After a short evening of partying at the
Ratatouille wrap party I went back to
the hotel on Saturday night to try and catch a few hours of sleep.
The revelers coming back at 02.30 woke me up, but that was a small
price to pay for not having to trek back to the East Bay overnight.
At 04.00 I woke up and got dressed to meet Chris at his hotel at
about 04.30. I went next door where the after party was still going
on and said my fairwell to the people still in suits and quite
wasted from the party and after-party. It was a little surreal
seeing all the people partying and a little saddening knowing I
gave that up on purpose, but it’s for a better cause. I walked
across the street and waited on Chris to come down to the lobby
where we then got a cab over to the Cow Palace. We arrived amongst
the throngs of people and took our bags over to gear truck I.
After that we went into the building and got some breakfast. It was
small and I wasn’t too hungry at the time, but I knew I’d need some
fuel in me to get through the day. We then met up with Sal and
Kevin in the hallway. After waiting around for the opening
ceremonies to end we were allowed into our bikes and then we got to
wait around for a little longer before we could queue up and walk
around the building. As we were rolling out we saw Colin and Andrew
in their suits cheering us on. It was awesome that they came out to
see us off after being up all night to party.
As we rode out we were once again in a big mass of riders taking up
the entire side of the street we were on. It’s the only time that
we purposefully break the single file rule so that we can all get
on the road in a timely manner. I skipped the first rest stop as it
was pretty close to the start (7 miles or so) and it looked like a
mad house. The distances seemed a little shorter this year so far
and I quickly found myself at the water stop next to the reservoir.
I rode out from there with Tia and we just did a steady pace up
CA-35 towards Half Moon Bay. At the top we saw Ken and Kako
drumming the taiko drums just like last year. There were some
awesome strawberries and this peaunut butter and fudge brownie like
thing that was to die for.
Different this year was that at the top of the hill we didn’t get
to continue down and into Half Moon Bay because of construction. We
instead turned right and began a long climb up to around 2000’ of
elevation, the new highest point on the ride. The climb reminded me
of Mt. Diablo a bit, not too steep, just long. Eventually we got to
Rest Stop 2 and it was jammed with riders. We only stayed long
enough to tank up on food and water and hit the latrine before we
were off again, climbing a bit until we got to the excellent
downhill that took us to lunch. At lunch those of us that were
around (Steve, Thomas, Chris, Tia, and I) got interviewed for a new
recruiting video. It will be interesting to see if we get used in
that, I’ll request one when they become available. Afterwards we
all took off and stayed together. We had stayed a little longer
than we wanted to at lunch so we kicked it into high gear and did
the 20 miles to Rest Stop 3 in just at an hour. We only had a quick
stop there and I realized I didn’t look at the cue sheet earlier,
but the route was 10 miles longer than last year. After that we
rode on and at some point I got tired enough to fall a little
behind of the group. We rolled into Santa Cruz and I once again saw
the woman holding the sign with her son on it and the words “Thank
You”. I pulled over and gave her a hug and thanked her for coming
out all day to show our support. I rode on through Santa Cruz and
got to bike parking only a couple of minutes after the group. I
thought I had seen them ahead of me but I had no idea I almost
caught them. I got my gear and with Chris ate dinner then showered.
I was worn out as this first day was much harder than last years.
We both crashed pretty early, looking forward to our next day, the
century ride (100+ miles).