Start of 620-mile Bike Ride - World's Fastest Biker - Headwinds
Bloody Mary - Pie
We started out at 7:00 AM Saturday morning. Pretty exciting and emotional. 100 riders and 10 -20 Challenged Athletes in hand-cycles, tandem bikes and with prosthetic legs. To start out, I met the man who held the record for the world's fastest bike ride at over 150 MPH. He won three Ironman Triathlons also. John Howard is 64 years old and he is still amazingly fast on the bike. He's a super nice guy also and we have trained together. But he still kicks my but.
So we left, past the Golden Gate Bridge.down towards Santa Cruz. Now there are traditions that I don't know of and as I was riding with a large group, we passed the Ritz Carlton in Half Moon Bay. Suddenly everybody turned in and we had coffee and I split a Bloody Mary with one of my ride leaders and friend, Lynn Lyons.
So we started down the coast. I got separated from a group and spent 2-3 hours heading straight into the wind. 15-20 miles an hour with nobody to share the load. But I got through it, slowed down, increased my cadence (RPM on pedalling). So I got through the main part of the ride but we are sponsored by J&L Pies, who also ride with us. Grabbed a piece of pie with Duane Wagner, a double amputee, Silver Star recipient who was wounded in Vietnam.
Yes it was hard, but I trained for 5 months and the views are beatiful and my family is with me. They toured San Francisco, Lombard Street and then followed me to Santa Cruz . One down, six mor days to go.
Hotel in San Francisco - Hyatt at Fishermn's Wharf
Santa Cruz - Chaminade
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