Carrals Spring

This road was recommended to us by a cyclist we met in northern California, but everyone we subsequently talked with about it had a different description and impression to share with us. The main reason we wanted to ride this road was that we still wanted to get a taste of highway 1 through Big Sur, but also wanted to go to Yosemite and this is the only road through Los Padres National Forest that would allow us to limit the size of the huge detour required to cut back to Yosemite. Very few cyclists seemed to have personal experience riding it and the ladies at the Monterey Visitors Center assured us it was suicide to try and ride it. Luckily Edward (the cyclist from Anaheim described in a previous post) and Murdock (a local Warmshowers host) both assured us that they had travelled it and that while it was a long, steep climb, it was paved and had very little traffic on it. Not only did Murdock give us valuable information, but when he and his crew of firefighters passed us 3/4 of the way up the road he offered us Gatorade, an apple and left water out for us at the fire station at the summit - what a legend! We were certainly tired and sweaty as we rolled over the 825m summit with the sun setting over the ocean below, but it was a spectacular ride! Czytaj więcej