Reaching the Beach

Dave and I rode Reach the Beach today, along with about 3000 other folks. Every one of those other folks reached the beach AFTER we did! We flew today, or at least flew fast enough to pass everyone and not get passed by anyone. The closest we came to having company was a rider who hooked in behind us as we whistled by with about 5 miles left to go. He held with us as we rode along at 22-23 mph. I pushed it up to 26-27 and he matched our speed. I was just about thinking that this guy earned his spot to ride with us and offer him the opportunity to pull, but about that quick he dropped off so quickly that I thought he had dropped an anchor.

We reached the beach from Amity (54 miles) in 2 hours and 55 minutes. We were quite surprised to find that we were the first arrivals. Well, I was actually the second across the finish line. Dave was first!


We posed for the obligatory Reach the Beach finish photos.


Then we took up our position at a table in the Pelican Pub and waited for the rest of the field to arrive while enjoying a bowl of soup and a cold beer.
On the way to the beach there was a bit of headwind but not too bad. On the way back to Amity we took advantage of the now stronger tailwind. We arrived at the Coast Range summit. At this location it's hardly a blip on the map, but we figured worthy of a photo none the less!





From the summit of the Coast Range we held the pace at 23-25 almost the entire distance. For every short stretch where we'd drop below 23 there was a longer stretch where we were looking at speeds from 26-30!




............BIKE............LIFECYCLE.....ROLLERS....TOTAL
Today......108................0.............0.........108
Jan........618...............0..............0.........618
Feb........692...............0..............0.........692
March......940...............0..............5.........940
April......934...............0..............0.........934
May........567...............0..............0.........567
_________________________________________
TOTAL.....3765...............0..............5.........3770