Day 5: Plasket Ridge to Carmel

June 4, 2010

After hitting the bed early last night, we were up early again (6:15) and on the road by 7:30. Ae were on the most awful roads we have seen so far on the trip. Construction everywhere, poor surfaces, bumpy, rough, only 1 lane where the rest of the road fell into the sea etc. 15miles into the ride will had the first flat of our trip.



At the end of the video I said we need to watch out...well 3miles later, Mike hit a rock in the road on a descent and hit the ground hard. Still being early morning, there were no cars in sight and we all hopped off our bikes and ran to help him. He was pretty banged up but we were VERY relieved that it wasn't worse. His facce was scratched up and some road rash, with only one deep cut which I cleaned and hit with a butterfly bandage. We fixed his bike to it was ride-able (it still needed a shop), but Mike was feeling ok to ride, so we headed onward.



Later, here we are at the top of a climb, still heading toward Big Sur:



Today and yesterday were harder than we expectd because of the large amount of climbing up and down the coast (you are either going up or down the entire time), and as cyclists know, the climbs are where different fitness levels really are separated, so we ended up splitting on each of the climbs and regrouping at the top. In an attempt to even out the weight, I took both tents and the cooking equipment, but we were still split up quite frequently.

Big Sur turned out to be just a long climb inland over a big mountain, but honestly, the mountains south of the town (near Will's flat tire) were more impressive (they were just soo steep that you couldn't build a town or resort there, so they built the resort more north. We stopped in the town though for lunch at a deli and the rode the rest of the way to Carmel where we were staying with one of Mike's family friends. We ate an entire bag of tortilla chips and salsa, showered and went down to see the beach and town. We stopped at a sweets shop where we got ice cream/chocolate pretzels/ and I had a caramel apple (fitting since we were in Carmel)



And who knew? Pebble Beach is here! Host of the 2010 US open which is apparently next weekend! What a beautiful golf course.

Distance: 60.99
Total Distance: 358.1
Time: 4:37:31