85 miles in 7hrs 50mins (incl. only 1 food stop but an obscene amount of adrenaline)
Total Distance - 1,165 miles
This was it, the day of the final push into San Francisco.
I set off at 8.25am assuming I had some 80 miles to go but was quickly cheered up by the first, and come to think of it, only mileage sign 2 miles in saying it was 72 miles to the city. The sky was blue, the wind was with me and I didn't feel as god awful as I had the past 3 mornings. I was almost feeling good about the day ahead. Now, I'd assumed, that this close to a major city that towns (read cafes) would be relatively plentiful so hadn't paid too much attention to the map in terms of planning food stops along the way. There was nothing at the first town of Bodega which I breezed through after 13 joyous wind-assisted miles along the Sonama Beach Park. So I continued on and the road then headed inland for a cafeless 20 miles through beautiful lush dairy fields stopping only to eat the blueberry muffin (and paper case) that had been stuffed in the bottom of my Camelbak for three days. I was making great progress despite my growing hunger and when I met the ocean again the wind almost picked me up and carried me the 10 miles along the coast into Point Reyes where I finally refuelled properly(ish) on a slice of pizza. It was midday and I had 44 miles on the clock - by far my best by that time. This was followed by a slowish 7 miles up a gentle climb as I attempted to digest the dough, after which a short fast descent took me out of the woods and back into the tailwind. As I looked down the road I was a bit surprised to see a couple of road bikes zooming along a couple of hundred yards ahead. I couldn't figure where they'd come from but these guys looked serious and they weren't hanging about. But, to my complete astonishment, without really trying I was gaining on them, 18mph, 20, 24mph, I just kept going faster, but still not trying, and when I glided past them on my fully-laden 70lb battlecruiser of a bike the look of incredulity from them was so priceless you would not believe. Now to be fair, they did put in a sprint to get back past me after a couple of miles, but only all of 30 yards ahead. And they chatted away to me in a perfectly civilised manner when they passed, but their pride was so obviously hurt it was cruelly comical. However, after 8 miles of this the road then went up sharply at Stinson Beach and I was, not unsurprisingly, dropped. Still, I'd had my moment of glory and boy had it been fun.
Now when I say the road went up, I really mean it. In all the 1,200 miles I've done, the unexpected 1,500ft climbing in miles 60-68 today were the hardest by far. But as I stood, an hour and some later, gasping for breath at the top of the final climb before the road wound down into the city suburbs, the stereotypically brash but wholly welcome yells of encouragement from the group in a passing SUV lifted me from my happy tiredness. I was almost there. Or so I thought. It turned out that the mileage sign I'd seen was to the edge of the city, my destination lay some 11 miles beyond that. It could easily have been notably more as the GPS then tried remarkably hard to get me lost on several occasions over the next few miles as I tried to find the Golden Gate Bridge. Finding it actually proved considerably harder than I'd thought it would be finding something that size but after taking to navigating by the sun I realised I was on the right track. The adrenaline was surging now though and I even caught and passed another pretty serious looking roadie on the final 200ft climb up to The Bridge. Relative to the previous two guys, he actually took it remarkably well.
I savoured the ride across in the sun for all it was worth in near delirious laughter making me all but forget about the howling crosswind trying to make go swimming. Then into the city where I had my first taste of the famous hills this city is built on. Much, much steeper than they look. At one point I thought the gps was trying to finish me off by sending me down something nearer a cliff face than a road. The taxi drivers were chuckling at my obvious novice performance. I survived though and am off out on a pub crawl tonight to celebrate so will see if I've actually got any liver left or if I've metabolised it away in the past 3 weeks - it's the first thing to go, apparently. That combined with the fact I'm shattered, dehydrated, I haven't been drinking much beer at all and am probably around 10kgs or so lighter than at the start of the month means I reckon I might last 2 beers if I'm lucky.
Still, it's a rest day tomorrow and I think I deserve a beer.
