Mike and Eric's Big Adventure
King City to Paso Robles
63 miles
4,498 ft. elevation gain
Words of the day: Too Hot and two other century marks
Still feeling so proud of our accomplishments from yesterday we pack up and got ready for Day 3. There is a routine in the morning. We get up, stand in line for the potty, get dressed, get breakfast, pack, take down the tent, load the suitcases in the truck, visit sports med to get knees and other part ready for they day and then to the bikes! We did all of this and then got in a long line to leave camp. There is a sandy bumpy path that we have to walk through before getting on the road but at last we were off.
We are travelling down El Camino Real (The royal road). This is a 600 mile road connecting 21 misssions from San Diego to Sonoma. On the way today we experienced Quad Buster! The top of this hill is at 1500 feet and the steepest part of the ride is an 800 foot climb, ouch! We both made it up all they way without stopping. All that hill training in Marin paid off. Some of the riders zoom back down and repeat riding up over and over, not us we hit the crest and coasted down the back side!
Another AIDS Lifecycle tradition is the $100 burger! (a century burger?) The students, teachers, parents, and volunteers from Bradley School in the town of Bradley, CA host a BBQ lunch for the riders. This is a fundraiser for the school (a fundraiser within a fundraiser). Another secret about this stop is that after purchasing your burger the school let us use their bathrooms! AHHHH a real toilet, and running water. Nice break from the portapotties at camp! These kids and teachers are amazing. They raised $70,000 today from all of us. The kids made pictures about the ALC and had hung them around the room. It was so wonderful.
Next along the way was Camp Roberts, California’s largest National Guard training facility. The temperature was rising! By the time we hit lunch it was 101 out, (a century heat wave?). After lunch at Camp Roberts it was even hotter. So hot that the water in our bottles was hot to drink. At the rest stop and lunch they had run out of ice. We decided to ride till we had completed at least 50 miles and then call it. Soon after we passed mile 50 for the day a sweep car came by. This one had a big inflated pineapple on the top, they called themselves the pineapple express. The host of the sweep car is from Honolulu. It was a sign for us to stop riding and be safe. The sweep car took us to rest stop 4 and we caught the bus to camp. We rode all but about 10 miles today but the heat was just too much.
We made another decision during the heat of the day. We made a reservation at a hotel in Paso Robles. This is called “princes sing” when you ride all day and instead of camping you go to a hotel for the night. We were happy to be princesses. Our evening in Paso Robles was perfect.
