OMG!!!! Brian, you ROCK!! I can't believe how awesome you did :D and all without complaining ;) I hope you can feel your legs today.... or at least you don't have to move much :p

Looking forward to seeing you again!

Trac'

Great Job! You even took the long route too... I wouldn't have made it so :beer: to you!!!

:D

Hey Ron! You're pretty cool yourself! Thanks for dinner and ice cream! :p YUMMMMYYYY!!!!!! I can't wait to get to ride w/you again :D

Thanks everyone for a great ride! I had a great time and enjoyed meeting everyone.... and Andy... great to see you again too :p

... and btw ladies... Sesame Crunch has some fabulous legs and someone needs to get some pics of them! ;) ... and, thank you SC for leading us down to the store and hanging out w/us while we waited for the peeps on the longer route!

... and there were some young pups on this ride. ME, you would have been drooling all day long! :D

You had ice cream too? Well if you had mentioned ice cream.:rolleyes: Actually, I came home and ate and fell asleep laying on the floor.:o I was whooped. This morning Im pretty tired, sore legs already.

yeah, we trapsed around and found a cold stone after outback... YUMMMYYY!!!! I was pretty tired too, I'm not too sore yet but generally pretty fatigued :o Thank you again Sean, you're the best :p

thanks for all the complements on my picture taking. I'm just trying to capture the moments. I appreciate the kudos. Next time, I'll drive to your neck of the woods, and we'll ride around there.

Now we just have to wait for VMC's pictures ...

VMC and Sheldon was also snapping pics most of the day.:D

I'm whistling but you can't hear it. Trac, I love this pic, gorgeous. :D

Good morning all!

A couple of months ago, my wife asked me if we should take our 12 year old and head from Socal up to San Jose to visit her sister for Memorial Day Weekend. Problem is we would be short a bed so I get to bring the camping gear and sleep on the air mattress. "Okay..I think I'll bring the bike."

So, I posted a little note here asking if anyone knew of a little ride I could do, oh an hour or two, etc. Well, the Nocal forumites responded! And yesterday pulled together for an amazing experience.

To be honest, I was a bit concerned about this one. Tons of climbing, way more than I'd do on a regular ride. And not knowing the territory, I had visions of calling my wife for SAG from some out of the way hamlet.

Ron (Spingineer) provided excellent directions to the start...hey, right on the money!

The group met up at the park and ride and away we went. Despite my never having met anyone, I was welcomed warmly by the group. We had an easy spin for the first 15 or 20 minutes.

The first climb, Old La Honda, was gorgeous! The pictures don't do it justice. Tree covered and cool. It is similar in profile to our noted Rock Store, which I did last weekend as prep. And I did okay.

Downhills....through the redwoods and out towards the coast. Just amazing, amazing views, lots of easy going conversation as we flew along, catching whiffs of the forest or fireplaces, a vastly different world than the chapparel and oak trees of Socal.
I don't know where we were exactly but on that road just before the group split for long and short, we had long sweeping curves that you could take into the turns at speed. And it went like this for a while! Visions of flying through some European Tour de Something.

Still more climbs and then Sean, watching out for the group, pulls over and says "enjoy the downhill" and waits as I pull ahead. Big Sean, huge, huge props. You were like an organized tour leader out there, providing tips, encouragement, unselfishly taking care of the crowd. No one need ever worry about being dropped or slow or anything. Next time you come down our way, we've got to buy you a fancy dinner! And get you on a ride.

We did more climbs and drops then a stretch with some rollers. Andy, doing impossible things on his fixie, and I rode along together for miles. We started trading pulls to keep ourselves alive in building headwinds, and had a great time doing so. Sean told us later he chased us for a long time trying to keep up!

At some point, we re-gained the coastline and were treated to an inspiring view of the headlands.

Now the big one...Tunitas Creek....and big it was. Andy pulled away from John ( Dauphin) and I with ease. How the heck does he do that on that bike???

