The Cog Blog

Wednesday – Big Sur to Morrow Bay.  As I lie awake in bed at 4am I can hear the rain start pounding down outside.  No…No…No.  not again.  I cant look outside, I lay there for 2 more hours wishing it away.  Around 6 am it has stopped and the sun is starting to rise.  I take a look.  Wet but not raining!  As the sun rises I see a clear blue sky.  Today is going to be epic, I can tell already.  Some oatmeal, lots of coffee a clean dry kit and we’re off.  Route 1 south all the way to Morrow Bay.

We start with a 5 mile climb that works well to take the cool morning chill off.  We are all talking about how glad we are that we didn’t have to do this climb at the end of the ride yesterday.  Up we go, warm sun beating down the views are unbelievable, spectacular.  This ride will go down as one of my top 5 rides ever.  Heading south on 1, the pacific on our right, rolling up and down all the way to Morrow Bay.  The red van came by often to give us more water and food as we headed south and the day heated up.  There’s not much along this 100 mile stretch with about 5500 feet of climbing other than the natural landscape.  We saw hundreds of seals spread over a mile or so of beach that came inland to mate.  You could see for miles from the tops of cliffs that weaved down the coast.  Rain yesterday?  What rain?  I already forgot about it.  About halfway down the group had split, come together and split again and I was in a group with Mike and his domestique Chris (who’s last name is Italian for Slow Down), Dan, Elliot and John.  We put it down and worked really well together for the last 40 miles, hammered it out never looking back.

For the second day in a row all I had consumed after breakfast was enough shot bloks, gu and fig newtons to feed a small village for a week.  I needed some real food, something that didn’t come in a plastic pouch.  On the way through morrow bay we passed a taquarilla and this time when I asked “taco’s anyone?” Elliot agreed to join me.  The plan was to shower, hop back on the bikes a pedal a few miles down the road to the feast.  After the shower and on the way out we walked through the lobby to and saw the happy hour buffet.  Chicken wings and pizza.  Now we had a problem, spin a few miles down the road and get some tacos or belly up to the buffet for wings and a cold beer.  The rest of the group hadn’t arrived yet as we pondered our options.  Food now won and while looking out over morrow bay I consumed at least 20 wings and a few beers by the time the rest of the group rolled in.  We followed that up with a pasta dinner about an hour later where a very large amount of pasta was consumed in a rather short period of time along with some salad and lots of bread.  We ate as we watched the sun set over morrow bay.  After dinner we moved to the bar for some wine and to share stories and pics from the day’s ride as we waited our turn for our daily massage.  When I returned from my massage I found everyone where I left them however most of them were now enjoying burgers and fries!  Gil and I returned at the same time and looked at each other “burger?”  “oh yea!”  2 more burgers and fries please.  Not sure if it was the burger, the wine, the massage or what but I finally had a good night sleep.  In bed by 10, woke to the alarm at 6 ready to do it all again.

Tuesday ride – Morgan Hill to Big Sur.  6am rise and shine, I’ve been up since 3, not adjusted to the left coast time.  At least I got about 4 solid hours of sleep.  I loaded up with as much oatmeal, eggs and bacon that I could, but I really needed something to jump start me.  It was pouring out and temps were in the low 40’s, it was 6:30 so it was still dark out.  Two days ago I was riding in shorts.  Kind of hard to get motivated for a 100+ mile ride over a bowl of oatmeal looking out the window into dark cold rain.  The night before at dinner JT told me there was a Peets next door.  Perfect, just the jumpstart I needed.  I recruited Gil and John to walk a few hundred yards in the rain with me to get a morning jolt.  Turned out to be a very wise move.  One large Sumatra with 2 shots of espresso later and I was good to go.  Off to HQ we went to meet up with a handful of crazies that were going to join us on the first day of riding…it was supposed to be more than a handful, but the others when looking out the window in the morning decided discretion was the better part of valor and bailed.  So as we’re sitting there making last minute adjustments, talking about the weather forecast that says it is going to be like this all day, I hear some one singing over and over “one of these things is not like the other ones…” I look around a little closer…everyone is in at least leg warmers, most in tights or rain pants, and everyone has booties on.  Not shoecovers, not toe warmers, full on insulated booties.  Here’s me, in my light rain jacket that can fit into my pocket when I take it off (I would never take it off today, being able to shove it into your pocket is only a feature if it stops raining and you do take it off) and knee warmers, sans any kind of shoe cover.  It is then I realize he is singing the song to me.  “do you think I need booties?” not sure why I asked, I didn’t have any!   Didn’t have anything more then knee warmers either.  “dude…you don’t have any booties?”  “nope”  It was then I realized most of the group was looking at me like I was crazy.  Then one of the specialized guys tells me he knows where there is a pair if I can wear a medium.  “I’m I medium, I’ll take what ever you have”  Brand new insulated neoprene goodness.  Bottles are full, pockets are jammed with as many Shot Bloks and Gu packs as I can fit.  Ready to roll.

