South of San Fran

Hello everyone.

I am currently sat in the Libarary of Half Moon Bay, California. The town made famous not only by the big wave surfing spot Mavericks but also one of Hugh J Nobles' smash hit "The girls of Half Moon Bay" Hopefully I will meet a few later on as Hughs' friend Adam is going to show me around the town which seems lovely.

Obligitaory Golden Gate shot

My time is tight so the blog wont be long as I only have 20 minutes. I had a couple of days off in San Francisco the past couple of days and enjoyed some time out of the saddle. Scorching weather which apparently is rare so made the most of it. I had hoped to get to see the Giants play baseball but I missed them by a day. The stadiuam looked amazing though.

As I crossed the Golden Gate, half way across I met a guy cycling in the other direction and he was wearing a Forest shirt.....AMAZING!

The night before I got into town I camped out on the Marin headlands, home of mountain biking. It was an incredible campspot overlooking the bridge and totally isolated. This was what I needed before entering into a big city for the first time since Vancouver.

Here's a panoramic of the road up to the camp.

It's been great riding as well, some really strong tail winds along the way and have been meeting some really interesting people, some a lot more sane than others but all of them worth spending the time to talk to. There seems to be a LOT of washed up hippies in California and there is a lot of pot being smoked everywhere. I have been offered it for breakfast a couple of times now from people who just seem to camp all year rather than live in a home. The most interesting person I met so far was a cycling hobo named David. He had done 13,000 miles on his bike and didn't have a home but just loved riding his bike, he had a nice set up and three dollars to his name. I bumped into him asleep under a tree and shared a 6 pack of beer with him that I was taking back to me tent. He seemes so happy with his lot that I could forgive him his brief religious nutcase rantings and take him for the super nice guy he was.

The following day I met someone whse love for cycling was the same but maybe a little more with it. A guy named Matt who had taken his two daughters on a 7 day tour camp with the above incredible bike. We had a lovely evening at the camp and chatted till dark. He has a compant called Disanto who make really cool merino cycling hats. http://www.disantoclothing.com/ of which I have kindly been given one.

My time is nearly up so i will just add a few more pictures as they may be of some interest

Thanks for reading,

Sam