Crashing the Tour de Peninsula

Needing a break from my studies, I convinced, or more aptly, suckered Wag into riding from my place in San Mateo, down the Mid-Peninsula through Woodside, Palo Alto, and the Stanford campus, all the way to downtown Los Altos. Early on, riding up Crystal Springs Road to the Half Moon Bay turnoff near I-280, we encountered a massive throng of riders. There must have been three to four hundred, all with race numbers tacked to their backs. It soon dawned on me that we were riding on the same day and for the most part, on the same route as the annual Tour de Peninsula (link). While the race organizers were busy distributing water to the racers, Wag and I snuck past the cones and into the mass of riders. Yep, we crashed the race. No, we weren't trying to pull a "Rosie Ruiz" (see here). Merely trying to avoid having to ride through a longer detour route. Unfortunately though, we jumped in at a less than ideal spot, at the base of the climb up to Sawyer Camp Trail. A long tiresome climb that gets steeper as you get further along. More than a handful of riders had to stop midway to take a breather. I was very close to being counted amongst the casualties. It only got harder from there. Two equally nasty climbs on the way up to the Canada Road approach. My upper legs were burning with lactic acid, my heart was pumping at full throttle, my lungs were panting for oxygen. The sweat from my brow was dissolving the sunscreen lotion into my now stinging eyes. Mental note, don't apply sunscreen to the forehead before a ride! With all the pain and effort, I still got a high from riding with so many cyclists around me. Maybe that's why marathoners get a performance boost on "race day". Group pressure. It definitely helped me through a tough stretch of the route. The best part of the day was lounging on a chair in the shaded streetside cafe along Main Street in Los Altos on a pleasant Sunday afternoon. By then, I was numb to the pain.