I had to detour all the way back to Paso Robles, then head up past Lake Nacimiento towards Ft. Hunter Ligget, where Mission road turns into Nacimiento Ferguson Road. I had to take NFR all the way over the mountains out towards the CA-1, just 10 miles north of where the landslide was. It took me more than half a day to climb the thousands of feet in elevation, in order to reach the peak of the road. The terrain in the Los Padres national forest is predominantly very hilly, thick with pines and oaks, and is rather dry right now during summer. Lucky for me I stopped at a small campground along the road so I could refill my CamelBack. Life saver! I munched on some compressed Hawaiian sweet bread and peanut butter for a snack, then headed out. a Few hours later, after reaching the top of the road, I attached my GoPro Hero to the bike and began the 25 minute long descent back down to Highway 1. Talk about sketchy! With my regular road bike it would have been much faster, but the trailer limits me to safely only doing around 25mph. even still, it was pretty crazy, but the views were incredible. I will be posting the video on youtube as soon as I cut it down.
After the descent, I rode for another 4 hours into a hellish headwind up the coast to the Julia Pfeiffer day use park. Camped illegally overnight. It was very cold and I didn't sleep very well, though that was mostly because of my constant fear of getting busted. Alas, the ranger never came to lock up the park, thank God, so I got up, ran around for a bit to get warm, then set off for Nepenthe for my first hot breakfast of the trip. It was only about 90 minutes of uphill riding to reach the restaurant, yay! I had to wait around til 9am when the cafe opened, but it was worth it. Apparently I'm a coffee drinker now, having never had more than a few cups a year since I moved out on my own back when I was 17. The server/barista was very nice and informative, and the food was great. Not something I'll be able to do often, because of how much it costs, but I thought I deserved a treat after like 6 hours of climbing NFR, heh.After leaving Nepenthe, I headed out for the Big Sur State Park. I think it was only about half an hour before I arrived at Pfeiffer Big Sur, checked into the hike&bike area, and met friends. Hans, Scott, Mike, and later, Julian and Ellie. Hans was headed south later that day, but we all got to talk for a while and discuss lots of touring things and whatnot. It was really nice to come across other people with more experience than me; I learned a lot and it was jut nice to sit around and chat. I didn't really need a rest day, but I grew up camping in Big Sur, so it's kind of a special place for me and I wanted to hang around. Hans headed out later that afternoon to go to Nepenthe, before reversing my whole route back down to San Luis Obispo. It was so cool to be able to give turn by turn directions to someone visiting the area where I grew up! Someone mentioned a chance of rain so I called my awesome sister Jessica who informed me that yes, in fact, there was a 50% chance the next day, so I planned to leave early and beat it to Monterey.
Anyway, well all agreed that one big, long lasting fire made more sense than 4 small ones, so I built my first fire, which lit the very first try, thank you very much, and the rest of us hung out around the firepit in my camp spot. It was awesome hearing where everyone had been and where they were headed. I hope I have more encounters like this along my trip! I got up at 6:30am, worked on my bike for a bit to adjust the brakes and put some CO2 in my tires before heading north again. Julian and Ellie were up later and we said our goodbyes/good lucks before I left. I departed at about 8:50am, stopped a lot to take pictures, but always mindful of the fact that I wanted to beat the increasingly purple clouds to Monterey. Most of the way to Monterey and Carmel was ok, with only a few sections presenting that strong headwind. I ate like 4 apples, some dry salame, and a few bananas to stay fueled. Mostly climbing until I reached Garrapata where it flattened out a little. I rode through the construction sites and saw the damage that Rocky Creek had suffered, with half the road having fallen 300 feet into the Pacific Ocean below. I was blessed with not getting any flat tires, as I have had happen other times while riding through active construction sites. Hooray!
Upon finally reaching south Carmel, I stopped at a Shell station, my old favored pit stop location from when I used to fly up the 1 on my sportbike. I knew there was a very sever grade literally right around the corner, so I chugged a Gatorade, ate half a cinnamon roll, and set off to climb for what seemed like forever up this insanely steep ascent into the Carmel Highlands. I swore a lot, but eventually made it to the top and enjoyed the extremely fast descent into Monterey via Munras avenue. I stopped at Aquarian Bicycle shop to ask for some tips about my route towards Watsonville the next day, and to buy a Presta-to-Schrader valve adapter. This was unfortunately the last straw for my luck with avoiding the rain. It started coming down in the blink of an eye as soon as I left the bike store. I yelled a lot and booked it for Cannery Row, knowing just wherre I was headed: Starbucks! I illegally rode through the Lighthouse Drive Tunnel because it's awesome and sounds neat, and pops you right to Cannery Row, as well as keeping me a little more dry. The shopping area next to Starbucks has a little tunnel that leads back to more shops, where I planned to park my bike. I flew into the building and proceeded to wipe down the bike some. This is when I learned that full wrap fenders are awesome!
After getting cleaned up from the light soaking, I walked into Starbucks, ordered my coffee, and proceeded to unpack all my electronics and set up camp inside before locking the bike up. All in all it had taken about 4.5 hours to get from Big Sur to Monterey. It continued to rain for about an hour or so, maybe a bit more. then, just like back home, the sun came out and it was dry 2 hours later. I used the time to warm up, look at maps, answer emails, talk to family and friends, and the usual rest stop stuff. I retrieved my electric razor and ducked into the restroom to clean up. Looking and feeling like a non-bum type person is going to be really important to me for the duration of the voyage, as it turns out that most people, around here at least, don't trust men with beards, lol.
