A little sweat and quadbusting gets you to Paso Robles!

After a hot hot day, we have arrived safely in Paso Robles and our tent city love bubble has taken over the county fairgrounds (where there's ice cream!!!).


The BEST news of the day is our most seasoned ALC Power Pedalers team member, Dave Haya, hitched a ride from the Bay Area to our campsite tonight and will be able to hop on his bike and join in on Day 4 tomorrow after battling a cold and food poisoning that was threatening to prevent him from riding. He's here, he's excited and he's ready!!! Just ask Jan! :)




This morning started off a tad slowly as we made our way out of King City. In the interest of safety, we had a loooooong train of riders inching their way towards the main road. Khaled, Nic and Theresa patiently waited to begin the 66 mile day and face the infamous Quadbuster climb.



Just before the Quadbuster, there were kindhearted locals who owned a lavender farm and a lot of coffee makers and were serving coffee and letting us frolic in their garden before the climb...




What's the Quadbuster you ask? We couldn't take photos, we were too busy climbing but here's an elevation snapshot from my Strava App... go ahead, take a guess!




...and while you're getting over the awe of that peak, I have more to share. It was incredibly inspiring to watch many riders (including Khaled, Theresa and Nic) reach the top, turn around and do it one more time. Some riders (one in a Superman outfit) were getting off their bikes and pushing others up the hill. Other riders did it twice in memory of friends they've lost. The mountain was the sweaty, loving, inspiring, quadbusting, music-blasting bike party that we had all been waiting for. It certainly did not disappoint!
After the climb, it was a sweet and well-earned descent into Bradley where the small city threw their annual fundraising BBQ lunch for the 2000 riders passing through. Nic and I were able to find first time rider and top fundraiser on the Power Pedalers team, Judy!




The rest of the day was headwind, headwind, headwind. Another first time rider, Tae, kept a smile on his face despite the challenge!




When we finally got into camp, we learned that many members of the ride (riders and volunteers) were dehydrated today and had to be bussed in. So in the spirit of friendly reminders.... I'll leave you with this:
Hydrate!




Keep Calm and Pedal On,
Lori

Day 2, 109 miles from Santa Cruz to King City

Helllllllo friends!

Day 2 is complete and we made it to windy King City!

Alarms were going off throughout the tent city around 4:45am, so we were all up and in line for breakfast by 5am! Some of us (Jan, Nic, Khaled, Nash and others) were super fast and on the road by 6:45am. Others (ahem, Lori and Theresa) took a little to get sleepy out of our systems and weren't on the road until 7:30am... This made for a difficult "team ride" but from the camp site conversations it sounds like everybody did very well and was feeling strong!

Wind was our best and worst friend today, fairly calm in the morning then powerful at our backs as we continued south towards King City. Sometime after lunch there was sideways wind (what the!) and headwind, but we tried our best to forget those! The route was 108 miles of rolling agricultural fields, which could only mean one thing; the (deep fried) artichoke stop! Now well fed, we made our way into the town of Gonzalez where we met the Miss ALC contestants:


and found familiar faces:




and even made some new friends



Then it was on to lunch,




and miles of vineyards. Some are saying it was a good thing we have to ride single file and one bike length apart (safety first) because that giant burrito had a lot of beans!

Tomorrow we'll do it again; can't wait to get to the BBQ in Bradley!

Keep Calm and Pedal On,
Lori