San Francisco to Santa Cruz

So where are our bikes? This is the question we were asking the gate agent upon our arrival at SFO. After a nice flight on the very hip Virgin America Airlines (check out the purple and blue lighting in the planes), we were suddenly faced with the reality that our bikes might not have made the trip on the plane with us. After an hour of checking and re-checking, the bike boxes were finally located – apparently they had been sent to customs – so much for a hip airline.

The bikes, once found, arrived in good shape. Gary brought all of his measurements from his Trek in France and we used those to dial in his new bike – it fit like a glove. We pumped up the tires, changed into our riding gear and we were off by 9:30.

Todays ride consisted of climbing from SFO to the coast, which was a climb of about 800 feet with a headwind. Both Gary and I were flowing with adrenaline so the climb didn't see too bad. We had a great downhill to Pacifica and onto highway 1 and on our way down the coast to Santa Cruz.

We enjoyed a lovely tailwind while we made our way down south. We had many small climbs and we stopped breifly at mile 25 to get some gatorade and cliffbars. We thought we would stop for lunch after Half Moon Bay, but we found nothing except beautiful wind swept coastline until mile 60, where we stopped for lunch in Davenport. 12 miles later, we were in Santa Cruz and our 73 mile ride was done at an average of 16.4 miles per hour. Both Gary and I are feeling today's ride and tonight, we go to bed early with thoughts of tomorrows ride from Santa Cruz to Big Sur.

Both bikes performed without any problems. The backpacks took a little getting used to – our backs and necks are feeling today's ride, but nothing a few pills won't be able to help. We will leave earlier tomorrow and plan to stop more often – thats the plan!