benweir.com

Click for a bigger map

I've loved the Pacific Ocean and the California coast for as long as I can remember so what better way to spend a Saturday than ride alongside the water for 80 miles from San Francisco to Santa Cruz? No better ways came to my mind and so this is how I spent my Halloween 2009.

Due to the logistics of doing this ride I ended up logging 127 miles for the day (a double metric century) with about 5300 feet of climbing.

The first logistical hurdle was getting from my house in Los Gatos up to San Francisco. Caltrain was the obvious choice. The first train departs San Jose at 7:00am and so on Friday night (actually Saturday morning by the time I finally went to bed) I set my alarm for 6:00am. The first thing I noticed when waking up is that it sure was dark out. I definitely don't get up this early on weekdays! The second thing I noticed was that the atmosphere was saturated with water. Little misty droplets floating everywhere. You could practically grab fistfuls of air/water and have it drip down your fingers. Luckily I had on a water proof windbreaker to keep my jersey from getting soaked.

It was a 7.5 mile ride up to the Caltrain station (not depicted on the map) and as I got closer, the fog thinned out and eventually dissipated completely until it was just an overcast layer. After buying my ticket ($7.75, ouch) I first went to the wrong platform only to discover it was an Amtrak train bound for Sacramento. Whoops. So then I committed a major sin and actually rode my bike through the pedestrian walkways and made it to the right platform with just a couple minutes to spare. The conductor chastised me for not walking my bike but overall he seemed in a good mood and let me board without any real hassle.

On the weekends the trains stop at Every. Single. Station. This means It took me an hour and a half to get to SF. I tried sleeping but to no avail. There are 25 stops on the line with an average interval of about 4 minutes between stops. I would start to doze off only to be awakened a couple minutes later by the noise associated with each stop: the conductor announcing stops on the PA system, the ding each time the doors open and close, people getting on and off. Slightly frustrating.

In San Francisco it was still overcast. I quickly hit the road and began working my way out to the coast via the edge of the SF Peninsula via Embarcadero, Bay St, and Marina Blvd. Finally the "real" ride was underway! Some excitement came as I neared Lands End when El Camino del Mar unexpectedly dead ended in Lincoln Park. Google maps shows this as a through street but actually the road ends and then there is a walking trail that continues onward. The walking trail is dirt and immediately starts with a series of steps that wind down and to the left. From the top it's impossible to see how far the stairs continue. But luck was with me and two other road cyclists were just carrying their bikes up when I got there. They told me there weren't very many stairs and then the trail would soon flatten out and be rideable (albeit still dirt). So off I went. Good thing too because to backtrack would have added a lot of miles and frustration.

For most of the first 25 or so miles of the day I felt pretty blah. Not enough sleep and having biked the previous 6 days combined to rob my legs of their usual vigor. Perhaps lack of coffee contributed as well? But upon reaching Pacifica I was finally able to shrug that all off and get into a good strong pace. This is also when the clouds gave way to blue skies for the first time all day. Coincidence? Since this was the first time all day I really felt good on the bike I call it getting my first wind.

At Half Moon Bay the fog began again. It was a thin layer at first, the kind where the sky looks white but if you look straight up there is still blue visible. But it gradually thickened up and enveloped me once more. Too bad that it deprived me of my ocean view but the fog has its own appeal from how it seems to wrap you up in a bubble of your very own. Car traffic was light. There were virtually no other cyclists out. Not much to see but white sky and a white stripe on the ground.

Near Tunitas Creek Rd the cyclist population exploded. Several large groups passed by in the opposite direction and they kept coming until I made the left turn onto Stage Rd. At this point I'd been riding straight through from the SF Caltrain station with the exception of a quick stop in Pacifica to use the porta-potty. I considered stopping in San Gregorio but was really feeling great and still had adequate water so I decided to press on to Pescadero. This leg turned out to be around 54 miles and it was really nice to cover a big chunk of ground after the long, slow train ride.

My lunch at Arcangeli consisted of a pastrami sandwich, Odwalla drink, and a couple fresh baked sugar cookies that I'd never seen there before. The were only 25 cents each and after my meal I went back and bought 3 more for the road! Pescadero, being inland a little, was sunny and it was nice to soak up some warmth while eating on the bench out front.

Then back out to the foggy coast. The sandwich was a bit heavy in my stomach and it took a few miles to get back into a good rhythm. But at the Pigeon Point lighthouse the fog finally ended again and I was feeling good in the saddle. I didn't feel the need to stop in Davenport but as I cruised through a hitchhiker wished me Happy Halloween which brought a smile to my face.

I did stop at New Leaf in Santa Cruz which is a nice natural foods store that recently moved a couple blocks away from their old location. I still wasn't very hungry after my hefty lunch but wanted to get caffeinated for the upcoming big climb. So I got some iced coffee and ate one of my sugar cookies. Then back on the bike without too much delay. This second leg ended up being 34 miles

The final stretch of the ride took me from sea level up and over Mountain Charlie Rd which tops out at around 1900 feet. Until this point I'd been doing a lot of flat, some small rollers, and a few hills in the 200-300 foot range but nothing sustained and I was actually excited by a "real" hill to climb. Mt. Charlie road has a few really steep sections (over 10%) but it also has plenty of shallow grades and even some short downhill stretches so it's easy to recover. I set a nice sustainable pace and made it to the top with no problems. Then a lovely descent of Old Santa Cruz Hwy and some off-roading on the Los Gatos Creek trail brought me home.

This last leg was 31 miles. Combine that with the first two legs and also with my initial 7.5 mile ride to Caltrain and I got 127.4 on the day. Riding time was about 8:05 and total time (not including Caltrain) was about 8:55 so about 50 minutes of stops. One last notable fact is that I had virtually zero headwind for the entire ride. If only that could happen every time!