We met at the shop as usual, the weather was threatening to rain so we had a smaller than usual turnout. After milling around for almost an hour we all got ready to go about a quarter after 10. We had Jim on his America, Victor and his sister on his Sprint, Tim on a nice Green Tiger (grr) and I (Roy) rode my Rocket.

Just as we were starting engines Jim came up with a dead battery and had to drop out. Click, click, click, we all hate it when that happens. The four remaining machines took off.

We headed north on 280 to Foothill Expressway, then on north all the way to Page Mill Road. Taking Foothill cut out a few slab riding minutes and doesn't really take much longer. Climbing Page Mill Road the traffic was very light, the road very wet but not slippery. The upside of riding in marginal weather is so many other people stay home. We did see a lot of bicyclists, most looked to be suffering.

Page Mill is one of my favorite rides, it always takes me back to my crazy college days when we'd road race our cars up there. Amazing we all survived.

As we climbed higher the air was heavier with moisture. I'm not sure if it started raining or not, but after some time we were in the clouds (or should it be called fog?). I had to lift my face shield to see anything at all. Still we pushed on to Skyline Drive. At Skyline Tim pealed off to head home, he needed to work on packing up since he's moving soon. I asked Victor if we should continue on down Alpine as originally planned, of course he said “Yes”.

Straight across Skyline we road and on down Alpine on the other side. A great choice! After only a few minutes we were out of the clouds and the visibility was great. Still gray overhead but some nice views after we were below the cloud line. Further down we snaked between the trees back and forth.

There were numerous cleared mudslides, which means stretches of road covered with slippery slimy brown lubricating stuff. Naturally our superbly designed machines handled these patches without any trouble at all (we were lucky as Hell).

Finally we're down and break out on to the feeder to Highway 84. By comparison a super highway! With no traffic and wet road we hung right to go back up the hill to Alice's. This was fun, the road was not slippery and with little traffic it was great to let things wind out a little. Hard to believe but we had lunch at Alice's at just about noon. We had made great time in spite of the weather.

After lunch we went west on 84 to the beach. Some rain but not too bad, then south on Highway 1 to Santa Cruz. Those needing fuel got it there and we continued on to Highway 17 to turn back up over the mountain and home. I lost Victor pretty quick (meaning he got too far ahead of me). Still I made it back home to Cupertino and rolled through the door at about 3.

 Really a great ride!

____________________________________________________________________________________