Deborah had agreed to go ride with Debbie Wade on the Western Wheelers ride. I knew that if that ride got cancelled, then I might get to have Deborah's company on my ride. This was only my hoping - nothing was for sure.
It got close to time to go to the ride, and I tried calling Deb's home phone but no answer. Finally, at the last minute, I managed to get Deb on her cell phone.
Deb said she would be willing to ride, but wasn't ready yet, so we decided to take seperate cars. I would go to the ride start first and then call her with a weather report.
I got to Lexington School a half hour early, and it was raining and windy. I drove back down to the dam and called on the payphone. Deb was already on her way, so we arranged to meet at the park 'n ride in Los Gatos.
In Los Gatos, the weather seemed about the same to me, and there were no clear places in any direction, so I suggested that we just go back up to Lexington School and do the listed ride. I was willing to ride if Deb would, but I didn't want to have her do anything that she didn't really want to do. But Deb looked to me like she was willing to ride, so off we went.
We were back at Lexington School just in time for the official ride start. No one else was there, of course. We got our bikes out and were getting ready to go. I decided to pack along my umbrella, just in case.
As we were getting ready, another car pulled in. It was a new person, James Porter, who said he rides with the Western Wheelers. He was willing to ride in the rain also, so off we all went.
It wasn't a bad rain. Just a light sprinkling. And the wind wasn't too bad either, since we were mostly in under the redwoods. I decided to change the route slightly, so as to keep to the backroads as much as we could. The worst part about riding in the rain is having to deal with the cars. So we would just go up Old Santa Cruz Hwy, along Summit and Highland Roads, and down Eureka Canyon Rd to Corralitos. From there we would just turn around and come back.
The only traffic we had was for that 3 mile stretch of Summit Road. There, we just had to keep single file and everything went ok. All the rest of the riding was done mostly 2 and 3 abreast, as there were no cars to worry about.
The scenery was great. All along Highland and upper Eureka canyon, there were waterfalls and lots of water in the streams bouncing down over the rocks. I suggested we stop and go in the water, but they said, "Not today".
At lunch in Corralitos, the rain picked up a bit, of course, since we were now at the farthest away from our cars. It had almost been stopped for the downhill, but now the rain was a steady light rain.
Finally back to the cars, what should appear but some blue sky. A few minutes later and the sun actually popped out. Sure, now that the ride was over. We looked back behind us, up the hill that we had just come down, and it had a big dark cloud hanging over it.
Everyone had brought along some dry clothes. Always good to have these in the car for something to look forward to during a rainy ride.
Never once during the ride did I wish I wasn't there. More than that, I often felt that "This was great, I'm glad I'm here". I liked being out there experiencing the weather and being able to do it with other people that felt the same way. Thank you Deborah and James. 50 miles and 4500 ft total.
At the ride start, I met Ken Koach and many others. Here's the list. Me, Ken, John Blaine, John Mazzella, Bob Kane, James Mallory, Diane Bies, Jerry Olhiser, Debbie Wade, Ken Kennedy, and Karl Schilling. Debbie rode the 5.3 miles from her house. It was good to see her. It was also good to see Ken, as he gave me an update on Kim.
The ride started, but I noticed that Ken didn't leave yet. Then I noticed that he was waiting for Karl, who I hadn't seen drive up at the last minute. I waited with them, then led them on an alternate route over to Silver Creek Valley. The rest of the group took Snell and Blossom Hill. My route went on Capital Expwy over the Monterey Hwy overpass and then took Seven Trees, Ezie St, Hellyer Park and Hellyer Ave.
We got to the corner about 30 seconds ahead of the other group, so we all started up the hill together. We got almost to the top of Farnsworth, when this car came by, with the driver yelling out the window for us to get out of the way. We look over, and we see that it is Pam, who just happened to be driving home from church and saw us.
I stopped and we had a good chat, letting the others go on up the hill ahead. Pam promised to go out bike riding after she got home, as she could use a few more miles under her belt. I was able to catch the others before we got up to the Eucalyptus grove at the top of San Felipe.
We all decided to go on out to the end of San Felipe and back. It was a good extension.
On the way back, at the top of Silver Creek valley, I stopped and waited for Diane, then we went down together. At the bottom, we found Ken and Karl, and John Blaine waiting. They said that they would prefer to go back the way we had come, and to stay off of Blossom Hill Blvd. I said ok, so we all 5 went along.
Back on Capital Expwy, it started to sprinkle. We just had a half mile more to go. It didn't get too bad and stopped just after we got back to the start. 33 miles total. Good ride.