Day 47 - Monterey to Big Sur

This morning I got a chance to talk with the guys some more while getting everything together.  First is Pete and Bachi:

Pete and Bachi

Bachi is 16, and Pete is taking him on tour down the coast for probably the last time.  Pete's set up quite a rig for them to travel in:

Pete's rig for travelling with Bachi

After making breakfast (again with John making comments about how extensive my preparations were), I started to replace the spokes in my rear wheel and just about the time that I took the first one out again because I put it in from the wrong side, Rick came over and asked how I was doing.  I told him, and he asked if he could put them in for me.  I was astounded.  Rick installed the two spokes and said that he just loves working on bikes.  I am definitely going to take some of his advice about how to improve my bike.

I managed to get John, Dick and Rick together for a picture before they headed off to Big Sur:

From left to right: Dick, John and Rick

Definitely an interesting bunch of guys.  Dick is a philosophy professor, John is a journalist who writes for a bicycle touring magazine and Rick is a Civil engineer who builds bridges in order to support his bike building habit.

Once I headed out from the campground, I went to Seaside to get some more spokes made for the rear wheel, since I was just about out, and the spoke problem probably wasn't going to be done.

While I was riding back from Seaside to monterey to get back on route, I was cruising by a cafe, and saw a trike parked out front.  It turns out that it was not one, but three trikes!

Three trikes in the wild

These guys apparently get together fairly frequently to talk shop and ride around.  They were tickled by my set up and my trek, and I was tickled to just see more trike riders out there.

As I rode out of the area, I saw this sign, which definitely proved to be true for me:

That's what I had to look forward to

Riding down the coast, I had one heck of a tailwind.  It must have been at least 15mph.  I took this picture to try to get a visual reference:

That flag usually goes straight up or leans back, not forward

The ride into Big Sur was challenging.  I was riding to Lawrence Dubois' place to crash for the night (thanks to both Irene for putting me in contact with Lawrence, and Lawrence for letting me use his place).  My directions were to go so far past the such-and-so gallery, and it kept seeming like I should have gotten there already, but still hadn't.  Then I finally saw the gallery, and found my stopping place quite easily (great directions guys!).

After I got there, I followed Lawrence's directions on how to go about 1/4 mile away to the top of a hill to get cell phone coverage and let everyone know that I had arrived safely.  On the way down, I got to observe this glorious sunset:

A great sunset at Big Sur

This was a good day.  Neat people met, a strange but neat place to stay, and some challenging bicycling along the way.

Distance: 48.9 miles
10.2 mph average
43.7 mph max