Day 472
Back into the mountains
Robert had suggested we get the metro and miss the ride through the outskirts of San Francisco but Tom and I have our ‘line’ if we can ride it, we will.
So off we went through miles of pretty run-down neighbourhoods. The roads were quiet, there were cycle lanes, OK they may have been used by others at times, as a storage area for car spares, a general dumping ground for any and everything, but mainly they were rideable. It may only have been 9am but some happy folks were having a tequila party, we declined the invite and on we went. We found a supermarket and stocked up on essentials for the next few days. We rode on, through clearly more expensive areas, maybe a slice of Silicon Valley, up hill after hill and gradually into the desert. Tom managed to pick up a 2” long screw with his tyre, not a skill we found particularly useful as it managed to puncture his inner tube and tyre! Our first day ended at 6pm at the home of yet another wonderful Warmshowers host, Frank. He fed us well, even baking jacket potatoes for us, the first since leaving the UK I think, dripping with butter they were fantastic! We chatted late, discovering that I had actually read about Frank’s cycling adventures in a book written by a friend of his, Frosty Woolridge!
We knew this day was going to be tough, flat to start with but ending with some serious hills so the bin- men kindly popped by at 6.30am to ensure we were up and away in good time. Frank had questioned Tom’s route plan. We had decided to ride the Old Priest Grade on route 120, check out most dangerous roads in California! It is only 1.8 miles long whereas the new option is 8 miles long. Why would we want to do the extra miles? The answer is the gradients, on the old we would have to cope with between 16-20%, on the new, an average of 5%. Common sense prevailed and we took the easy option! Well I wouldn’t actually say 8 miles of climbing in 30 plus heat is easy, but boy looking over at what we would have been on it certainly felt it! At the top, just as the next climb started, (seriously? more hills?) Tom spotted a great place to wild camp and it day over for us thank goodness!
