Jeff Bikes: A long day in the hills

Big Sur – Gorda

40 Miles

So I was having this big debate in my head about whether to make Gorda my goal for the day, or try to press on and ride all the way to San Simeon Village. Somehow I had misread the map and decided Gorda was only 25 miles away and that San Simeon Village was only about 55 miles away. That, and I quite underestimated the power of the hills to completely grind me down!

While out on my bike trips I go to bed with the notion that I’m going to be up and on the road by no later than 8 am the next morning; and, without fail I’m still swatting the snooze button at 8 am, and then slowly get things together and then go to breakfast, and it’s always 10 am or so before I’m actually on the road. And so it was this morning. I set out from the River Inn at just before 10 am, riding past a motorcycle gang that had stopped for a morning break at the outdoor tables in front of the restaurant. When I say “gang” what I really mean is a group of middle-aged Brazilians (judging by the many Brazilian flags on the back of their bikes). We exchanged friendly waves and then I was off.

The ride started in the shadows and dappled light of the dense evergreen forest of Big Sur, with the huge trees growing right at the edge of the road. Every few minutes the forest would give way briefly to small meadows of wild grass and flowers. Once while stopping to take a picture I noticed that I had 1 bar on my cell phone and had received a couple of text messages. I took advantage of this tiny oasis of Verizon coverage and sent a couple of texts back. Within a few minutes the road turned steeply upward and trees gave way to a nice warm sun and I started up what turned out to be a 4-mile, relatively steep ascent at about 4 mph.

I must confess to being a rather slow rider to begin with. Given an average terrain on an average day and I’ll average about 11-12 mph. There are times when I can average more, but unless I’m focusing on it, I tend to always lapse back to my natural speed. And I’m a very slow ascender as well. So at 4 mph for 4 miles, the first hour of my day was just going up, and with the sun beating down through a cloudless sky, it was rather warm as well. While riding up I start wondering “when is this going to top out”? I would be able to see the road going up and then disappear into a turn and from the position of the trees and the height of the hill as I could see it, I would often think I was near the top, only to round the corner and see another stretch of road continuing upwards to another bend.

If you ever find yourself cycling up this road, I’ll tell you that when you see the Ventana sign on the left, you only have a couple hundred more feet to go. As I finally rode into the top of the mountain I went from sunny and hot to foggy and cold almost instantly.

When I say “foggy” I mean very thick, can’t see more than a couple hundred feet ahead fog. I dug out my jacket and started descending the other side of the hill. Before long I could tell that the terrain fell away steeply on the right and I could hear the ocean below and the occasional barking of sea lions, but it was a good half hour or so before I got low enough and the fog thinned enough for me to look down and just make out the contrast of white foam surrounding dark rocks below. The fog remained thick for the remainder of the morning. At one point I became aware of the fog racing up the hill ahead. If you’ve ever opened a freezer door on a warm, humid day and watched the mist fall from the freezer onto the floor, it was like that. It was being blown in from the ocean and when it hit the steep hills it was being pushed up the side of the mountain.

The fog his the beautiful ocean views from me, but still yielded some spectacular landscapes on occasion when I could see the tops of trees in valleys below poking up through the fog.

The day went on and my progress was just slow as I made my way up and down these hills. Thirty minutes at 4 or 5 mph up a hill followed by 5 minutes down, and then another hill. I stopped for a geocache at the location of a spring where someone had built an outdoor courtyard enclosing a drinking fountain and a couple of picnic tables. Unfortunately this has fallen into disrepair many years ago and looked like an ancient ruin. I must have been a really lovely spot in its day. By the time I rolled into Lucia I was starting to get pretty tired, and Gorda (the stop I had imagined “blowing past” on my way to San Simeon Village) was still 12 miles away.

All day long I had been playing tag with the Brazilian biker gang. I can’t believe these guys were moving this slowly. I would catch and pass them as they were lingering at some scenic overlook, and then they would pass me further down the road. I caught them again at the general store in Lucia and they passed me again in the one-lane construction zone.

Not far from Lucia I ran into another single-lane construction zone where we were stopped for a good 20 minutes. Apparently they stop traffic in both directions for 15 minutes at a time (presumably to do work that blocks the single lane) and then lets it flow one direction, and then the other, and then blocks it again for 15 minutes.

A few miles past Lucia I entered Pacific Valley which was absolutely beautiful. Wild carpets of wild flowers everywhere and a beautiful view of fingers of land that extended out into the ocean, forming miles of cliffs.

Just past the valley on a very steep section of road I caught my Brazilian biker gang for the last time of the day, taking another break at another scenic outlook. Several members cheered me on as I slowly pedaled my way up the hill.

Finally…FINALLY just before 5 pm I came up over a hill and saw the restaurant, general store and inn at Gorda. Seven hours of riding today! I checked in and then hauled my bike and gear up the stairs and into a dated but very homey room with a fireplace and…Jacuzzi bath! I’m not really a “bath” kind of guy, but I will tell you that here I made an exception and thoroughly Jacuzzi’d myself.

And now it’s 9:40 am on Tuesday and I’m propped up in bed in front of the fireplace working on the blog. Time to get a move on!