Day 1: half moon bay

We are currently chillaxin in our tents in half moon bay California
after a mega succesful first day of riding. We got a late start
yesterday due to Lenora having to work and all of us scrambling to
tAke care of last minute loose ends. I must admit that I had forgotten
what my bike felt like fully loaded and got a bit nervous when we
first hopped on and started riding around oakland. Shit is heavy and I
was afraid of the hills that we had to come.

So after running many last minute errands we met, Zach and I met up
with Lenora in the mission to hit the road. Pleasently our friend
Oliver had decided to join us for the ride as his parents live
somewhere outside of half moon bay. Due to our start being later than
planned we took the Bart down to daly city to avoid some Friday
traffic and make sure we would make it to half moon bay before dark.

Daly city was basically one HUGE climb. It was a pretty intimidating
way to start the trip but we killed it. That town is pretty gorgeous.
I mean the town itself just looks like a typical subburb, but it is
built on giant ocean side cliffs. We saw some really ridiculous views.
It was hard not to stop every 10 minutes to take a picture.

After daly city we were rewarded with a long down hill in to Pacifica
or whatever where we took a break on the beach at a huge taco bell
before hitting starting our long journey on US1 in to the mountains
where we were imediately greeted with a 3 mile winding climb with no
shoulder up in to oblivion. This was by far the hardest leg of the day
for me but as soon as we hit the top there was a small pulloff
overlooking massive vertical drop cliff ending in an endless view of
the pacific ocean. It was pretty ripping.

After that it was basically a long winding and steep decent in to
halfmoon bay. I definitely reached my top speed ever on a bike while
blasting down the mountain side. This part of the ride was great and a
good relaxing end to our ridiculous climbs.

Once we got in to half moon bay we parted ways with Oliver while Zach,
Lenora and I posted up at some Mexican restaraunt for dinner where we
sat for hours until heading to a camp ground at 11pm to set up our
tents in the pitch black night.

I expected last night to suck, as it was 45 degrees out during the
night, but honestly I was quite comfortable and wasn't cold at all in
my under armor outfit haha.

All in all I would have to say yesterdays ride was by far the coolest
bike ride I have ever been on and I am pretty stoked about the rest of
the trip haha. I was all nervous and begining to feel anxiety about
doing this for the next 2 months until we had such a good first day.
My bike felt and rode great, my derailleurs worked flawlessly, my tent
is spatious and comfy, the huge climbs weren't really that bad... I
must say so far everything is going much better than expected. Also,
the feeling that you don't have to turn around and go back at any
point is quite liberating and makes this ride even better. We can
basically just ride until we don't feel like riding then go to sleep.
Pretty awesome.

Lastly I have to throw props out to Oliver who killed it the whole way
riding fixed with a giant backpack on. Dude was leaving us in his dust
the entire ride just blasting up all of those huge hills. I don't even
know how his tire survived the trip with all of the skidding he had to
do coming down those mean ass hills.

All right, off to Santa Cruz today.