Time zone changes are a challenge for me. I was wide awake at 3:30am. WIDE AWAKE.
Breakfast in the hotel was surprisingly good – Huevos Rancheros… Southwestern style! After lunch we had a quick skills session followed by some stretching before heading out on the road for a challenging 100k ride. We discovered that drivers here are much more courteous and respectful of cyclists than they are at home. And most roads have WIDE bike lanes. Very nice. The dynamics of our group aren’t working as well as I’d like but so it goes when you’ve got three guys who know one another, a married couple, and lone dude. All are good riders, and like to ride, but all have clearly “learned’ group riding from different folks; and they’ve learned to do things differently than we do. But when Mike, Bjug and I ride together it’s awesome.
The scenery is amazing. And somewhat overwhelming as you’re always wanting to look at the sights but you need to focus on riding. The ride today included a stretch of 17km where we averaged 55km/h – killer fun.
Post-ride we stopped for lunch at Local Johnny’s. Wow. So good. It’s a café connected to a bike shop. Why don’t we have nice things like this in Toronto????
Back at the resort we had a few hours of free time. Originally we were going to do a mountain hike but as our ride took longer than planned it was post-pines. This allowed up to spend some time around the pool relaxing. For a single guy into Cougars this place would be heaven. Arbonne (a vegan skin care company) is having their conference here. Fifty women to three men on the pool deck. We were bit high in the waiters priority list… (Check out Bjug’s dry martini, in a plastic cup. The first one came full of ice!)
The Saturday night special dinner at the resort is prime rib. It was quite good. And the warm lava cake with ice cream for desert was over the top rich and yummy.
Post-dinner we retired to our room and watched Strade Bianche; Zdenek Stybar is a machine! It was all we could do to stay awake for til the end. Riding, sunshine and a delicious meal tired is out!