Last night, I set the alarm for 7:00 AM so I'd be up and ready when Romulus arrived. Turns out I didn't need to set the alarm, even though I didn't go to bed until 3:00 AM, because I was up at 6:30 AM pissing shit out of my ass. I don't know what bug crawled up there and liquefied my bowels, but a 45- to 50-mile ride didn't sound so great sitting on the toilet at 6:30 in the morning with liquid shit gushing out of your piehole. Five minutes later after the first eruption, I was back in the office for my second high colonic of the day. I didn't feel sick, but I was definitely experiencing severe intestinal distress and probably lost five pounds and a liter of fluid before I even got on the bike today.

Endless rollers	Dick Cheney's self-image	The team car

You might think that this condition would give Romulus good incentive to stay in front of me today, but of course, I couldn't take the chance of sharting, so I was emission-free the entire ride. Romulus never needs incentive to ride lead anyway, that's his natural position.

The plan was to head south from my house towards Pescadero and possibly points beyond. However, we wanted to notch about 50 miles today and cover some new territory, so creative thinking was involved. Again, this is where having a partner helps, because Romulus is able to think out of the box for possible routes, while I'm rooted deep within the dominant paradigm.

Romulus suggested that we drive south of HMB, park, and then ride south from that point. Looking at the map, we decided to park at Verde and Cabrillo, then take Lobitos south to Tunitas, and take Tunitas back out to the Cabrillo and points south.

We did a nice job of warming up on Lobitos, riding leisurely and talking along the flats, riding at sitting pace for the climbs, getting warmed up on the downhills. By the time we hit Tunitas, we were ready to have some fun.

And fun we had. On Tunitas, it felt like the forest scene in Return of the Jedi (or was it Empire Strikes Back?) as we zipped in among the giant trees, flickering along the thin strip of sun-dappled roadway. As we came to the end of the narrow, winding section and headed into the long, gradual descent to the Cabrillo, I came up behind Romulus, shouted, "let's hammer this to 1", and we were off on the first sprint of the day.

I've ridden this road many times, both climbing and descending, but I guess I misjudged how far it is from the edge of the forest to the highway. It seemed a lot longer than I remembered. After a pretty explosive start, I was ready for it to be over, but as I came up on each rise in the rolling topography, I could see only more rises, hills, and fields. Occasionally, I caught a glimpse of Romulus at various distances behind me in my rear view mirror, but I was too caught up in my own difficulty to be able to watch too closely. Finally, finally, we came to the Cabrillo, and not a moment too soon. It had been a powerful, punishing sprint, and I was worried that maybe I had spent too much of my precious energy too early in the ride. It's been known to happen. (See July 1, 2004: These guys are good).

After taking off a layer of clothing, we made a mad dash across the always treacherous Tunitas Creek bridge, nearly got overtaken by a tandem, and headed south towards the Stage Road turnoff. We really worked the descent in to San Gregorio. Romulus had the lead, but I felt really good on the Blade today, and hung right in his airstream the whole way down as we zigged and zagged through the turns and then let it run wide open for that last downhill scream into town. Wow, that's fun when the wind isn't blowing.

We crossed Pescadero Creek Road (Highway 84) and continued south on Stage Road into the sleepy cow town of Pescadero. At this point, we had gone 17.5 miles, but it really didn't feel like that much to either of us. We both felt strong and comfortable despite some tough but short climbs and some pretty fast and long sprints. Feeling strong, we decided to head further south to Butano State Park.

Heading south toward the Park on Cloverdale Road, Romulus and I worked perfectly together to hunt down and catch a road rider in front of us. It was pretty cool, because we did it without saying a word. We were spinning along, pushing but not hammering, when the other rider first came into view maybe a quarter of a mile up the road. Even from that distance, it was easy to tell from pace and technique that it was a good rider. I noticed that Romulus had seen the rider too and had clicked down to a tougher gear to start the pursuit. I downshifted as well, and the hunt was on.

Romulus kept ratcheting up the pace and pretty soon we were cooking along in the mid-20s. Cloverdale is pretty flat, so that allowed us to develop a pretty strong rhythm. At the base of a small rise, I decided to take my turn at the front of the chase group. Because we were already going so fast, my acceleration ended up creating a slingshot effect and I felt literally whipped ahead towards our prey. I carried the momentum up the hill towards the rabbit and just before the crest, I came up on his rear wheel. The guy was somewhat surprised to see me (because he had been riding so fast), and I could tell that he instantly resolved to pull away. That worked for me, because I planned to catch Romulus up anyway rather than barreling down the hill after the guy without my partner. Very nice teamwork. Rom and I both agreed that if he and I worked as domestiques for Bonzai, we could freakin' crush people into dust with a ferocious pace and then catapult the indefatigable Bonzai ahead to finish off whoever was left standing.

At Butano, we cruised all the way up to the upper campground, conducted a safety meeting right in the middle of the campers, and headed back down. Coming down Butano Park Road at 28 MPH, in the dank, cool shade of the giant Redwoods, it was butt-ass cold. We had stripped down to short-sleeved jerseys miles earlier, but that had been on the flats and in the sun. After the steep climb up to the campground and a 15-minute safety break, the long, shaded downhill chilled to the bone.

To make sure that we hit 50 miles for the ride, I led us on a detour down Pomponio Creek Road, which is just south of San Gregorio. This dead-end road meanders about two miles along Pomponio Creek on the way up towards Pomponio Reservoir. If you ever want to know what rural life looked like in the 1950s or so, take a ride on this time machine. There is one place about a mile in where the road is completely flanked by rusted tractors, cords and cords of stacked firewood, and multiple sets of antlers, horseshoes, and horns nailed to various sheds, barns, and outbuildings. Smoke trickled out of two or three rickety chimneys, old pick-up trucks were parked haphazardly, and random farm animals and stray-looking dogs wandered aimlessly. Romulus and I both acknowledged, once we were safely through and out of earshot, that we felt like the barns had eyes and it was best that we just look straight ahead and pedal swiftly about our business lest we have to start explaining our spandex shorts and shiny bikes to some Deliverance-looking characters.

We kept the pace strong the rest of the way back, taking the Lobitos cut-off back to Verde to save a little time. We finished just short of 50 miles, but I like to round up, so I'm calling it 50. A good hard ride, and just the kind of ride to get us physically and mentally ready for the Sea Otter. I can't wait.

On Stage Road south of San Gregorio, we came across two deer. One was in a field next to the road and the other was in the middle of the road bounding along in front of us. We had to brake for it and slowly followed behind it for about 150 feet before it hopped off to join its buddy. We also saw some banana slugs, a mostly decomposed deer carcass, and several different Red-tailed and Cooper's hawks.