After waiting too long to find something to eat, I hurriedly packed everything up, profusely thanked the guy at the counter, and set off in search of food while headed to Veterans Park where I would be camping. I found a market off Pacific and bought some cheese, more salami, hard boiled eggs, a bag of dried cranberries, and this awesome wheat/rye sesame cracker bread stuff. I turned up Jefferson and began the grueling 30 minute climb to the par, which is built like a citadel up on a hill overlooking the bay. I found the hiker area, put my stuff down, changed shoes, and went off to pay my 5$. After getting settled, it was totally dark, so I hung a mini Maglite from the tree above the dewy bench so I could eat dinner. No sooner than I thought about how nice it would be if there were other bikers here too, 2 showed up! I think his name was Rolly, and he and his German friend had come from the north and were also headed for SLO! We hung out for a little while before the 3 of us retired for the night. I bedded down and slept very well, waking with the sun and no alarm. I took a hot shower, talked to Rolly and his friend some more, then rode back down to the waterfront to get something to eat and some coffee to get me all cracked out for the ride north.
I forgot to mention, one of the reasons I don't drink soda and have always avoided coffee is because I'm naturally pretty high strung anyways, and I am very sensitive to caffeine. When I am halfway done with a cup of coffee, I'm already wired and shaky, haha, but it's great for starting my rides because it lets me be all wired when I need to be. Anyway, I stopped at Bay Bikes on Cannery Row to see if they had a pump I could use to top off my tires. At 120 psi, they leak down about 8 psi a day due to the nature of the rubber which comprises the tubes themselves. Lucky for me there was a guy there opening the shop before they officially open for business, and he let me use a floor pump. I know I'm going to butcher your name and I'm really sorry...His name was Torren. He was interested in my choice of helmet and BG shoes, and the fact that I had no water bottles, just my Camelback, heh, so we got to talking about my trip and stuff. Super nice guy, incredibly helpful, recommended I head for Cafe LaStrata (Peets) instead of Sbux, so I headed there, right around the corner. I set my stuff down after parking the rig and here comes Torren on a bike with a basket full of 2 water bottles and 3 cages! He said the shop was going to contribute to my trip. I asked if there was anything I could do, or pay for them, and he kindly declined. I said I'd find the facebook page for the shop and be sure to mention it and his act of generosity. I thanked him a lot and set to work installing my new kit. After that, I had pasta salad and coffee for breakfast, checked my route for the day, and set off.
I got off to a really good start thanks to the Monterey Peninsula Recreational Trail that took me all the way to Castroville. Then I was on the freeway part of CA-1 north to Watsonville, which was an awesome descent! I stopped in Elkhorn at a produce stand that had a burrito-wagon type thing out front. I ordered 2 taquitos and a Gatorade and met another super nice guy who was amazed at what I was doing. I ate fast, dumped the Gatorade into one of my new water bottles and set off for Watsonville. Upon arriving there I reluctantly stopped at a Burger King to fill up my water bottles with ice water. I also ordered several double cheeseburgers, which ended up being a good and bad idea. I have not eaten fast food more than a few times a year since I gave it up in 2001. I hate it, and it makes me sick, but it is super cheap and super dense in calories, so I did it, in prep for the Hecker Pass grade coming up that day. All stocked up and very loaded down with all that water, I started up the 152 towards Hecker. It took a few hours but I finished the climb and took a pic at the top. Suck it, Hecker Pass! But it would have its revenge...
After that I kept descending down the back side of the mountain into the valley, and low and behold, a fierce headwind. Not a big deal when you're flying down a steep ass hill competing with car traffic, but once if flattened out and I made my next turn onto Watsonville Road, it became rather discouraging. The next several hours were rather dull, terrain was gently rolly, looked a lot like home too. It was warm and I was low ish on water so I tried to conserve, resting often. I kept doing rough math in my head trying to figure out how far San Jose was, and at some point I think I decided to just say screw it, and book it the rest of the way in one day. I passed the turn off for my planned campground and continued northeast. I passed IBM HQ on Bailey, and there I made a crucial wrong turn onto Monterey Road. The directions included a u-turn and some weird ramp that I got confused on. I ended up riding about an hour in the wrong direction before a helpful stranger informed me I was about to ride back into the hills south of San Jose!
I yelled some more, turned around, and booked it back the other way, all the while racing the quickly setting sun. I averaged almost 16mph back to maintown SJ and finally arrived at my friends Scott and Phil's house at about 8:40. Dead tired, I knocked on the door, said hi, then collapsed on the lawn to rest, haha. We talked some, discussed how crazy I am, then I took a shower and we went to IHOP, since it was the closest thing still open at 10pm. I was gifted my dinner and ate a lot of food until I was uncomfortably full. On the menu:
- A full pound of popcorn shrimp (post-cooked weight!)
- 2 Scrambled eggs
- 2 Sausage links
- Hash Browns
- French fries
- Sweet cream stuffed cinnamon raisin french toast topped with whipped cream and strawberry compote
- A carafe of water, taken straight from the carafe
