Day 3 - A Century Ride Down the Coast

Today's ride was from Caspar Beach, CA to Duncans Mills, CA, and offered ride options of 54, 65 and 102 miles. Under each scenario, everyone started from the same place, but if you selected either of the shorter options, you would be shuttled by van to the end of the route.

And therein lay the rub. A number of the participants had done the route before on prior Climate Rides and, uniformly, they all said the shuttled section (i.e., the last 30 miles or so) was spectacular and offered the best views of the day, if not the entire week.

Geraldine Carter, one of the co-founders of Climate Ride and a super cyclist, has dozens of Century rides under her belt, at locations all over the world, and offered (in her unbiased view, of course) that this Century route was in the top 3 she had ever done.

So what was a self-respecting 55 year-old cyclist to do? The last two days of riding, each at or around 65 miles, had left my legs somewhat tired already. And tomorrow's ride was another 65 miler. Plus I've already done a handful of Centuries and felt no burning need to prove myself in this context with another.

And then there was the elevation. Climate Ride gives out the cumulative climbing footage and elevation profiles before each ride, and it was clear that the full route today added two huge climbs after mile 80, when I certainly expected to be fading.

So I compromised to start with, deciding to keep an open mind about the full distance and make a choice mid-ride depending on how I felt at the time. But in the back of my head was the thought "after coming all the way to California, how can I skip the best views of the ride?"

Fortunately, my decision was aided by a very strong tailwind out of the northwest, which really made a huge difference. And unlike long jumping, no one asterisks your bike ride as wind-aided!

Now although the wind was a significant net positive for riding the full distance, it presented two not insubstantial negatives. First, the ride hewed very close to the coastline, which because the coast is naturally jagged (fractal theory anyone?), means the road dips inland and then hairpins right back out, time after time. "Dip" and "hairpin" being the operative words. All the turns inland, presumably because of the imperatives of road building, were sharp, speedy descents, thrilling in their own right as you would build up speed and lean into the hairpin, usually at bike speeds above the posted 15 or 20 mph warnings for cars. But once around the turn, you would be faced with a steep ascent, usually with greater than 10% grades. And the friendly tailwind would now be smack dab in your face. So you would push the hairpin speeds even higher, in the hope of sustaining a bit more momentum against these dual forces, but still end up standing on your pedals in lowest gear, inching along at 5 or 6 mph. It became a real love-hate affair: "Oh boy, another downhill!" Followed quickly by: "Oh boy, another impossible climb into a fierce wind!"

The second wind negative was its gustiness, often coming from the side. And this on twisting roads, on cliff edges, often with no guardrails. Fortunately, since we were riding south, the westerly gusts would blow me inwards, and not towards the cliff edge. But it was very hard at times to control my steering, and one time I literally was pushed by a sudden strong gust into the oncoming lane - fortunately without any cars passing in either direction - but a scary experience nonetheless. I rode with a bit more tension in my arms after that!

All that being said, it was one of the best days of riding in my life! The roads were well-paved, smooth and twisty. The climbs were challenging and rewarding. The views of the coast were spectacular and exhilarating. And the final climb of the day left us at about 600 feet, looking down on a whole bunch of switchbacks leading to the town of Jenner at sea level. What a descent!  I hope the pictures below, many of which used the panorama feature of my phone, give at least a little sense of the extraordinary beauty encountered during the day.

At the end of the ride I had ridden 98 miles and climbed a cumulative (and mind-boggling) approximately 8200 feet. Both of which require a bit more comment.

At the 97 mile mark, there was a direct route into camp of about a mile, but the Climate Ride organizers, knowing the magic to many of the number 100, threw in an extra loop at that point (past and then back to the camp) to extend the day's mileage to slightly over 102 miles. Truthfully, I had no interest in that. My goal in riding all the way without a shuttle was to experience the journey and get the views, climbs and scenery, not to hit a magic number. Readers of my cross-country blog may recall a similar decision, when I happily (ok, almost happily) settled for riding a cumulative 3970 miles, instead of pegging on an Astoria, Queens loop at the end to roll over to 4000.

Doth I protest too much? Maybe, but I'm kinda proud of not letting those sorts of factors impinge on my trying to get the maximum enjoyment out of a ride.

As for the elevation, that's by far the most I can remember doing in a single day, which is noteworthy because Climate Ride "advertised" the day's route as having "only" 4100 feet. A significant underestimation that they had already committed on days 1 and 2, for which they indicated cumulative gains of about 3000 and 3750 respectively, whereas my Garmin GPS unit (as well as my online ridewithgps mapping tool), gave results closer to 4300 and 5800, respectively. But I can't really begrudge Climate Ride the underestimations. I might have been scared off of the Century, or even the whole ride, if I had known those daunting figures in advance.

Below (after the photos) are today's route and more precise elevation details. My Garmin malfunctioned in terms of saving my data at the end of the day (but not before I looked at the results and saw 8200 feet climbing total), so I've uploaded the route itself, which, I think, overstates the cumulative elevation by about 1400 feet (as explained in an earlier post, I think by including valley ascents that are spanned by bridges). But still a lot of climbing!

Oh, and lest I forget, Bob got to camp ahead of me (as always), but in doing so stopped and sourced two bottles of lovely Avalon Cabernet Sauvignon. Made for a very nice evening sitting out under the stars!

Others, in addition to Bob, had wine too!