far from our pickup point... So, spoiler alert: I made it.

Day 4 was by far my favorite day of the ride. It was a rolling ride with no early hills of note (except one stupid one that was insanely steep but about 2 city blocks long). Most importantly we had no rain.

I'm a big proponent of getting out early, and I was one of the early departures on day 4. I got to the first "water" stop early and did some wine tasting at 9:30am. Hey, it's noon someplace, right?




Moshin Winery

The remainder of the ride through Sonoma County was beautiful but the hills kicked in. Lots of pot holes in the road... The C&O trail is smoother...




The stupid hill

Lunch featured fresh squeezed (pressed?) apple cider. Awesome. Then it rained. Less awesome (but brief).




Last water stop was in a cool town...




... But it was overshadowed by our rogue breakoff group who got oysters and beer:





Deck+oysters+beer+sun = epic.

9 miles later we were in our last camp of the trip!