To say we suffered would be to minimize the climb, coming 50 miles and already 5500' into the overall ride. I had on arm wamers and windbreaker because the coast had been cold...now I couldn't stand having them on but was afraid to stop for fear of never begin able to start again! For 1/4 mile I worked to remove them while riding, then thought what a stupid idea because if I got my arms stuck, I was going to end up over the side and down the mountain. I used my teeth at one point in despiration to yank the sleeve and tore it...dumb, dumb, dumb, now I have a little tear in my beloved Optik!

Good gawd, pain, pain, pain, 7-15% grades for 3.5 miles. Not knowing where the top was made it worse. John and I finally reached the top. Wow...
Tracy noticed my legs were shaking as we re-grouped. It was actually from the cold..I was so sweaty that when we stopped, I got the chills from the overcast!

Re-gained the heat and sun as we had a nice run to the bottom and eventually back to the cars.

Folks, once again, thanks for putting together a fantastic ride. It was great to meet so many of you and I enjoyed the conversation, comradierie, even the hills that I worried about! Ron, the next time you are down south, let's plan a ride in the Conejo!

Pix coming up...

Sheldon

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Sheldon, thanks for the ride. It wsa great meeting you and you are a much stronger rider then you let on. Anytime you are in the area feel free to look us up again. :)

Thanks all for a great ride. It's nice to meet everyone. I didn't match everyone's real name to BF name but I got many. One of the last pics in the parking lot should have most of us. If someone can post it and caption it with our BF names, that'd be great.

Thanks Sean and Ron for organizing and sheparding the group.

Brian, you're an inspiration... just started cycling and commuting by bike not too long ago, getting rid of a car in the family, and doing this long hilly ride with such aplomb. Some people don't complete a metric century after years of riding much less a metric with 6800 ft. of climbing. Congrats.

UmneyDurak (sorry, forgot your real name), it was great riding and chatting with you; you're fast and after your wrist heals even faster. Now go get in those intervals like your coach said :)

Andy, awesome fixie ride. Let's plan an meeting up for another alleycat sometime soon. I think we missed NACCC this weekend.

Wayne and Tracy, Sonoma would be some great road or mountain biking. We should do one up your way for one of the monthly rides.

Dauphin (forgot your name too), nice Bianchi :) We'll have to do a ride up 'round your neck of the woods too.

Everyone, let get that jersey decided on and ordered. It'd be great to have for our furture rides.

Cheers.

+1 ... as I said before, Sheldon is a strong rider. We'll have to add Nesdog to the list of the ultimate sandbaggers ... :D :p

Ok, stop drooling ... you're going to make a mess! :p Hope it helps capture some of the experience, although nothing will replace the real thing. Hope my photography comes close to your expectations ... and hope these pics cheer you up (after riding all alone yesterday ... violins were in tune when I was reading your post).

Thanks, Sean and everybody, for a great day! Good to meet you all and hope to ride with you again. I'm feeling pretty confident now about my first century (Canyon Classic, June 9). I'll lbe getting as much riding as I can until then and let you all know how it goes...

Brad (the guy that never rides hills)

Anytime Brad. By the way, seems to me you climb hills now.;)

Wow, great job guys! That is not an easy or casual route. Hats off to you first-timers especially.

Nesdog*, you could be SteveE's twin.

UmneyDurak, you're a freakin' animal riding with the cast. HARDCORE :lol:


*EDIT: I'm not sure I have this right, now reading the captions. Whoever is wearing the Sponge Bob jersey.

Nice shots of you, Sean. :) Even though I wasn't there, I loved the reports and pics. I really missed out riding in those views (and with such a great group). I can't wait to join on the next one.

:o :o :o Aww shucks!

It was my pleasure to lead the short ride. Loved chatting with you, Wayne and Brian. Hope to see you another time.

Thanks for comment on the Bianchi...loved your bike and the wheelset too! Name is John, btw. I do hope someone posts that group shot with all the names/screen names.