In Freestone (at the ant house) they stopped to take off jackets and so I caught up. Then after Valley Ford, they stopped again (luckily for them). They would have stayed on Hwy 1 when the route had us taking a left turn. I put us back on course. I hung with them up the next hill, but then they pulled away on the downhill and following rollers. The gap got bigger and bigger. They waited at the junction with Chileno valley Road, and I was maybe 1-2 minutes behind.
They dropped me again on Chileno Valley Road, and made no more regroups until the cheese factory. But on that long hill on Petaluma-Marshall Road I had alot of them in sight, and was gaining. On Wilson Hill I gained some more, and the group was just in front of me by the top of that hill. I managed to pull into the Cheese Factory just a few seconds behind Karen, and the others were about 30 seconds ahead.
We had a nice liesurely lunch stop at the cheese factory. We all sat down at the picnic table on the lawn. After Brian finished his lunch, he took his leftover bread and went around feeding the gooses (geese?).
I was dropped again going through Nacasio and Sir Francis Drake Blvd, but they all waited at the start of the Bike Route section on the side streets of Fairfax, San Anselmo, Ross, Lancaster, etc. We stayed together during all this part, and I had to put them back on course at least once here.
In Sausalito we again stopped in at the deli, and had a good liesurely lunch. At the Golden Gate Bridge, we were on the ocean side because it was the weekend. I had to put them back on the route again because they missed that ramp which makes a good shortcut.
In San Francisco we stopped off at a bike shop, so that a few people could go in and use the bathroom. As each one came out, they had the same story. The bathroom was so small that when you would sit on the toilet, your knees would touch the wall in front of you. I suggested that they ought to just sit sideways and leave the door open.
Going up through Daly City, I was able to hang with the group pretty well. They must be getting tired. At one place I even pushed Paul for a bit, as he was looking tired and was drifting off the back on the short hills. We stopped again at the Chevron gas station. We were able to stay together all the way to the start of Canada Road, but then the group split. David and the two tandems went off the front. Karen and paul were both too tired to hang with them, so I ended up joining them and we made a little group. We arrived back at McKensie Park at 5:35, about 10 minutes behind the others.
Karen and I went with Brian and Judy back to Judy's house, were we all had root beer floats, using their home-made root beer.
We never did see Vladimir and Joellen after we left them in Occidental. Vladimir called me at home that evening. They did the trip without insident, arriving home at 8:00pm. So they were a bit under 2 hours behind us at the end.
Nobody had a flat tire. My back tire (with all the threads showing) did not give me any trouble. I replaced it with my other tire just after I got back home.
I brought along 4 PB&J sandwiches, but only ate two of them. I survived off of the omelet and potatoes at breakfast, 2 PB&Js, 5 chocolate cookies, 2 hostess cupcakes, 3 3-Muskateers, and 2 cokes. I felt about as strong at the end of the ride as I did at the beginning.