Day 6 - Gold Beach to Crescent City

Daily Statistics:
Rode 61.1 miles and burned 3783 calories.
Left the hotel at 8:05 and arrived at 12:52.

When we left the hotel, we immediately started a nice 4 mile climb. I noticed someone had written on the pavement at the top "nice warmup" and think they had it about right. The down side of today's ride was that it was basically socked in solid the whole way. We passed by view points for Arch Rock, Natural Bridge, Whaleshead, and others, and just had to accept they were out there. Mike says we can check his blog for a couple of years ago to see what we missed.
I have included a picture of Bill Zeeb and Paul Trent carefully pointing out Arch Rock. You are seeing it exactly as we saw it. As a side note, Bill and Paul were not satisfied that Ride the West was covering the ground, so started a few days earlier in Port Angeles, WA and rode down to Astoria for the start. They plan to continue south from Costa Mesa to the border when we finish. There are always overachievers in every group.

We had a SAG in Brookings. The ride up to that point was essentially on Highway 101, with all the highlights we missed in the fog. Shortly after the SAG, we switched to more rural country roads for most of the rest of the way, with a short stint on 101 as we crossed the California border. I hadn't planned to include a border shot on this ride, but since more fog photos didn't seem helpful either, I have put this one in.

The white notice you see on the support leg of the "Welcome to California" sign was a notice to bicyclists that there was construction on 101 for the next couple of miles, but don't take Ocean View Dr because it was worse because trucks use it for a shortcut. Of course, our route sheet said turn on Ocean View Dr. It turned out to be a lovely country road, with no problems for the rider. We continued across 101 on Sarina Road to Fred Haight Road, and then another short stint on 101 across a bridge. We got back off on Lake Earl Drive, and stayed on it and its continuations into Crescent City. There was a nice couple of miles on Pebble Beach Dr along the beach, and we then weaved our way to the motel. All in all, it was a pretty easy day of riding, but a pretty sad day for sightseeing.

We are off tomorrow, but I will post if anything noteworthy happens.