Flea The Race

Day	34	Date	11th June 2015
Distance Total Distance	117.1km 2,009.2km	Weather	Sunny
Rolling Time Total Rolling	05:31:06 122:31:02	Terrain	Flat
Climbing Total Climbing	844m 21,689m	Spend	Starbucks $8.60 Dinner & Drinks $27.00 Liqueur Store $13.00 Camping $6.00
Average Speed	21.2km/h	Sleeping	State Park Camping
Max Speed	51.9km/h	Difficulty	Easy

 

11am saw me exiting my palace in the woods this morning after sleeping in until 9:30am, this time headed in the direction of Santa Cruz, 30km away.  On route I met two older American guys on touring bikes that had herd about me through the German guy I met yesterday, they overnighted at a hostel a few miles back and told me the German guy arrived late and got the last bunk in the house, they told me they heard that I was wild camping along the way, they said that they were just starting out with cycle touring and that I inspired them to have a go at free camping, after a brief chat I sped on to Santa Cruz where I wanted to chill out for a few hours.

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The weather in Santa Cruz was as good as it can get, warm and sunny, it’s a big surfer town and there was lots of quality people watching along the way.  I found a coffee shop in the town and stopped off for a while, twenty minutes into my sippin, a hairy, beardy guy walks in carrying a worn looking backpack and a stick looking for a place to sit and charge up his phone while he has a coffee, he asks me if I’m the guy with the bike outside and with my confirmation he introduces himself, “I’m Leroy, I’m walking the perimeter of America to help homeless people, I’ve walked 4,800 miles and have another 7,000 miles to go” He said he was interviewed by various media enterprises along the way so I googled him when he stepped out for a smoke and asked me to keep an eye on his stuff.  I googled “man walks circumference of america for homeless”, clicked into the first link and sure enough there was a picture of Leroy and his story.  We sat together for about an hour, swapped some stories, took some pictures, before he headed off to walk a few more steps of his journey!

After Santa Cruz I was cycling on the freeway for about forty minutes and it was busy but the wind was on my back so I was whizzing past all the cars, well, until I was pulled over by a cop on a motorcycle who told me I couldn’t be on the freeway, he gave me directions on how to follow a parallel route alongside the freeway that’s much quieter and to exit off the freeway at the next exit.  He was very nice, more helpful than lawful. I was trying to make Moss Landing by 5pm where I had arranged to grab a beer with Justus, a mate of my brothers who lives in Santa Cruz.  We arranged to meet at Moss Landing Cafe…

“There’s a place called Moss Landing Cafe right there intersecting with the Highway. I’ll park there in a green Ford Explorer. I’m wearing a bright blue shirt. I’ll get there around 4 and hang out if that works”

When I got there, sure enough there was a green Ford Explorer pulled up so I rocked on over, the cafe was closed but there was a Thai Restaurant beside it with food and beer so we hung out there for an hour, I got the Massaman Curry and Sierra Nevada IPA.  The random meet up was fun and it was nice to get food in before camping for the night so I didn’t have to cook later.  I left at 6:30 and decided to cycle on the 30km on to Monterey where there is a campsite at the edge of the city, the hill up to it was a total bastard and that’s all I have to say about that!  I just made it by sunset and had about twenty minutes of dim light to get the tent up.

I think I met the asshole of the trip in this campsite, he came over a few times around tennish to tell everyone sitting at the table in the biker section to shut up, he was a scary guy, pretty much in a rage, not able to control his breathing, told us how dare us come too his country and disrespect him, blah blah blah.  Asshole!