I left home a bit early, knowing that Deborah always got there early, so I had hopes of beating her to the start. No such luck, as Deb was already there. Since we weren't waiting for anybody else, we got started.
Going along Santa Teresa, I noticed a very small hint of blue sky up ahead, and pointed this out to Deb. "Hey look, blue sky." You really had to use your imagination to see it. This was a fore-telling of things to come, though.
We climbed over Shannon and on to the ride start with not too much effort. Just a small hill. At the start we were 20 minutes early but already had quite a few people waiting.
We had 14 people on this ride. Art was there waiting. We told Art that we would let him ride with us, as we were taking it easy that day. Deborah claimed that she was tired, having commuted both ways to work the last 3 days, and she also felt a little sick. I was hoping Pam would show up, but she never did. Too busy baking for her Sunday cheese-cake ride, perhaps.
On the ride over to Saratoga, Deborah ended up riding right past Pete Klein, Paul Vlasveld, and Dan Pappone, and went off the front. I pointed this out to Art, telling him that "See, she's hardly even working", since Deb was in such good shape that she was effortlessly riding off the front. Sue joined us half way between Saratoga and Los Gatos.
At the start of Pierce, Deb and I stopped to take off a layer of clothes, and Art was able to get ahead. On the left turn onto Mt.Eden, here's Art coming back up the other way. Seems that he missed the turn and had to back track. We then finally rode together for awhile, going up Mt.Eden and on over to the start of Montebello.
At the start of Montebello, I told Deb to say goodbye to Art so she said "Goodbye, Art", and he said "Goodbye, Deb", as the start of the long climb was starting. A 100 yards up the hill and I was overheating, so I decided it was time to get down to my tanktop, so I stopped again. Did I mention that the small patch of blue sky had gotten bigger and bigger during this whole time, and now was blue for a good half of the sky. It was nice and sunny.
Everyone got a good lead on me now. I took the time to apply some sun screen. Once I got going, I quickly caught back up. First a few lesser riders, then Ken Koach, then Art, and then finally I caught back up with Deb. By this time she was warmed up too, so we decided to stop again, so she could get down to her sleeveless jersey. Everyone passed us by again.
We caught and passed the others one by one, finally catching Art at the start of that long flat section, so we rode together for awhile. Then it got steeper again, so Deb and I drifted off the front.
The front group of Sue, Paul, Pete, Dan, Dennis Uyeno and Stu all came down the hill before we got to the top, saying they would see us at the bottom. Deb and I stayed on top long enough to let everyone else come up, then we all headed down together. All the clothes went back on for the downhill.
At the start of Redwood Gulch, we all stopped again to take off clothes. I was last to leave, and again passed up all the riders until I caught Deb at the front. It was her first time up Redwood Gulch. It had also been her first time to the top of Montebello, as her only other time was back when she still had a sore knee after her mountain bike crash.
Sanborn was next. Deb and I were in the front, while Art wasn't too far back. On the steep sections, it looked like Art was making a move and seemed to be gaining, but then on the gentler sections he lost ground. I finally figured out that he must have had to work harder on the steep sections just to keep up enough momentum and not stall out from lack of gears.
Again, the fast group passed us by, saying they would see us in Saratoga. Deb and I stayed at the Hostel until everyone was there and were ready to go. We lost Lou Mason here, and figured that he must have decided to not come of the hill, as we last saw him stretching down at the junction. Lou called me the next day, wondering where we all went. Turned out he went the wrong way and we never saw each other again.
We finally caught up with the fast group at the Vienna Woods Deli in Saratoga. It appeared that they had already been served and were almost done eating. They were inside because of the cold, while we decided to sit outside because of the sunshine.
Bohlman was next up on the list. A few people decided they had enough, but most of the people were still in. The fast group got a few minutes lead. Just as we were starting out, a few sprinkles started to be felt. I knew that we might now get a bit wet, but the climb felt good. It wasn't that cold of a rain, and it felt good on my skin, as I had just my tanktop on.
I stopped to put everything into plastic bags, so everyone got ahead of me. Then I started up again and passed them back up. When I passed Art, I met him walking his bike. He claimed that he lost traction and couldn't get going again, as we were in one of the steeper sections and the road was wet.
I caught Deb again, just above the lower On Orbit junction. She was climbing good and if the weather was better we could have gone over and done Soda Springs, but because it was wet we would be satisfied with getting to the top of Bohlman. When we got to the upper On Orbit junction, we saw a rider ahead, who turned out to be Paul Vlasveld. We caught and passed Paul. So now Deborah can check Paul Vlasveld off her list of goals for this year. Who will she be able to beat next?
Up at the top, we quickly put everything that we had back on again. We were now glad that we hauled around all this stuff all day. It was raining steady but not hard. It was very windy though, so it was starting to feel cold.
It was a long steep downhill on wet roads with wet brakes, but we all made it ok. Once we got out of Saratoga, it started to clear up again as we got farther ahead. we made it back to Los Gatos just in time to see Art doing a U-turn in his car as he was heading home. Half the group turned back while climbing Bohlman, and Art was one of them. I told Deb that I hoped Art wasn't too discouraged, and Deb told me that she hoped that Art was discouraged enough to finally buy a new bike.
Deb and I continued on, climbing up over Kennedy, and stopping to eat our last sandwiches at the top. We had a tailwind for most of the way home, so it was pretty easy going, which was good because I think that we were both more tired than we realized. we said our goodbyes at Snell and Curie, then we went on home.
Luckily for me, Diana allowed me to stay home while she went off to an African party. I ate something, then laid on the couch to watch some TV. I was zonked out pretty quickly.
Another good day. Thank you Deb for riding with me. I hope you were able to recover quickly and had something left for Sunday and today.
-Donny