40 MPH at 4am in 40 degrees

That's a first. Another 4am start at the San Luis Obispo Brevet Series and this time we left with the main group. For some reason I thought I would hang on to the guy with Zipp wheels (read $$$) up the first climb. Luckily he knew the descent and told me what to expect, so I held on tight and bombed down in the dark and cold. Eventually Brian would bridge up and we rode the whole day together. The whole day being 18 hours and 251 miles.
Everything is everything. There were only a handful of stores or towns for the first 225 miles of the ride, the organizers had to have water at the control points and even some of these were 70 miles apart. We'd have heat midday on the out-and-back to the Pinnacles National Monument and on the last big climb, up highway 46 out of Paso Robles over to the coast, we watched the clouds and fog roll in, obscure the last minutes of sun and drop the temperature 15 degrees. Brian and I had been riding hard all day, but on the coast, with the fog and darkness and low temperatures, we took it easy. When we finally rolled back to the Main's house (at 10pm) they had vegan barley soup for us and we sat around and talked for a bit before we went to the van to sleep (luckily I had left the window open, because Dan and Michael got done at 130am and we didnt have a key).
Easter morning (see picture of Brian) we packed up at 630am to drive back to Los Angeles. I was stoked that my favorite coffee shop, Home of the Velvet Foam, was open in SLO.
Now only the 600k is left to qualify for Paris-Brest-Paris.