19 April 2008

Saturday harbor ride

It was mostly sunny and very cool. It was still cloudy enough that the sun wasn't in my face when heading east. Since Sea Otter was this weekend, there had to have been fewer riders, but it didn't seem too different to me.

At Bonita and San Andreas, a big black pickup was passing by and then stopped, causing the turn to be slow. There was not the usual big jump. It may have been due to the truck, but the first riders had already made the turn, so it's probably due to the big engines being off to the races at Sea Otter. There was probably a tailwind, but I never noticed. On the flat after the climb after Buena Vista, a gap formed ahead. I was on the wheel of two Giant Strawberry riders who tried to close it, going by several other riders, but it kept growing. Pretty soon, I had to drop off and there was nobody behind me, so I soloed the rest of San Andreas and part of Beach. On Beach, a group of 4 went by, so I hopped onto the end of that train until we rejoined the main group.

I took the Hazel Dell option in a group of 16 or so. The pace on Casserly and the first part of Mt Madonna was pretty slow. The group split up on the steep run-up to Hazel Dell, so I wound up somewhere in the middle. About 3/4 of the way to the summit, a pair of riders blew by. I could still see them at the first few curves of the descent, and then they were gone. This time, nobody overtook me on the descent, so I didn't get any drafting help on the way to Corralitos.

I headed over Hames, Day Valley, Valencia, and Trout Gulch, and started getting a headwind. On Soquel, coming out of Aptos, the headwind started coming in sporadic gusts, which continued the rest of the way. On Water heading into downtown, the wind was briefly a tailwind. On High St, coming out of the climb approaching Laurent, the headwind was particularly strong, and remained pretty strong all the way to Bay.