by Philip

Day’s mileage : 74

Running total : 1,642

And then there were two! We had set an early alarm this morning, waking at 6am as we have a 69 mile ride to do today to get to King City – the first half of the detour around Big Sur. Cathy had just landed at Heathrow when our alarm went off. The morning started grey, with mist swirling through the trees at the cottage. We were ready in record time, and after a breakfast of waffles and porridge we headed off at 8:20. There’s an initial climb of 200’ to the top of the forest, then 700’ descent to sea level in Monterey. We glimpsed the sea and then turned north along the coast, following a trail which will take us inland. We heard church bells tolling, and passed a food kitchen serving hot breakfast to the homeless next to the trail – it  looked delicious – with loud upbeat music playing as they ate. The day was still grey at this point with the sun’s disc occasionally visible – but at least we don’t have much headwind!

It turned out that the first 12 miles retraced the route which brought us into Monterey on Thursday. We stopped to bid the ocean farewell and laughed at a sign at the end of the road saying “end” just before the sea. This was Sand City, with warning signs of drifting sand. We passed a group of young men running up a steep dune, cheering each other on as they got to the top. Riding through the new town of Marina (lots of construction and new houses) we came to California State University Monterey Bay, known by the snappy moniker CSUMB. The road for the next 4 miles took us through unfamiliar territory – low trees, high grass, no view and lots of ground squirrels – but also few cars so it was very peaceful. At nearly 17 miles, with only 9% of battery used, we stopped for snack #1 and some blogging, sitting outside the community meeting room in the town of East Garrison. 

Emerging from the town down a nice hill the geography suddenly changed, and we were back in agricultural land, with a strong smell of rotting leaves after the first field had been harvested. We passed miles of strawberries and unidentified vegetables, with the fields on our left and the Big Sur range of mountains on our right – we will follow this range pretty much all the way to King City. It’s very pretty, and the sun has come out too. The road is wide and smooth and we have a decent tailwind – rolling along at 20mph without any motor assistance. 

We turned off after a bit onto a beautifully quiet road – maybe one car every 5 minutes – and rode past miles of vineyards, artichokes, acres of crops under poly tunnels and elaborate irrigation systems. There’s no harvesting today as it’s Sunday, but the berries look ripe. The wind continues to assist – at the halfway point with 35 miles on the clock I’ve only used 12% battery – something of a record! I’ll stop going in about it now – but on a long day like today range is key!

The only issue with a long straight road through fields is that there is little shade or sitting available. We eventually stopped at an elementary school and borrowed one of their lunch tables which was open to the road. There was shade and protection from the wind which was just what we needed. We had 25 miles to go, and I needed to sort out shipping Cathy’s bike back to Sam in McKinleyville – we left it at a shop in Monterey yesterday but I needed weight and dimensions of it when packaged and hadn’t heard anything so I called the shop, then spent a somewhat frustrating 45 minutes arranging a UPS pick up via an intermediary company recommended by Sam … end result is a 58% discount on UPS rates, and delivery to him on Wednesday which works very well for him. While I was ploughing through this process, Liz got cold and stiff so she headed off while I finished off, and she started to negotiate what became a challenging remainder of the day’s journey.

Komoot kept sending us on paths through the vineyards, often with “no trespassing” signs, so we had to replan on several occasions. This resulted in turning from the south (huge tailwind) to the east … and it turns out a strong crosswind is worse even than a headwind … even with lots of motor assist it was hard to keep straight. We wound our way through miles of vineyards – huge in area – some newly planted and some old vines. One individual area had 205 marked rows, with 8’ between them – and this was just one of countless individual planted areas. We passed many wine companies – some offering tasting (we didn’t stop!) and one with 20 enormous steel containers for grape juice and fermentation.

With a final throw of the Komoot dice we ended up doing 10 miles at high speed (tailwind!) on the 101 which was a dual carriageway with good shoulder, and got to King City at 5:30. After a little shopping we arrived, tired but happy, at our motel for the night. 

Oh – and the final battery usage … 35% used for 74 miles … I’m very chuffed!