The ride rolled out at a fairly mellow pace, there were a couple of short, sharp climbs to get the legs warmed up but nothing too bad.
Things broke up a little on the way to Big Sur with a fairly large group still together over the initial smaller climbs to the first rest stop. I rolled into the rest stop with the lead group and we quickly refilled our bottles. The scenery had been fantastic and there was more great riding to come.
As we left Big Sur we started the climb with a fast group of about 20 people. Hailey and her friends Beth and Katya started to drift back and eventually started to drop off the back. I started pushing Hailey to keep her in touch with Beth but we were losing ground.
Jim Barkow was with me for a while but had to leave and bridge up to the group to avoid getting left behind on the descent.
We started the descent and I picked up Beth and Katya and started another long bridge back to the group. We flew down the descents and I tried to keep things rolling on the smaller uphills. We rolled up on two other riders but it seems that they were tired and sat on while I pulled for a while.
After about 20 - 30 minutes I could see the group about a minute ahead of us on a short climb. We didn't catch them on this climb but after bombing another descent we could see we had halved the gap at the start of the next climb.
I led the group half way up the climb until most of us were in easy striking distance of the back of the lead group. Everyone made it on except Hailey who had been dropped off the back again with the acceleration to bridge up.
I drifted back to help her again and gave her another push up the next climb and on the next descent. As the road flattened out we made it onto the back of the group to cheers from Drew and Barkow. We stayed in this group to the next rest stop at Lucia.
After the stop at Lucia the group was in a different mood with attacks and hard riding on all the climbs. The group was whittled down to about 15 guys and they were obviously looking for Strava points. On a number of occasions a couple of guys would roll off the front only to be brought back by a hard tempo on the next climb. I was hanging with the lead group, suffering but not in trouble until we reached the top of what was to be the last climb of the day. I fell off the back of the lead group of about 10 guys by about 20 yards. I pushed on the descent but could only maintain, not close the gap. I was in luck though as in another 1/4 mile we hit the lunch stop at Ragged Point.
We were 80 miles into the ride and the last 20 had been hard. Getting Hailey and her friends back to the group had cost me more than I thought and I hadn't had the energy to close the gaps on the final climb. I probably needed something easier than a 23 tooth cog on the back too.
Team DODOcase at lunch.
The girls left the lunch stop about 10 minutes ahead of us thinking we would easily catch them during the remaining 45 miles of the day. We had a small group on the road and after about 25 miles we still hadn't caught up with the girls, but we were caught from behind by a large and fast moving group. We eventually caught the girls and had about 30 people now and we were flying.
The last 15 miles flew by as we rolled into Morrow Bay with a total of 125 miles and about 8000 feet of climbing. Once we'd found the hotel we didn't even check in, Hailey and I went straight to the convenience store and bought protein shakes, then hit the Taco shop across the street for some fantastic tacos and chips which we demolished in short order.
After that it was back to the hotel for a shower and a nap. The only thing I wanted to get up for was more food.
Food for the day.
Breakfast: Egg sandwich, cinabun and OJ
Ride: 2 Tortillas, 2 Honey Stingers, Bag of Lays chips, handful of French Fries, 4 bottles and one Curly Whirly from the UK.
Location:Days Inn Main Street Morro Bay
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