VANCOMEX: 09/22/12

We were concerned about how long it could take to cycle out of San Francisco, so we agreed to set off at 7.30am and Scott would use his local knowledge to lead us out on his bike as far as the Golden Gate Park. Before setting off there was an official 'map and navigator kit' handover from Chris to Brian (see picture). Brian takes over the navigator role for the next 5 days of the tour. Simon (Maurice's cousin) has joined Team Vancomex for the remainder of the journey and today was his first day of riding with us.

It was great to cycle through San Francisco early on a Saturday morning when the traffic was light and see again a number of the glorious sites we had seen on the city bus tours the previous day (Tom for the first time as he slept through the tours!). Cycling through the Golden Gate Park was a particular pleasure. Scott left us to find our own route from the park to Santa Cruz - not a peddle revolution wrong the whole day!.

Once out of San Francisco we hit some headwinds with Maurice leading our Peleton. He continued to lead when we hit the hills at Daly City and blasted on even harder leaving us all behind. This was followed by some more high speeds (40+kms) along flat roads for over 5 kilometres. Maurice had returned to San Diego for business and missed a day of the ride before rest day. The Vancomex team, after experiencing his performance on the bike today, are now questionning whether his absence was in fact work related or a visit to Lance Armstrong's chemist or an overnight stay in an oxygen tent?

At 10.30 we stopped off at Half Moon for coffee and waffles with blueberries, cream and maple syrup- magnificent. After our stop we continued to hug the coastline and stopped off at Pigeon Point lighthouse, the tallest in the USA and California's oldest working lighthouse. A very enjoyable detour where we met an American family on a three berth tandem - mum, dad and daughter cycling to Los Angeles for a date with Disney World (see picture).

Around 2.00 pm we stopped at a campground at Ano Nuevo for lunch - 3 eight piece pizzas between six of us made the hills that followed a bit more challenging!! Reaching rolling roads again we pushed on through Davenport to our lodging for the night at Santa Cruz.

Today was a relatively easy day, only 87 miles of cycling and 4000 feet of hills to climb, but we all suffered at various times throughout the day with tiredness. However, another excellent day's cycling. Commendably, Simon, despite jet lag and riding a borrowed bike from Maurice easily kept pace with the group. For this we rewarded him 'Outstanding Cycling of the day' during our evening meal.

Also during the evening meal we had the nominations for TWIT of the day. The award went to Tim for leaving his favourite sweater in the restaurant at the previous evening meal. It was only retrieved by the waitor running along the street to return it to Tim. Another contributory factor was his keenness to show Brian and Chris how to operate the hotel's guest washing machine.