We had coffee at the tiny town of Elk in a general stores. The coffee was strong and the cakes very tasty. We returned to Highway 1 and met up with Scott, our driver, who had some good and bad news for us. Our hotel was not in Stewarts Point (we were referring to out of date information about hotel bookings) but much further on in Guerneville. Good news is that Scott thought location and lodgings were 'cool', bad news was that they were another 70kms further South and 20kms off course!! The plan was further complicated in that Maurice was required to sign important business contracts in San Diego and therefore needed to be in San Francisco to get a flight by 8pm. So we now had a much longer ride for the day and had to really push hard to get 'Maurice to the church on time'!! A plan was hatched for Scott to take all our luggage to the hotel, come back and pick up Maurice from the ride and drive him to San Francisco airport. And that was exactly what happened - so Vancomex is a rider down for the ride tomorrow with Maurice hopefully rejoining us in San Francisco.
Despite the long ride we were again rewarded with excellent weather, fantastic North California coastline and great road surfaces. We worked well together, the the kms passed by quickly. As we approached our lodging for the night several Vancomex tour records tumbled - for example: we reached our highest total climbing of 7,000ft for one day; the biggest calorie burn of 2,697; longest daily ride of 182 kms (114 miles); steepest slope at 16%, and fastest speed of 45mph. When we reached our lodgings (Cottages on the River) in Guerneville we had 1 more record for the tour - total ride time for a single day of 9hrs 8mins. We deserved our beer tonight !!
Tomorrow we have another 160km day planned - ouch! The good news is that we reach San Francisco and a REST DAY - hurrah!! We then meet up with another rider, Simon from the UK, who will be riding with us to the Mexican border. We are all looking forward to meeting up with him.
A few pictures below - balance from yesterday plus a selection from today.
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Meet Jim and Jill travelling from Vancouver
to San Francisco as part of a small group like ours
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Keep pumping those legs Tom
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Keep pumping those legs Tom
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| Climbing a hill and still puff to talk – fit boys! |
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Don’t throw the bikes over the cliff – there's
still a long way to go
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The coastal route we followed for 30k – magnificent cycling in great weather
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The coastal route we followed for 30k – magnificent cycling in great weather
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The coastal route we followed for 30k –
magnificent cycling in great weather
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The coastal route we followed for 30k – magnificent cycling in great weather
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Lunch stop – don’t be fooled by appearances – the Pizzas we had were great
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Was it the cycling, was it lunch, was
it the weather – all three!
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| Worryingly, this was before any beer |
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| Good peleton boys |
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| Surelt those buns are not all for you Maurice |
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| View from a loo in Elk where we had coffee |
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| Brain waving to the crowds that had lined our route |
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| I'd hate to see Tim angry! |
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| Guys we have a problem - you have to ride another 70kms today !! |
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| We saw these consistently along our route today but have no idea what flower they are. Can anyone help? |
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| Have you got everything on the shopping list Tim? |
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| Posing at the top of a long climb - superb views |
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| Posing at the top of a long climb - superb views |
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| Views at the top of one of our climbs before Jenner |
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| Seals near Jenner |
