I was with Ben Mandac at the junction Hwy 236 and Hwy 9. It had started to sprinkle pretty good by then, so I stopped to put a plastic bag over my fanny pack and another one over my avocet 50. Ben told me that he was tired and cold, and that he wasn't going to ride any further. I offered him my bungee cord, but he declined. He said he didn't want to ride in the rain. Just then, we had a big cloudburst, and it started to hail. Luckily, we were both standing under a big redwood, so we were out of it. I was afraid that I might have to call it quits too, if the rain kept up like that. Then the rain let up. I asked Ben how he planned to get back, and he pulled out his cellular phone. He said he was going to call his wife to come pick him up. I asked him if she would do that for him, and he said yes, but he would have to pay for it later. I left Ben standing under the tree, phone in hand.
I started up the hill. Going uphill in the rain wasn't really bad at all. It was now only drizzling again, I had all of my clothes on (which I was very glad that I had brought), had my two taillights flashing and my yellow windbreaker on, so I felt that cars could see me. Instead of being tired and dragging myself up that hill, I felt strong. I kept it in 2nd gear or higher all of the way up. I thought that I had a good chance of catching up with some of the others, but was glad that I never saw them. That meant that they were already farther up the hill, closer to being out of this mess. If I had caught someone, then I would have had to slow down and would have then been out longer.
Towards the top of the hill, I was almost positive that some of the rain was sort of floating down. That must be snow. Boy was it cold. I dreaded the upcoming down hill. My fingers were cold, my brakes were wet, the road was wet. I was sure that there would be some car coming down the hill way too fast. The miles went by very slowly. It seemed it was raining harder on the Saratoga side of the hill. I was braking as much as I could, but it was very hard. It seemed that my brakes hardly worked at all. To get a bit more out of them, I would also rock my body up and down, to try and get some pumping action into the brakes to make them work better.
About half way down the hill, I thought I heard someone calling out "Don, Don" but I didn't see anybody, and I couldn't stop anyway, so I just kept going. A minute later, a pickup truck passed me. It was Ron Tsuromoto. He stopped off the road a ways ahead, and it was all that I could do to get my bike to come to a complete stop when I got to him. We put my bike on his rack, and I climbed inside. My fingers were frozen, so his heater was a blessing. He asked if anyone was still behind, and I said no. (Ben had already made his decision so I wasn't worried about him.)
Ron headed back down towards Saratoga, and we caught Frank just as we entered town. Frank said that he stopped twice on the downhill, so that he could get his fingers working again. He had to do the whole downhill with short fingered gloves. We loaded Frank's bike, then went off to look for Karen.
We found Karen's bike at the coffee shop, so Ron parked his truck and we all went in to get her. It was a site; me, Frank, and Karen were all soaked, dripping over everything, and Karen was shivering uncontrollably. Karen was drinking some hot tea, so we waited till she finished then put her bike on Ron's truck, and we all went back to Los Gatos.
We found Brian, sitting in his truck, trying to get warm. A minute later, Roy drove over in his car, after changing clothes at home, to see if he needed to go pick up anybody. Karen said that she saw you in Saratoga, and that you went straight home. I think that Mark came in with Brian and Roy. So that left just Ben and Jim Zorn out on the road. Both of their cars were still at the Park 'N Ride. Each of them had told me that they would call when they got home.
My first call came at ahout 6:30 from Ben. He said that he never did get hold of his wife, and ended up climbing up the backside of Hwy 9 after all. At the summit he was able to get a lift down the hill and all the way to Los Gatos.
It was 8:30 when I finally heard from Jim. He said that he made it all of the way to the bottom of China Grade, then decided that he wasn't going to go up because of the rain. Jim then turned around and went all of the way back to Felton, as he thought that he could get somebody to come over the hill to pick him up, and Felton was closer to Hwy 17. He never found anybody, but then talked one guy into giving him a lift over the hill. He first went in for a few drinks with this guy. Jim says that he paid the guy $30 to get a ride. Jim finally made it, though. He considered just getting a room for the night, then finishing the ride the next day.
My toes were light blue when I got home and I wrapped up in a big fuzzy blanket for over an hour trying to warm them up enough so I could take a shower. It's kind of funny (in a weird sort of way) thinking back on it now...definitely something that I prefer not to do in the future. (hmmmm, maybe carrying a phone with you on the rides isn't such a bad idea?)
See ya at ... if no rain...even if it hints at rain, I'm bailing... for some reason I'm not up to riding in the rain today.
See ya Jennie