Waves to Wine Ride - Day One

Last Thursday, I visited Monsanto's Davis office and presented on Roundup Ready 2 Yield soybeans. Afterwards, I was planning on getting my loaner bike fixed up in preparation of the weekend Waves to Wine MS Bike Ride. Upon learning that I was planning on using Byron's old bike, Kristin Bennett graciously offered me the use of her husband's bike. Now I hadn't seen Byron's bike, but Kristen was the previous captain of the Northern California Monsanto Maverick team and had a better sense of which bike might suit me better. Let's just say that I was VERY happy to have the triple gear on the Trek bike - especially on day one.

Riding with the Northern California Monsanto Maverick team was very different. As a team of 11 riders, it was clear that everyone knew one another. Unfortunately, Davis site lead Ken and his daughters arrived a bit late and the rest of us started without them (and we wouldn't see them again - more later). Since I wasn't familiar with the course and didn't want to bonk, I decided to aim for about a 17 mph average. Ellen, one of the Mavericks (in this video) indicated that that was about her speed, so I road with her early in the ride.


Byron had a GPS that indicated a total gain of about 4200 feet on day one. It was a VERY tough ride, but one of the most enjoyable elements was the ride across the Golden Gate Bridge. Here's some more video (folks just didn't know how to stay to the right!):

Regretably, my camera ran out of batteries, so footage on the first day was limited. I very much regret not being able to get the MASSIVE switchback descent along the coastline. Here is the last bit of day one in Saulsalito, but there will be more video and updates to follow!