This day was the climax of the ride, both in terms of spectacular scenery and for the riding challenge. In all, the day featured almost 5000 feet of climbing, mostly in three long stretches, one leaving Big Sur at the start and the other two just before arriving at Ragged Point at the end. Contributing to the challenge was the very small (sometimes nonexistent) shoulder for riding. There was always a white stripe to define the shoulder, but the pavement to the right of the stripe was typically less than a foot wide and sometimes disappeared altogether. Uphill in curvy areas, cars traveled slowly as did we, so it felt safe enough. Downhill, we could take over the full lane, using our rear view mirrors to guide when to pull over and let cars pass. On straight flat patches, cars could see far enough down the road to wait to safely pass pulling over; but often they didn't wait and occasionally came too close to us for comfort. We made it through safely, but the required constant vigilance distracted from fully enjoying the scenery.
We made three long stops during the day: Julia Pfeiffer Burns State Park (scenic view of a waterfall onto the beach); Lucia (lunch); and to repair Ingrid's flat tire (appears to have been a pinch flat, perhaps from an underinflated rear tire?).
Our stop for the night, at Ragged Point Inn, was spectacular. Lovely rooms with outstanding views from a bluff overlooking the Pacific. Beautiful gardens. And a light-filled restaurant where we enjoyed a great dinner that evening and a very good breakfast the following morning.
Cycling stats: 50.5 miles; 8:00 elapsed time; 10.6 mph average speed.
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| Looking north from Julia Pfeiffer Burns State Park |
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| Note the width of the paved shoulder; this was typical. |
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| The extraordinary waterfall at Julia Pfeiffer Burns State Park |
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| Lucia was the midway point; we stopped for lunch here. |
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| Creative solution to avoid persistent rockfall on the roadway. |
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| The only flat tire on the trip occurred just after lunch. |
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| Approach to Ragged Point. |
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| View north from Ragged Point. |
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| The light-filled restaurant at Ragged Point Inn. |
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| Great beam of light piercing the gray sky. |
3 comments:
Absolutely spectacular! Well done.
My favorite photo is of mom changing her tire. It seems like it might be a counterintuitive but pleasant strategy to bike HWY 1 with mountain bikes. Limited paved shoulder, but plenty of gravely shoulder one could ride on on a mountain bike.
Lex, Mountain bikes might be good in theory but in practice they are SO SLOW, you'd never make any progress and expend double the energy. While a 'road bike' IS best on paved roads, and you wouldn't want to bail into the sand or gravel at any speed other than maybe 2mph with those skinny tires, the fact that we use rear-view mirrors lets us gauge what's coming up behind us. If we are going uphill (and probably only clocking 3-5mph, depending on the grade) it is easy to pull over into the soft shoulder to let cars go by. If we are going downhill on curvy roads we are at traffic speed and can often take over the whole lane (so don't need to balance on the tiny edge) or again, slow down and pull out if large objects appear in the mirror.
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