Friday, Oct 19, 2012 Monterey to Big Sur 44 miles 2,300 ft of climb

The ride from Monterey started out as a rolling rest day.  We took the 17-mile Drive, which gave us a great view of Pebble Beach Golf course.  There were workers out with rollers on the greens, rakes and leaf blowers cleaning up the sand traps, and lots of grounds keepers.  Mike thought it costs about $500 to play there.  That's probably about right.

There are huge homes along 17-Mile Drive, and the road was winding and somewhat hilly at that point.

After the 17 miles, we continued to follow SR 1.  There was a part that was reduced to one lane, and had a stop light set up at each end of the hilly stretch.  There was a group of us, but we did not know how to proceed.  We pushed the bicycle button, which was to hold the light green on our side to help us get to the end before the north-bound cars came our way.  We decided to 'take the lane' and go ahead of traffic, just to be sure we made it.  Others were not so fortunate...a few ended up head on with cars coming at them!  Fortunately, the cars were moving very slowly, and moved over as far as possible between the rock wall on their right and the cyclists on their left.  It all ended happily!

The last 10 miles we entered Big Sur (It used to be called 'Country of the South'). There were very steep climbs all the way in.  Once we arrived, many of us had lunch on the patio of their restaurant.  That evening we had a nice buffet dinner, which included a birthday celebration for Jean, one of our sag drivers.