Day 2

My butt hurt so bad from the first day. But surprisingly after sleeping, I was fine for the rest of the week. I think the most pain I suffered was not even much pain, just a soreness in my wrists and hands from gripping the breaks and leaning over for so much of the day. The lovely chiropractic team helped me out a lot though and I felt pretty good the whole week. Also, another secret to no pain, I attribute a great amount of credit to chamois butter, pronounced "shammy butter. " I think many, if not all, used it on the trip- except for Ashleigh- it's because she does yoga. ahahah i don't know. But, anyways, you rub the cream into your padded shorts and then you just ride your bike! And it's like your are riding on air! It's not greasy or anything. People told me to get a soft seat for max comfort- but actually you want a firm hard uncomfortable seat because it will support you better throughout the day. Just get some padded shorts to even it out.

We rode from Santa Cruz to Kind City. It was mostly flat with some rolling hills at the end. Below is a picture of us at the top of a hill. See the semi parallel lines on the left side of the picture? The line to the right is the road we were on at the bottom. The picture is taken from the top.This ride was 105 miles!!!! So long! There was a man standing at the hundred mile mark to help cheer us on and let us know that we had ridden one hundred miles!
This was the day that I woke up late and left at 8:20. Every morning we have a window to leave between 6:30 and 8:30. They were threatening to sag us if we didn't leave in time. Being sagged meant getting thrown in a van and being shipped to the next rest stop. This could be for having mechanical problems, being injured, tired, or too slow. I think it stands for something but I am not sure.
Since I got a late start, I was always rushing to the next rest stop before it closed. The whole day I was chasing rest stops. If I didn't make it to a rest stop on time, I would have had to been sagged. Hooray for never being sagged the whole trip!

We rode by many artichoke fields in the beginning of the day.This rest stop was so pretty! It was at a vineyard and there were flowers everywhere. When you get to a rest stop, there is food, water, Power aid, port-a-potties, wonderful volunteers who help serve us food so that germs aren't spread. There is no running water at rest stops. Actually there is no running water anywhere except for when we take showers in the shower trucks. All week I only washed my hands once a day. The other times, I just made use of the massive bottles of Purell Hand Sanitizer and Wet Wipes. Every rest stop is themed too! You will see in my coming up pictures from the later days.

Here we are at camp. Shauna, who is super speedy everyday, gets to camp 5 or 6 hours before I do. She is a racer and is sponsored by Cliff!!!!!! So crazy!!! She set up the tent before I got there everyday. In the morning, she would wake up--sit up, and then grab a cliff bar and start eating- and then she was off!

In the morning I usually drink water when I wake up, but all my waterbottles this week were always filled with Power Aid. Mountain Blue is not the best first thing to taste in the morning. Sleeping in the tents was very comfortable because all the camps were on nice soft grass.

This is Natasha and Kirsty. They were our tent neighbors, also part of the Cal Team.

Tents are set up in grids. We were all letter C and therefore set up our tents in section C everyday. Our address was C36? I think.