9/16: the climb complete

Chomolungma

57mi and 4900ft ascended. <200mi to Sam Fran and 4 days to do it. Well, we have plenty of days, but more time in the city would be nice. So we are shooting for a Friday midday arrival.

In the morning, we did some mild climbs on rough roads. The long shadows let me perfect my cycling form:

Not the best shot I did in this style, but the sharpest:

More redwoods lined our path:

These two redwoods stood like a gate to the higher elevation we were striving toward:

There was a ton of other gimmicky sights, like drive-thru redwoods and a living chimney tree. A bit too touristy for our travels. I did get a snap of this one log cabin:

We switched off of 101 onto US 1, which will carry us to San Francisco. This'll let us ride the famous Pacific Coast Highway. 

The climb -- it was tough, but our bodies had been adjusting for the difficulty. From base camp, we went up 500ft over about 2mi, rested, and did the remaining 500 ft over another 2mi. I think that is the longest sustained climb in our trip. The grade was steady throughout, which helped. And there was little traffic. The descent was not that rewarding, in that there were lots of interruptions from a smooth recovery glide. At the base of all this was yet another 600ft climb, which we did in one go. It was hard especially given what we'd just done. The rest of the day was going along US 1 on the California coast, which looks very familiar still:

Far lower threat of mist, though.

We're at a beachside RV camp with a couple of young German guys. They're going from Vancouver down to Argentina over 8 months. What a trip! Most of the other cycle tourists we've been leapfrogging are aiming for SF like us or San Diego at the furthest. We seem to have lost a lot of them after our rest day. Maybe we'll see them in the city.

9/16 pics: https://picasaweb.google.com/105909573807230408134/BikeTour916?authkey=Gv1sRgCJCjqMnkmMqFBw