Day 14 Gualala to Occidental along the Pacific Coast Highway

Another great day in Northern California, sunny, little wind ( slight northerly behind us)and a touch of fog, temperature rose to about 24.

We left Gualala a little late with the Duke driving Priscilla the sag wagon.
Points were earned by the Black Cav, M2 and The Duke for a close deer sighting. Only just down the road we passed a travelling cyclist complete with cat atop his trailer.



The traffic was light as it was Sunday morning so there were plenty of opportunities for photos. The route is very much an elevated great ocean road with more rocks and cliffs. Not sure why anyone would trespass on a cliff top.


We saw seals playing in this cove


An interesting rock feature


Yet another rocky cove


There were still some big hills to climb and we ascended almost 1600 m again today. My stats on Strava tell me hat I am know a better climber.
Long way to the bottom


M2 waits for the cars to clear before resuming the attack. Once again most cars were very patient with cyclists holding hem up.


Goose and the Rocket climb like pros!


This was an exciting curvy downhill, the cars could not catch us as we got around the bends faster


A typical beach, rocks instead of sand and fog in lieu of sun. Water temp about 12 C so no swimming.


Lunch at the Cafe Aquatica at Jenner, organic and nice. We had the chowder and crab sandwiches.



A bay of many rocks and fog


Then it was a hard left turn at the 74 km mark for the Coleman Valley Rd climb to Occidental. This was a hard but reasonably short climb, with Black Cav claiming KOM from M2 and the Electric Cowboy. Strava shows I was in the 50 th percentile which is an improvement from the 30th before the Tour. Unlike the other climbs of the TDC the warmer weather caused a full body sweat on the way up. Which we later fixed with Italian style dinner at the 120 year old Union Hotel in Occidental.


Here the man with sculptured calves pulls out the whip on the poor little Black Caviar to claim the KOM.


Then we were AT&T he top and it was still another 10 km to the end but the Black Cav held on for a fine stage win. 4 hours on the road and 88.8 km of joy.




The yellow jersey was unable to hold back the sustained points challenge from the Grand Duke in Priscilla as he accumulated significant bonus points for today's deeds: bought peaches, safest car overtake of rider so far with wheels in other side gutter , won the 'chat up award' at lunch, rescued the Goose after he inadvertently left the course and rode past the Coleman turn and pointed out the best and most scenic spots for the riders to satisfy the call of nature.

So Goose takes Cadel largely due to his heading down to Bodega Bay rather than turn up Coleman Valley and the Grand Duke will be in yellow on Wednesday.

Tomorrow is a rest day and we plan to visit the Charles Schultz museum in Santa Rosa, the Castello Di Amorosa in the upper Napa.




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