Sunday, June 7, 2009

San Francisco to Vallejo - 75.6 mi - 75.6 cum
















What a day!! We started off with a 20 mile ride from our hotel in Burlingame to the beach to dip our wheels in the ocean. We then rode through the city to the Golden Gate bridge to cross over and start our ride East. Everybody pretty much rode together as we took a group picture at the beach. The wind was in our face pretty much all the way to our first SAG stop which was at the park at the end of the bridge. We are also being covered by a Korean film crew which is filming a documentary on one of our participants. I hope we get a chance to see it sometime. I rode pretty much with Dave and Sam. We just chugged along not pushing things too hard as we were still riding into the wind. After the second SAG stop, we got on a limited access highway, our first of the trip. The wind also turned into a tailwind. We were averaging 20 to 22 mph. I started to feel like I was in the Tour de France as I was eating a power bar and having a drink of water all the while I was going 22 mph at the end of a pace line. This is probably not going to happen too much more as we will be more spread out from now on. I was bringing up the rear of about 6 riders as we came into Vallejo. Three of the faster, younger riders took off and got out of sight by the time we came to our next turn. The two folks in front of me started to go straight but I got them to turn with me. The faster younger guys added another 5 miles to their ride! We got in after 6.5 hours of riding and another 2.5 hours of stopping. Total of 9 hours. I was tired. Immediately, took a shower and a 15 min power night. We will go to dinner at 6:00Pm and then it is early to Bed!!!

4 comments:

Laura said...

Wow!! What a first day!! Love the picture on the bridge and the ocean. Way to show up the "kids" in the group. I am sure you will sleep well.

Unknown said...

20-22 mph! Thats a pretty good clip. Hope you can keep up that pace. Go Leo!!!

Anonymous said...

More pedaling, less sightseeing.

Merlin said...

Eastward Ho! The VA