We all roll out into pouring rain, sometimes coming down sideways.  Cold to the bone.  We have about 10 miles until we hit the first climb over Heckler pass coming out of Morgan Hill.  I really want the climb to come quickly because I need to get warm and I know that a few mile long climb will do the trick.  About two miles in I’m soaked to the bone everywhere except my upper body, the jacket is doing the trick and keeping me dry.  Half way up the climb and I am warm, wet, but warm and climbing felt good, about 100 miles to go and it couldn’t get any worse.  We get to the top and are treated with a nice descent, but due to the rain we take it easy through the turns and get to the bottom in one piece, still warm.  Rolling on the flats heading southwest to the coast was great.  It rained off and on but we were making the best of it chatting it up, getting to know each other and having a ball.  We make a stop at a little convenience store in the middle of nowhere surrounded by farms.  People fuel up on Coke, beef jerkey, pop tarts and the like.  Before leaving, Lee, the official ride photog, snaps a picture of the middle eastern store owner behind the counter.  Mini eruption follows, I exit quickly as I am hearing “no pictures…you need to delete that picture”  (say this yelling in your best mid eastern accent while pointing your finger…get the picture?) We wind our way to the coast and hit Monterey.  By this point we have broken up into a few groups and I find myself with the specialized employees and two other dealers.  The big red van catches us, passes us and stops.  We pull over and refill bottles and reload with more bloks and gu.  I eat a handful of the best tasting fig Newtons I have ever had.   It is this point where I realize we have gone about 60 miles and I’ve drank only one bottle of water, probably due to the cold and rain.  With more than 40 miles to go this is going to be a problem.  Blowing through Monterey I see a few taco huts “anyone want to stop for a taco?” I ask.  No takers so we take in the very cool scenes as we roll through town and out to 17 mile drive that will lead down to Carmel winding through Spy Glass and Pebble Beach.  I’m not a golfer so they don’t mean a lot to me, but it was pretty cool to see these golf courses on the cliffs over the Pacific.  Carmel was equally as scenic and eclectic, with more taco huts so I ask again, “burrito anyone?”  and again, no takers.  I settle for a pack of Bloks and a Gu.  Would have much rather had the burrito and let the rest of the group catch up.  On we go out to route 1 and head south with Big Sur as our target.  We’ve got a good group and are working well together trying to hammer out the last 40 or so miles on the very rolling, very windy and mostly rainy Rt 1.  What a beautiful ride down the coast, even in the rain, some of the best scenery I’ve ever seen on a bike.  We’re most of the way there and we’re a tired group.  We stop at the top on one of the larger climbs of the day to take inventory and realize we are all out of water.  All day long the red van had been handing out food and water at what seemed like every few miles.  We haven’t seen the van in a few hours.  Turns out the group, or lack there of, behind us was blown apart from a combination of flats, mechanicals, headwinds and fatigue so the van was tending to 15 or so guys spread out over a large stretch of road.  We were cooked and I wasn’t sure how much farther we had to go, and I didn’t really want to know, just wanted to get to it and knock it out.  As we were contemplating our plan with no water, off in the distance was the red van coming up the climb.  Life saver.  Refill bottles and pockets have a few more fillet mig-fig Newtons and off we go.  The last 15 or so was up and down ending with a few mile climb up to Big Sur.  We end with about 110 miles and 5500 feet of climbing.  Have to say I was very happy to see that sign and pull into the Big Sur Lodge, go to my cabin and stand under a hot shower for about 15 minutes.  Dinner was Lasagna and lots of it, followed by a massage and in bed at 10.  Asleep by 11 and up again at the crack of 3am (6am my time).  I almost forgot, 2 of the guys from Specialized turned around at Big Sur and RODE THEIR BIKES BACK TO MORGAN HILL!  They got 220 in that day!  Wow.

Arrived today in sunny (not) California.  Its always sunny in California, right?  Well not this week.  If you’ve been following the tour of California you’ve seen the nonstop rain since the prologue on Saturday.  I arrived today to temps in the low 50’s and constant rain coming down.  At least my bike made it with me, it was a relief to see it come out of the oversize baggage door at baggage claim.  Got picked up by the big red S van and taken to HQ to put my bike togther.  Got it together and out for a quick spin in the mist then to dinner.  Tomorrow is a 90ish mile ride.  Should be beautiful…except for that it is going to be in the 40’s and raining all day, at least it is supposed to warm up to the 50’s later in the afternoon.  A day on the bike is better than a day not on the bike!

Watch Out!   Ron and Eddie are on the loose with their new bikes.  Ron and Eddie both work for the Catawba Nuclear station and are on the fire brigade, so when they are not training to put out nuclear meltdowns ( I know they really don’t melt ) they are training on the bikes for some serious road riding.   Ron and Eddie and several others of the motley crew have a Blue Ridge Parkway trip planned for later this year, where they are going to tackle the Lower Sections near Asheville.  Enjoy the new bikes, we can’t wait to see the pics from Asheville.

Want to convert your mountain bike to a singlespeed?  Dont want to use a chain tensioner?  You dont have to!  You dont need sliding dropouts or an EBB either!  We just converted a Gary Fisher Paragon 29er, check it out.  We started by recycling old stretched out Dura Ace and SRAM hollow pin chains that came off our road bikes.  Next step is deciding on gearing.  For around here 32×17, 18, or 19 is the way to go and will get you around pretty much any local trail.  So we started with an 18 and pretty quickly found a perfectly stretched chain to fit snugly on a 32×18 with the help of a kmc link.  Thats it!  Stop by and we can convert yours.

We had a great ride on Sunday from the Huntersville store out to Enochville.  There was a good size group, temperatures started off in the mid 30’s but quickly warmed up into the 40’s.  On the way out everyone was feeling good and we were moving along at a good speed…then we hit Enochvile and turned back to the southwest into what felt like ahout a 20 mph headwind.  We made our way back through the rollers on Plum, Archer and Johnson Dairy and finished back at the shop with 53 miles.  Check out the route here.  We are going to do it again this Sunday, probably the same route or something similar.  Ride leaves 9am from the Huntersville store, plan on 50ish miles with 19mph average.  We’ll ride as long as its not raining and temp is above 35.  More info on the calendar page.  Come and join us!